Huffing Gas From Human Waste : Drug or Hoax?

by Samica Knight

WACO - It may be one of the most disturbing things you have ever heard, people using their own feces and urine to get high. Some fear youngsters are mixing it and huffing the methane gas from it.

The concoction is said to produce a hallucinogenic drug known as Jenkem, also called "waste" or "butt-hash."

"I'm not saying don't get high ever, but of all the ways that just seems like the most disgusting way to do it," said Story Long, a local student.

Some students in Central Texas are actually familiar with the practice. News Channel 25 spoke to one student who said his friend inhaled it.

At one point, Jenkem had local law enforcement agencies concerned. The word has even reached agencies across the country. One Sheriff's Office in Florida even sent out letters of warning to parents.

But a spokesperson with the Texas Department of Public Safety told News Channel 25 Wednesday, as far a as they are concerned, the human waste drug is really a hoax that started on the Internet.

When News Channel 25 asked if that combination of raw sewage could even produce such a drug, none of the chemists we reached out to were willing to even speak on the subject.

However, a spokesman with The McLennan County Health District told us that body waste does produce a gas but nothing concentrated enough for a hallucinogenic drug.

Local law enforcement has not received any reports of people trying this and officials urge, because of serious health risks involved with exposure to raw sewage, stay away from it.