Lick and get high: LSD stamps creep into Vietnam

By VnExpress   September 17, 2016 | 07:05 pm PT
Lick and get high: LSD stamps creep into Vietnam
The LSD drug stamps. Photo by VnExpress/T.H
The drug, known for its powerful hallucinogenic effects, is sold at low prices to Vietnamese youth.

What do the Mad Hatter and Einstein have in common?

They are now the faces of a new LSD product which has insidiously found its way into many groups of young people in Vietnam.

The drug stamps, basically pieces of blotting paper soaked in lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD or acid, cost only VND20,000 ($0.9) apiece.

They often come in large sheets of 25 small tabs that can be torn apart. As the colorful stamps are small and apparently harmless, it is easy for local students to buy, carry and pass them around.

Getting a high is also effortless: by simply putting a stamp on the tongue, users can be under the hallucinogenic effects for up to 12 hours.

Experts warn that the availability of the drug in this concealable form will put young people at major risks.

Doctor Huynh Thanh Hien from Ho Chi Minh City’s Mental Hospital cited an example of a 13-year-old student showing strange behavior after taking LSD.

He said the boy looked frightened when accompanied by his mother. He even screamed and tried to run away from her.

“Initially the family thought that he was suffering from depression during puberty. But when we talked, he admitted that he had taken three to five drug stamps every day.”

Under the drug, the boy saw his mother as an evil with two long fangs, so he was always afraid of her, Hien explained.

The doctor warned that drugs like LSD can be very dangerous because they cause users to hear and see things that do not exist.

LSD blotter users may see people around them as ghosts or evils and see themselves as supermen or even birds, he added.

“It’s not difficult to treat psychotic disorders caused by drugs, but there’s a big risk: the user may have already died before friends or family take notice and help.”

Hien advised parents to pay more attention to their children. If they show signs of insomnia, sleep disorders, intense panic or excitement, parents should bring them to hospitals for examination. 

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