This has been widely reported, but deserves repetition: the BBC and others (see Police duped over fictional drug) have been caught out for repeating a hoax story about "strawberry meth", an alleged drug being distributed to schoolchildren. Some headteachers who received it even held special assemblies to pass it on. This has quite a strong resemblance to the old Blue Star Tattoos urban myth.
I'm sorry to say that that the accounts of this story repeatedly excuse the propagation as being "in good faith" (see here and other sources). I have run into this no end of times on calling bullshit on paranoid garbage being forwarded to me via e-mails whose senders failed to put brain into gear, and the senders invariably go into some defensive whine about it being in good faith.
"Good faith" is no excuse for being a total fuckwit and copying some scary story without engaging critical faculties. The policeperson and headteachers who passed this on deserve strong censure for failing to provide accurate information to those whom they are supposed to be protecting.
Tuesday 11 March 2008
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