Jenkem

About

Jenkem (also known as “butthash”) is a purported street drug made from fermented human excrement that is supposed to induce hallucinations when inhaled. Rumors about the drug began circulating online after the Totse forum member Pickwick posted several photos of himself allegedly experimenting with the substance.

Origin

According to the rumor database Snopes^[2], the earliest mention of Jenkem comes from an article titled “Zambia-Narcotics: ‘Huffing and Puffing’ to New High” published by the Inter Press Service^[1] on August 26th, 1995. The article reported that street children in Zambia had been using fermented human excrement scooped out of sewer ponds to get high. On September 18th, 1998, The New York Times^[8] published an article titled “In Zambia, the Abandoned Generation” citing workers at the nonprofit organization Fountain of Hope who claimed that street children were using jenkem to get high in Zambia’s capital city Lusaka. On July 30th, 1999, BBC^[10] published an article titled “Africa Children High on Sewage" which described the jenkem manufacturing process. On March 8th, 2002, UNICEF^[9] released a report titled “Rapid Assessment of Street Children in Lusaka" which listed jenkem as a popular drug among Lusaka street children. On October 25th, 2005, the first Urban Dictionary^[7] entry for “jenkem” was submitted by user Kazhakkey Szervusz-Thackur, defining the substance as a “mixture of ripened sewage” used in third-world countries as a substitute for huffing glue.

Pickwick Post

On June 7th, 2007, user Pickwick of the drug enthusiast Totse forums posted several images of himself making jenkem in a glass bottle with a balloon attached to the opening. The same day, the story was submitted to the social news site Digg^[13] in a post titled “Kid Makes Jenkem in a Civilized Country.” On June 8th, Pickwick bumped the thread with an update that balloon on the bottle had begun to inflate. On June 9th, the thread was updated with more photographs of the bottle. On June 13th, Pickwick posted a trip report about his experience huffing the jenkem along with several photos of himself inhaling the gas. The website Totse and the original post have since been removed, but parts of the post were archived on the Flux64 Wordpress blog.^[12]

Well today I finally did it. I became probably the first person in America to huff his own shit gas. No video though, sorry, no camera. I hope you are not too disappointed. I could bet pictures though and I wrote a trip report.

Today the bubbles had mostly stopped. The balloon had possibly grown a little bit since last time but it was oblong from days in the sun or maybe from the gases inside so it was hard to tell. The shit in the bottle was very settled and did not look like shit anymore even.
I first lightly shook the bottle to make sure all of the bubbles had popped. I then pinched off the balloon and took it off of the top. I held that while I huffed from the bottle. After exhaling all air from my lungs I took my straw and inhaled from the inside of the bottle. The flavor of shit struck me, it stuck to the tongue like the flavor after smoking a cigar. My body wanted me to stop breathing it but I kept going by putting the end of the straw further back in my mouth, behind my tongue. I took a some more breaths of that and I waited a few seconds, then inhaled the balloon. The balloon was less harsh, I could barely taste any of it and it felt like breathing oxygen.

After breathing it in I immediately felt that I was passing out. I did not even have time to spit before I became unconscious. When I woke up my spittle had oozed out of my mouth and down my chin. I asked my friend how long I was out for. He said for about a minute, and that he had repeatedly tried to wake me but I would not wake up. During this short conversation I began to feel light dissociative effects come over me, accompanied by buzzing in my ears. The feeling got stronger and stronger until I felt like I was in a dream. This was somewhat enjoyable, it made me feel like nothing really mattered. The apathy actually made the rest of the trip more enjoyable.

After I was fully into the dream like state visual hallucinations began to start. I had fleeting visions of people who seemed completely random, like my second grade teacher. I would say something to the person and then he or she would disappear. Normally I would be fearful of trips like this but the dream feeling made it almost fun. Hearing was dulled during the trip, I could only hear what I was saying and some random noises like screeching and car noises. After I the effects wore off my friend told me that I was mostly talking in gibberish so I guess I couldn’t hear my own voice anything in the outside world throughout the trip. At the peak of the trip I saw things like pillars in my lawn that disappeared and shapes in the sky. My sense of time was slowed, so the whole trip felt like it was shorter than it was.

The comedown was mostly auditory hallucinations, like voices and loud cracks. The dream like feeling lessened and I drifted back into reality. In the last parts of the trip I became paranoid from the noises because it felt real instead of like a dream. I asked my friend how long it had been. He said about 40 minutes. He also told me that I spent long periods of time staring at different spots. I also, according to him, spoke slurred works to trees and rocks. I was very surprised by how messed up the jenkem got me. That was higher than I have ever been. Other drugs distort reality, but jenkem really distorts reality. I was almost completely unaware of my surroundings. My friend said that seeing me was scary and he was thinking of getting an adult. Thank god he didn’t do that.

In conclusion: was it enjoyable: no, not really. Would I do it again? Defiantly not. Would I recommend another person to try it? I wouldn’t to anyone who I am close to. If you are very adventurous and would try anything then I guess you should try jenkem. But know that the preparation is not made worthwhile by the trip.

Spread

On August 3rd, 2007, the Seattle newspaper The Stranger^[14] posted an article titled “High as Shit”, which included a purported account of a jenkem trip. On September 24th, Pickwick posted a thread titled “The jenkem thing was a hoax”^[11], in which he claimed that the excrement in the photos was actually a mixture of flour, water and chocolate hazelnut spread. On September 26th, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office in Naples, Florida, dispatched an information bulletin using Pickwick’s photos, which warned parents should be vigilant against the new drug jenkem.

On November 6th, Fox News^[3] published an article titled “Drug Made From Human Waste Causing Stink on Web, in Law Enforcement”, reporting that the Collier County bulletin had used Pickwick’s faked photos. The following day, a video of a Fox News television report was uploaded to YouTube by user SeriousBizness123 (shown below, left), in which anchor Jack Miller advised viewers that the slang term for jenkem was “butthash.” On March 26th, 2008, the South Park episode “Major Boobage” was released, in which the character Kenny becomes addicted to a new drug called “cheesing” that involves inhaling cat urine (shown below, right).

On May 20th, 2009, YouTuber cinafunk uploaded a parody investigative reporting video about jenkem (shown below, left). On December 3rd, 2010, the Florida news station WPTV ran a story (shown below, right) on a purported jenkem lab that had been discovered by law enforcement officers in Ft. Pierce, Florida.

On June 12th, 2011, the sobriety community website Sober Living^[15] published a post titled “Jenkem – NOT Real – Not the Greatest Drug – Dangerous and Unsanitary!”, which warned that jenkem would not actually cause hallucinations. On March 25th, 2012, the American Dad episode “Less Money, Mo’ Problems” was released, in which the father Stan inhales jenkem with a homeless man while living on the street. Several Facebook pages for Jenkem have been created, the most notable of which has received over 1,000 likes as of May 29th, 2012.