Bedbugs are a nuisance — on that point everyone is in agreement. But suppose you could get rid of the pests and get a buzz at the same time? It would be like … dude! … like killing two birds with one stone. Well, you can’t. A widely circulated video that looks for all the world like an actual news report from an ABC affiliate, which describes the new fad of smoking bed bugs to get high, is just a well-staged, highly elaborate hoax. According to Opposing Views, the video released by LiveLeaks on April 7th as a late April Fool’s prank received over 121,150 hits over the past week.
To create the hoax, a savvy anonymous video editor spliced together footage from an ABC 15 story about hash with a voice over talking about bed bugs. The footage contains commentary from users allegedly talking about the high they get from smoking bugs, when in reality the interviewees are discussing the feeling of being high on hash.
All is not lost, however. If you’re a restive teenager looking for kicks, you can still smoke coffee. If that’s a myth, it hasn’t yet been debunked.
