A third-grade boy in Newton County, Ga. has been suspended from school for two days for crushing up some Smarties candies and snorting the resulting sugary dust.
The boy, nine-year-old Demitri Santiago, is a student at Porterdale Elementary School. According to a note he brought home to his mother, a teacher busted him for possession of banned objects. The letter noted that the boy had been “sniffing a powdery substance” at school.
Crushing up Smarties and similar candy and then inhaling the smaller particles could be becoming a trend among these kids today, reports local NBC affiliate WXIA.
The station interviewed Chelsi Lewis, the mother of the suspended third-grader.
“He told me he had witnessed a student in his class, and he actually watched her. He watched her crush it up, inhale it.” explained Lewis. “And I asked him, ‘What made you so curious about it?’ He said her reaction was like, ‘WHOO!'”
Smarties give you a sweet sugar rush, apparently.
The school district issued a statement as well.
“The health, safety and well-being of our students are all very important to us,” the statement said. “This activity has the potential to be very dangerous for children and parents need to be aware of the possible health risks.”
Lewis said she pulled up some information online about the various health risks associated with ingesting Smarties. Those risks include brain damage and death.
“That scared the bejesus out of him,” the concerned mother said.
Smarties are a type of hard-ish, wafer-ish, highly artificially fruit-flavored candy produced by the Smarties Candy Company in Union County, N.J. Smarties are sold in small, multi-hued rolls of about 15 individual pieces.
An investigation by The Daily Caller reveals that the street value of a pound of Smarties is about $3.
There are YouTube videos in the world that appear to show slightly older kids snorting rails of Smarties like absolute champs. At least one of the videos (the second one below, for example) shows a student chasing the Smarties dragon in a classroom. Are those tampon parts she is using as her snorting and crushing tools?
WATCH:
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