The LSD and Strychnine on Telephone Keypads Email Warning Is A Hoax

Last significant update: 18 May 1999

This information can be freely reproduced in any medium, as long as the information is unmodified.

On Thursday, 7 April 1999, we first saw this hoax (it had already been forwarded 10 times!). Thanks to W.C. Leonard for first bringing this to our attention. It purports to warn about a danger, but there is no evidence at all that this has ever occurred, and plenty of reason to think it is completely false:

> Subject: BE CAREFUL!!!!  

> Hello, this is to warn everyone of a new thing happening in
> communities as a gang initiation and such. If you care about anyone,
> please forward this to them immediately so they can learn of the 
> possible harm. Even if you don't read this, at least forward it to people.

That's the first tipoff: Tell everyone you know!

>  Hello, my name is Tina Strongman and I work at a police station, as

"A" police station? My, how precise. I'll just run out and call "the police" to confirm.

> a phone operator for 911. Lately, we've received many phonecalls
> pertaining to a new sort of problem that has arisen in the inner cities,
>and is now working it's way to smaller towns.  It seems

"It's" instead of "its". Another tipoff: lack of professionalism in spelling.

>  that a new form of gang initiation is to go find as many pay phones
>  as possible and put a mixture of LSD and Strychnine onto the buttons. 
> This mixture is deadly to the human touch, 

Yeah, right. This writer suffers from an overdose of the former drug, methinks. No evidence for this claim is presented, nor have I found any after a moderately intense search, including MEDLINE, EBM Reviews - Best Evidence , and Full Text: 60 Biomedical Journals medical databases. These are available to U-M folks via a U-M MedSearch session.

> and apparently, this has killed some people on the east coast.  

Well, that means it *must* be true, eh? "Apparently."

> Strychnine is a chemical used in rat poison 

Hmmm. This may be the very first fact in the whole post....

> and is easily separated from the rest of the chemicals.  When mixed
> with LSD, it creates a substance that is easily absorbed into the
> human flesh, and highly fatal.

"Highly fatal." That's a lot more dangerous that just good ole' "deadly", I guess.

No doubt written up in JAMA.

NOT!

> Please be careful if you are using a pay phone anywhere. You may
> want to wipe it off, or just not use one at all. Please be very careful.

Yes, be careful. You can even wipe off the phone keypad if you'd like. But don't think it really matters, ok?

> Let your friends and family know about this potential hazard. 

Subsequently, I got the same hoax with an email address and phone number attached -- same text. Obviously some bozo trying to make it seem more official. These hoaxsters are such LUZERS! Anyway, fully expecting a bounce, I queried the account and cc'ed abuse@hotmail.com. Here's a bit of the reply:

> Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 05:31:04 -0700 (PDT)
> From: acct_closed@hotmail.com
> To: bpb@umich.edu
> Subject: LSD on Telephone Keypads Hoax(?)
> 
> 
> The Hotmail account you reported has been closed. [snip]

In other words, somebody set up a fake account in the hope that this would help the hoax survive, but HotMail was alerted and took appropriate action. Either that, or they determined that the account holder was bearing false witness. Bottom line: confirmed hoax.

Please do not forward this -- or any other hoax -- to all your friends.

Instead, you should reply to the sender -- and as far back up the email chain as you have energy -- informing the originators that this is a hoax. For this particular hoax, I suggest that you provide a pointer to this URL (http://www.umich.edu/~virus-busters/hoaxes/phonepad.html)
For virus or hoax info, please see our main page (http://www.umich.edu/~virus-busters/) or go to another reputable site, like DataFellows (leaving our site).

   -BPB

visits to this page since 18 May, 1999 04:19 EDT