“Here, kill neurons“; “I’m just a girl who’s crazy about smell the nail polish“; “I’m not the only one who’s addicted to breathe in the smell of paintright?” These light-hearted comments on Tik Tok videos were posted by users who appeared to inhale gases produced by markers, sprays and hygiene products, gasoline and other chemicals The videos were accompanied by a label, chrome platinga practice that is already reaching addictive levels and which cost the life of an 11-year-old boy last March in the United Kingdom.
The videos that popularized this risky practice have become a real health crisis in countries like the United States, as evidenced by a work presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Researchers determined that millions of TikTok users were exposed to videos in which very young people inhaling household chemicals for his euphoric effect ignoring the health risks. In some cases, the protagonists of the videos gave indications develop an addiction.
“By practicing chrome platingconsumers frequently inhale gases directly at the source,” he explains to EL ESPAÑOL Shruthi Krishnafrom Cohen Children’s Medical Center in Lake Cohen, New York, and one of the authors of the work. “For example, they will fill a bag with the contents of the spray or inhale it from the container itself to get a quick “shot” of euphoria. “They don’t need to cause any other chemical reactions: the chemicals evaporate quickly into the air and are breathed in as is.”
The researcher recalls that there have always been incidents consumption of cheap and accessible chemicals as intoxicants in marginalized communities in the United States. “The reappearance of chrome plating is most likely linked to social networks, since these platforms They normalize dangerous behavior through humor and memes viral. “This makes snorting chemicals seem more socially acceptable than conventional drugs, especially among impressionable young people.”
To arrive at these conclusions, we identified 109 videos linked under the tag #chrome plating that they had obtained together 25 million views. The criteria used were the gender by which the creator of the video identified themselves; your age; the use of memes (defined as the use of a slogan in the form of a sentence, a sound or an image); the inhaled product; and whether or not the behavior was repetitive. The first conclusion is that more than half of these users have uploaded videos of chrome plating repeatedly a sign of addiction.
The product classification highlights markers (31%); followed by electric compressed air blowers (17%), nail polish (12%) and solvent (11%). Gasoline, deodorant and hairspray closed the rankings. A 39% of users were minorsAnd half identified as girls. Finally, 70% of videos containing this content referred to memes which minimized the long-term effects (“Me, in five years, when all the gas goes to my head…”).
The real tragedy, Krishna warns, is that many of these users risk falling into the trap. addiction without knowing it. “He chrome plating produces rapid dependence due to euphoric “highs” and immediate it provokes The normalization of this consumption on social networks prevents people, especially young people, from recognizing the signs of addiction. Nor does it help them identify the serious long-term health problems which are derived from disorientation At brain damage and the death“.
This lack of recognition “aggravates the problem”, laments the researcher, “making interventions difficult and preventing the damage from getting worse”. The authors of the work emphasize that it is an “easily masked” type of addiction and that the two families like the educational centers They will have difficulty identifying the signs that would lead them to intervene if it were the use of other drugs. The authors conclude by asking pediatricians to be aware of this new risk and call for stricter controls. online.
