Apparently the highly addictive practice of smoking dried scorpions is on the rise in several parts of South Asia, particularly in Pakistan. The process is simple– a dead scorpion is dried in sunlight for several hours or a live one is burnt on coal until it dies. The dried carcass is then lit on fire and the smoke inhaled. The tail is what contains the poison, so some smokers prefer to crush the dried tail and mix it with hashish and tobacco, smoking it in the form of a cigarette.

Here’s a first-hand account of the effects from the 2007 book Drugs in Afghanistan by sociologist David MacDonald:

The effect was instantaneous with the man’s face and eyes becoming very red, much more than a hashish smoker. He also seemed very intoxicated but awake and alert, although he stumbled and fell over when he tried to rise from a sitting position … the smoke tasted “sweeter” than that of hashish, although … it smelled foul, and the intoxicating effect lasted much longer,”

The high can last for as long as 10 hours – with the first six being incredibly painful, as the body adjusts to the substance. The feeling slowly eases into enjoyment and later, intense pleasure coupled with visual hallucinations.

“Everything appears like it is dancing,” recalled Sohbat Khan, a 74-year-old former scorpion smoker. “The roads, the vehicles, everything in front of me.”

From Oddity Central:

While scorpion smoking is still rare on a global level, it serves as a cheap, easy thrill among the youth of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and some parts of India. “Because of our successful drives against the sellers and addicts of alcohol, opium, cough syrup, and heroin in urban areas, young people are flocking on the highways to try the new craze of scorpion stings,” a police officer in the city of Bharuch said.

Meanwhile, Umer Gul, a young man who threw his life away to scorpion smoking, wanders aimlessly on the streets of Karak in KP, often stopping to stare at nothing while mumbling to himself. “Umer used to be a clerk in the army,” his brother Mohammed Younas said. “He would smoke a little hashish now and then with his friends, but I never thought that it was a big deal.” But he soon started smoking scorpions and lost his mental health to the habit. “He left his job and started indulging in unusual habits. Scorpions are highly toxic. That is why my brother is like this. He spends most of his time aimlessly walking around.”

In some parts of India, addicts prefer a much more direct and more painful method to get their scorpion fix – they get stung, paying anywhere between 100 and 150 Indian rupees per sting. Others turn to the common house lizard for their daily fix, roasting it and grinding it to a fine powder, and mixing it with opium to use as a drug. The powdered lizard is believed to improve the sedating effects of opium, leading to superior intoxication.

Watch the video below.

Pretty intense. I wonder if returning American soldiers are bringing this to America? Has anybody here ever tried or know anyone who has?