Hallucinogenic Bed Bugs – Can Smoking Bed Bugs Get You High?

It sounds crazy and bizarre but some people in the United States are actually stating that smoking bed bugs can help one get high. However, there are reports too that this was nothing but a well-crafted hoax and that it was a joke started on April fool’s day in 2014. Six years later, people are still searching for ‘smoking bed bugs’ on Reddit to see if there is any truth to the matter. After all; there is no dearth in Internet searches for ‘ways to get high’ so it is little wonder that people resort to all sorts of things to reach those higher states of consciousness.

So in this guide, we will try and bust a few myths, study a few bed bugs facts, try and determine if there actually are types of bugs that can get you high, and also answer the question of whether people can actually ‘smoke’ these bugs to get high.

Bed bug facts – Where do bed bugs come from?

Bed bugs are an epidemic in several states of the USA. Some cities are even being dubbed as the ‘bed bug capitals’. People are waking up with bites due to bed bugs in apartments in New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati.  We are even finding bed bugs in subways, metros, theaters, airplanes, and buses. Hotels and motels are dealing with bed bugs on a massive scale.

Bed bugs spread easily from place to place. Apartment complexes deal with bed bugs more since the critters can easily escape from one apartment to another when the former is being treated with pesticides or bed bug smoke bombs and foggers. Bed bugs also easily hitchhike their way into our lives through our luggage and backpacks. They are getting resistant to most pesticides and they breed rapidly. Bed bugs lay hundreds of eggs as a result of which, their population increases on a massive scale without any control. The exact sources of bed bugs may be difficult to pinpoint but if your neighbor has them, you could easily get them. An overnight guest could also bring them inside your home. Or you could have brought them from motels/hotels and even buses or planes.

So can you actually make a bed bug drug?

This is an urban legend. It is believed that some kids took a news report video about smoking (dabbing) hemp oil and changed the images and words to show people smoking bed bugs. The truth about the bed bug video came out much later and in the meantime, the news spread like wildfire. The kids in the video mentioned that ‘smoking bed bugs’ was akin to walking on ‘wet concrete’ and that it acted as hallucinogen which altered the state of consciousness. But the story about this so-called bed bug drug is just that-a story or a myth.

Some people even use bed bug sprays to get high. They inhale the sprays after burning them. These people were seen displaying weird behavior like tearing out their clothes, crawling on all fours, and crying and laughing uncontrollably. The paramedics who responded to help these people stated that this type of intoxication is extremely dangerous as it increased the user’s blood pressure and also caused vomiting and, in extreme cases, death.

Are there any other bugs that get you high?

No, this too is a myth. No insects or bugs can give you a drug-like high. People who use drugs like cocaine tend to experience hallucinogenic effects such as ‘bugs are crawling’ out of their skin. No bugs can cause hallucinations.

Bed bugs and cigarette smoke

Are bed bugs attracted to cigarette smokers? On the contrary, bed bugs are repelled by cigarette smoke and it is believed that people who smoke cigarettes and have a strong nicotine odor lingering on their skin tend to not get bitten by bed bugs. However, that does not mean that one should start smoking. Smoking has too many bad effects and you might want to use other measures of combating bed bugs.

Do bed bugs make us sick?

There have been some reports that bed bugs carry more than 30 different infectious diseases. In Malaysia, bed bugs were reported to cause beriberi, a disease linked to a deficiency of thiamin or vitamin B1. Some doctors collected bed bugs from beriberi wards in the Lunatic Asylum and General Hospital of Kuala Lumpur and let them feed on monkeys. The experiment failed to infect the animals. Also, in the Malay Islands, a scientist named J. Tertius Clarke crushed about twenty bedbugs and mixed them in water. He then injected this water in a monkey’s skin. The animal was quite well days later.

So, in conclusion, although the Cimicidae (scientific name of bed bugs) have been suspected in the transmission of diseases in humans, there is no conclusive evidence citing the same.

In some cases, food allergies do get worse after bed bug bites, since the immune system launches increasingly heightened and targeted attacks against them.  Bed bugs tend to trigger asthma or even a potentially deadly allergic reaction called anaphylaxis which seizes the entire body. In severe infestations, a person could get bitten hundreds of times in a day which could cause enough blood loss to trigger anemia.

Sleep deprivation caused by bed bugs can also trigger anxiety. Also, the money and time spent on treatments, or simply the fear of getting bitten, night after night, can cause depression and anxiety.

In conclusion

Bed bugs or any bugs for that matter cannot give you a drug-like effect or high. Smoking bed bugs or dabbing bedbugs does not cause hallucinations. Neither are bed bugs drawn or attracted to cigarette smoke. In fact; bed bugs are only attracted to the carbon dioxide emitted by a sleeping person or animal. The cigarette smoke can mask the normal ‘human’ odor of sweat and other gases. And that could deter bed bugs.

However, that does not mean that you should smoke to keep bed bugs away. Instead, use measures like de-cluttering, vacuuming regularly, using bed bug sprays and powders, etc to get rid of bed bugs and keeping them away for good. Bed bugs also do not cause diseases but they can cause anxiety, sleep deprivation, and anemia in worst cases. So a lot of tales regarding bed bugs can be misleading but they are just that, myths.