r/wikipedia • u/syanxde • 1d ago
Jenkem is an inhalant and hallucinogen created from fermented human waste. In the mid-1990s, it was reported to be a popular street drug among Zambian youth, created by placing feces and urine in a bottle or a bucket, sealing it with a balloon or lid and leaving it to ferment in the sun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenkem?wprov=sfla1In the book Children of AIDS: Africa's Orphan Crisis by Emma Guest, the making of jenkem is described: "fermented human sewage, scraped from pipes and stored in plastic bags for a week or so, until it gives off numbing, intoxicating fumes." The process is similarly described in a 1995 Inter Press Service report: "Human excreta is scooped up from the edges of the sewer ponds in old cans and containers which are covered with a polyethylene bag and left to stew or ferment for a week." A 1999 BBC article refers to "the dark brown sludge, gathering up fistfuls and stuffing it into small plastic bottles. They tap the bottles on the ground, taking care to leave enough room for methane to form at the top."
The effects of jenkem inhalation supposedly last for around an hour and consist of auditory and visual hallucinations for some users. In 1995, one user told a reporter it is "more potent than cannabis." A 1999 report interviewed a user, who said, "With glue, I just hear voices in my head. But with jenkem, I see visions. I see my mother who is dead and I forget about the problems in my life." Fumito Ichinose, an anesthesia specialist from Boston who conducted a study on the effects of hydrogen sulfide gas, or "sewer gas," on mice, informed Salon.com that holding one's breath, choking, or "the inhalation of gases like those produced from jenkem could result in hypoxia, a lack of oxygen flow to the body that could be alternately euphoric and physically dangerous."
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u/Autistigasmatic 1d ago edited 1d ago
I used to work for Sleep Number. One day when we're loading up the trucks, the big, big boss showed up and said he got a customer complaint that one of the techs smelled like weed. He said if it happened again he was going to drug test all of us. My dumb ass says "Good thing there's no drug test for Jenkem!" So anyway, that's how I got the nickname Jenkem Jimmy.
Edit: Apparently talking about jenkem is the key to farming reddit awards.
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u/rckid13 1d ago
I worked a manual labor job in high school with about 30 people. Our boss smelled weed in a truck and threatened to test everyone. Myself and one other guy had to convince him not to do that because we knew we were likely going to be the only two to pass. We didn't want to have two of us doing manual labor jobs that usually take 30 people.
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u/Autistigasmatic 1d ago
Bro had no idea his employees were all high. Sleep number had the opposite problem. I had a coworker who was snorting oxys while driving the truck. Reported him to management. Didn't even ask that they fire him. I'm sympathetic to people struggling with addiction. Just asked that they don't let him drive the fucking 10 ton truck. Got laid off a week later but he kept his job.
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u/Same_Mood_8543 1d ago
Does it taste better from autism?Â
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u/Autistigasmatic 1d ago edited 1d ago
50% chance. It either does or doesn't. Will have to cure my autism by taking more Tylenol and will get back to you.
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u/KennyDROmega 1d ago
I'm like 99% sure this is not and has never been a real thing.
There are basically no reliable firsthand accounts, and even for people who are really down bad there are other horrible ways to get fucked up. Not really any need to go through a prison wine process with your own waste.
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u/summerlungs 1d ago
This. What would be the psychoactive ingredient?
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u/JP_Eggy 1d ago
Its literally huffing methane. Im not sure if it is as hallucinatory audiovisual etc but it definitely creates a strong high
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u/Responsible_Sink3044 1d ago
Methane is literally not psychoactiveÂ
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u/geosunsetmoth 1d ago
There are other inhalants that give you a âhighâ without being psychoactive per se; mostly stuff that deprives your brain of oxygen for a while so you feel doozy for a few seconds
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u/Sqweek_24_8 1d ago
While this may be true, itâs important to note, THIS IS NOT MOST INHALANTS (or even any I can think of). All major inhalants like whip-its and such actually are psychoactive and are activating and locking into receptors in your brain like any other drug you take, including, like, pill form.
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u/Responsible_Sink3044 11h ago
The oxygen deprivation as a mechanism is largely a myth. Pretty much anything that gets you high does so because it has a direct psychoactive effect.Â
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u/djiivu 1d ago edited 1d ago
I really doubtâif this even is a thingâthat it results from âhuffing methane.â
But also: only 30 to 50% of people actually produce methane gastrointestinally.
Editing after two minutes to say I was wrong. A BBC article linked on the Wikipedia page suggests that the goal is methane production. My bad.
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u/suscombobulated 13h ago
Wouldnt it kill you tho? There were those short stories on netflix about people dying in odd situations and this was one. Except it was an entire family dying one by on as they tried to pull thier kid out of an old outhouse but each member passed out only to die on top of the last attempt. I just picture some guy huffing from a container and immediately passing out in a tub of old poop.
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u/Wendy-Windbag 1d ago
Back in high school on the 90s, in the science wing hallway, we found an old Gatorade bottle filled to the brim with liquid shit.
Like we were more curious about how someone must have overfilled it, capped it, and then had to clean off the excess, than we were about the appearance and purpose of said shit bottle. Did they line it up with their asshole directly? Use a funnel? Surely it had to be multiple shitters to fill this volume of diarrhea.
I choose to believe, in retrospect, that this shit bottle was used for Jenkem. It's real to me.
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u/golmgirl 5h ago
wouldnât be surprising if some western teenagers tried to create jenkem. we certainly discussed the possibility back in the day when this was in the news (a few separate news cycles in the late 90s thru early 00s internet if memory serves)
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u/BuckDunford 7h ago
There were some stories on it that were based on reporters that got duped e.g. the hilarious one referring to it as âbutt hashâ. But there are documented instances of people using jenkem in Africa.
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u/Snotmyrealname 1d ago
Reminds me of my misspent youth.
 When I was a freshman in highschool, on a lark, I sent an anonymous email to my principal pretending to be a concerned parent whoâd caught their kids huffing jenkem and told the principle that they learned it from other kids at school.
Within a week, the school had pulled us into the auditorium and gave us a warning of the dangers of inhalants, including jenkem. And while Iâd never heard of someone huffing jenkem in real life, within a few days there were plenty of rumors around school of kids who had been inspired to do so.
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u/The_Syndic 1d ago
Pretty sure it was entirely fabricated on totse. Just an old fashioned troll.
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u/Patternsonpatterns 1d ago
Totse always makes me think two things-
1- this really prepared me for what the internet became
2- how was I allowed to just do that at like 14
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u/Head-Ad-6708 1d ago
This was debunked as a hoax years ago. The guy who started the whole thing came forward and said itâs made up
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u/djiivu 1d ago
The hoax was that it was being produced in the US, not that it exists at all (unfortunately).
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u/Head-Ad-6708 1d ago
I mean anyone can shove shit and piss into a bottle and let it ferment but are people getting high off of it? No and not possible because it doesnât get you high
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u/djiivu 1d ago
I donât know man, read the Wikipedia article. The BBC has reported on it.
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u/Avatar_of_Green 1d ago
And everything the news reports is totally real.
They got tricked by the original urban legend and made themselves look stupid by taking it seriously.
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u/Head-Ad-6708 6h ago
Bruh just dig a liiiiittle bit deeper than you first google search suggestion đ¤Ś
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u/Wonderful_Rule_2515 1d ago
I live in Portland. If this was a real thing there would be infinitely more poo bottles laying around
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u/Lost-Tone8649 1d ago
As someone who lost my family and job to jenkem, I'm so glad to see this finally getting the attention it deserves.
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u/nickersb83 1d ago
Can you please explain more when half the ppl hear believe itâs a myth? Iâm genuinely curious if anyone has ever got an actual high from this
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u/Lost-Tone8649 8h ago
I primarily used it as a study aid while prepping for a particularly difficult test in college.
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u/nonsensorymatter 1d ago
For those interested: the song Fermented Offal Discharge by Necrophagist was inspired by this drug.
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u/abel385 1d ago
To the contrary, Iâve only ever heard the term Inhalents to refer to the bad kind. For better or worse, inhalents typically refers to things like huffing dust off and gasoline, not the inhalator psychoactive chemicals youâre referring to like nitrous. In fact I think Iâve never heard nitrous called an inhalant, even though obviously you do inhale it.
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u/SherlocksHolmey 5h ago
Yeah CDC classifies inhalants in cases of drug "poisoning" deaths as something inhaled for a psychtropic effect that is primarily used for something else. Like air duster or gasoline. I could see the confusion as nitrous is used in cars and whipped cream, but nitrous is used medically as an anaesthetic due to its NMDA antagonism. Kinda like ketamine!
Edit: chamged a letter
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u/widespreadpanda 15h ago
The first time I did mushrooms, I laughed for several minutes straight about jenkem. People being tricked into thinking that huffing feces would get someone high.
Misplaced parental outrage PLUS a reality in which thereâs a nonzero chance someone got a little too curious and literally huffed their own shit.
Gold.
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u/golmgirl 5h ago
i remember when these reports came out, we all assumed they were bogus urban legends. despite the reports from reputable sources. tbh i still doubt this was a real thing. would be fascinated to be proven wrong though
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u/pugsington01 1d ago
Nobody is more oppressed than jenkem enjoyers facing daily ridicule and harassment for enjoying our natural plant medicine in peace