ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 11, 1996 TAG: 9605130035
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
The rumor about drug-laced children's tatoos spread through Montgomery County like the old shampoo commercial that claimed "I told two friends and she told two friends and so on and so on ..." The simple fact, however, is it's not true.
A flier warning parents about novelty tatoos laced with drugs such as LSD and strychnine that was handed out to area students recently is false, according to a spokesman from the hospital named on the handbill.
John Campbell is vice president of finance for the Stokes-Reynolds Memorial Hospital in Danbury, N.C. He said this is not the first time the flier has caused rumors to fly.
"This [flier] is identical to what happened a couple of years ago," Campbell said.
Campbell said co-workers told him the flier circulates about every year and no one has been able to stop it. The flier lists its source as J.O. Donnell at Danbury Hospital chemical dependency treatment program.
The closest "Danbury" hospital is in Danbury, N.C., population somewhere near 300, according to Campbell. He said his hospital has failed to trace the flier's source.
"We don't know who puts it out or how it got started. We don't even have a chemical dependency program and no one has even been hired by that name [J.O. Donnell]," he said.
He said a hospital in Danbury, Conn. gets tangled in the chain-letter rumor each time, too.
The flier travels like juicy gossip being photocopied and distributed from person to person. It oozes from fax machines and crosses continents via the Internet.
But there are others out there battling the fax machine falsehood.
The New River Health District has been enlisted in the battle to quash the rumor.
Dr. Jody Hershey, district director, sent out a news release Thursday stating the flier is a hoax. Herman Bartlett, superintendent for Montgomery County schools, said he sent the flier to school administrators after getting a copy from the Blacksburg police.
"We made the assumption it was true," Bartlett said referring to the police as a reliable source for such information.
The police also got the flier from what they considered to be a reliable source - a local dentist. The dentist who sent the flier to the police could not be reached Friday for comment.
Police Lt. Bruce Bradbery said the flier flowed from the department's fax machine.
"Everything on [the flier] is true ... the tattoos are a very popular way to distribute drugs, the symptoms are correct," he said. "Apparently the only thing not true is the hospital."
Bradbery said the flier is a general warning - one of many the department gets each year - and distributes. However, cases of children being drugged by novelty tatoos is not a county problem.
"We have never had an LSD problem in our schools," Bradbery said.
The police circulated the flier, Bradbery said, because "we would rather be safe than sorry."
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