From wikipedia: Snopes (Urban Legends Reference Pages) published a report on October 30, 2007 focusing on the veracity of Jenkem. It labeled veracity of the rumors as undetermined, citing both a widely circulated trip report from an American teenager posted to the online forum TOTSE,[4] and a leaked alert bulletin from the Collier County Sheriff's Office in Naples, Florida which asserted that "Jenkem is now a popular drug in American Schools."[5] Another website investigating urban legends, About.com has also issued a report, more analytic than Snopes, concluding that the recent media reports that Jenkem is gaining a foothold as a substance of abuse among American youth is doubtful and "based on faulty Internet research."[6] It specifically noted that 'Pickwick' later stated his "trip report" was a hoax.
On November 3, 2007 two mainstream media outlets, television station KIMT of Mason City, Iowa[7] and WINK NEWS,[8] a Fort Myers, Florida broadcaster, reported on the rumours of Jenkem being a new hallucinogenic drug among American high school students. According to WINK News, Collier County Sheriff's Office confirms having issued the drug alert.
On November 6, Washington Post columnist Emil Steiner in his OFF/beat blog commented on the Collier Sheriff's Office memo, the Snopes report and the WINK-TV news story apparently introducing his own contamination of the story by reporting the origin of Jenkem to be "Africa and other third world countries." Steiner goes on to report that "a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency insists that 'there are people in America trying [Jenkem].'" The unnamed DEA spokesman stated that the agency had yet to test Jenkem, however volunteering a theory that "hallucinations from methane fumes" are involved. He also labeled any use of Jenkem "dangerous, bad and stupid."[9] Notably, in the comments section of the article, a user wrote "YEAH PICKWICK", referring to the poster of the original faux "trip report".
On November 6, 2007, WSBT-TV in South Bend, IN ran the story on its local newscasts and posted it to their web site, including advice that parents "wait up for them (their children) at night and not let their kids go to bed until they have seen them and smelled their breath." [10]
Fox News ran with the story 8 hours after the Steiner Washington Post column entry, stating unequivocally that it stemmed from a hoax.[11] They published the Internet alias of the boy who had published a "trip report" in the TOTSE online forum in July, as well as his later retraction. The boy, "Pickwick," in September retracted his story claiming his report "was faked using flour, water, beer and Nutella." He also stated "I never inhaled any poop gas and got high off it [...] I have deleted the pictures, hopefully no weirdo saved them to his computer. I just don't want people to ever recognize me as the kid who huffed poop gas."[11][12] In the same article, a Washington D.C. DEA spokesman, Garrison Courtney, informed that "We wouldn't classify it as a drug so much because it's feces and urine."
