In Portugal, some teenagers light a cotton swab to suck up the smoke emanating from it… A dangerous practice but one that is gaining followers.
From our correspondent in Lisbon, Kévin Badeau
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VS’is well known, many teenagers smoke as soon as adults have their backs turned. Usually, these early smokers are satisfied with lighting a few cigarettes, inhaling heated tobacco or pulling on a vape. In Portugal, however, a new category of consumers is emerging: cotton swab smokers. This new fashion consists in diverting the usual use of this article intended for the hygiene of infants and ears. Concretely, some teenagers light one of the two padded ends of the stick and inhale the smoke which escapes from it, as one would do with a real cigarette.
For now, it is difficult to assess the extent of the phenomenon. As the newspaper says Sabado Based on testimonies from taken aback parents, some of these teenagers act in secret in the privacy of their bedrooms. Others, on the other hand, appear in public, probably to amuse the gallery. Several cases of cotton swab smokers have been identified in schools in Lisbon and surrounding towns, Cascais in particular.
Social networks
As often, this fashion is fueled by social networks. On TikTok, it’s easy to find short videos of teenagers, often Brazilians, with cotton swabs in their beaks. These sequences do not all collect millions of views, but it is enough to convince the young Portuguese to try the experience.
@fxsimoes fumando cotonete mas okay #FysMenosMarketing #lucifer #pov #vaiprofycaramba #4fy #fyp ♬ lucifer – jial war
There are also videos on YouTube in which young people challenge themselves to smoke cotton wool and then debrief the experience, like Brazilian YouTuber Mateus Martins. In one sequence, the young man lights a cotton swab there, pulls it, coughs and then declares: “While some smoke crack, I smoke cotton swabs. »
Dangerous for your health
In terms of health, smoking a cotton swab is far from without consequences. The smoke from charred cotton wool can damage lung cells and contribute to cancer later on. That of the stick, if it is plastic, can intoxicate the teenager.
Specialists fear that cotton swab enthusiasts will then switch to real cigarettes, whose nicotine it contains ends up making them addicted. This is what happened to an 11-year-old girl, as the story goes. Sabado in his article on the subject. Tobacco, still just as taboo, and difficult to overcome.