Safety Fourth

This story is based on an email that is making the rounds and is supposedly a hoax….but I’ll include it anyway.    This is the story of yet another ploy that takes advantage of women.  It’s supposed to come from a Police Department in Brampton Ontario.

Truthfully it is a ploy.  One more urban myth to make us afraid of our own shadows and feed our fear to the point that it seems pointless to do anything sensible for our self protection.

A woman was fueling her car at a local gas station when a man approached her and offered his services as a painter.  While she wasn’t in the market for a painter at the time, the woman did take his business card.  They both returned to their respective cars.  She drove away alone and he got into a car with another man and they followed her out of the gas station.

Almost immediately the woman began to feel dizzy and had difficulty catching her breath.   She notice that both men were right behind her and realizing that something was seriously wrong she veered into the driveway of a home and started to pound on her horn.  Someone came out.  The men left.  The woman felt ill for a while longer and called the police.

Apparently there was a substance called Burundanga.  Four times more dangerous than any of the currently known date rape drugs this can be impregnated into cards and absorbed through the skin - something that can happen very quickly. So the moral of this story is that it is not safe to accept a card from a stranger when you are alone.

The good news is that although Burundanga is real and  is in fact a street version of a drug called Scopolamine, it cannot be administered in this fashion and is rarely seen outside of Columbia and South Central America where is it associated with Voo Doo Powder or a Zombie drug.