There is no denying that children and teenagers are easily influenced by what happens around them.
In today’s age, where they have seemingly unrestricted access to social media, they are often exposed to contents with very little education or any positive values at all.
Case in point: the dangerous acts and challenges posted on a social platform called TikTok. For sure, it is not the only platform available.
Still, recently there has been a growing trend in which people record themselves conducting risky experiments with themselves, such as shaving teeth with nail files, taking a hefty dose of over-the-counter drugs, holding breath until they are rendered unconscious, driving recklessly, and many others.
A recent incident posted on TikTok is likely to fall into the category.
Raffaela Weyman, a Canadian singer, and songwriter, is known professionally as Ralph and on TikTok as @SongsByRalph, posted a video of herself and a friend smelling a large yellow-colored flower in June.
She had no idea it was Angel’s Trumpet, a toxic flower containing scopolamine, a hallucinogenic and potentially deadly narcotic. Ralph and her friend were severely intoxicated until the next day.
10 /10 World's Scariest Drug
Ralph and her friends were walking to another friend’s house for a birthday party. Somewhere along the road, they came across a beautiful sizeable yellow color flower that emits an enticing smell.
They couldn’t help but picked some flowers up and smelled them repeatedly. Of course, they recorded a video and posted it on TikTok.
Everything seemed alright at the time, and so they continued walking. Soon after they arrived, they didn’t feel well for no apparent reason. They had no idea what happened; they only knew to go home early before their conditions worsened.
9 /10 Angel's Trumpet
Only the next day that Ralph learned if the flowers she had picked up the night before were Angel’s Trumpet, a source of a dangerous narcotic called scopolamine, better known as its street name Devil’s Breath or burundanga.
Upon realizing her mistake, she wrote on TikTok to tell her followers and everyone else the flower was poisonous and that she accidentally drugged herself.
Since the flower is not illegal, it remains to be seen if it turns into just another instance of the TikTok challenge.