In the mid-1990s, it was reported to be a popular street drug among Zambian youth, created by placing feces and urine in a bottle or a bucket, sealing it with a balloon or lid and leaving it to ferment in the sun; afterwards they would inhale the gases generated.
[1][2][3][4] In November 2007, there was a moral panic in the United States after widespread reports of jenkem becoming a popular recreational drug in middle and high schools across the country, though the validity of this claim has since been called into question.
[8] In the book Children of AIDS: Africa's Orphan Crisis by Emma Guest, the making of jenkem is described: "fermented human sewage, scraped from pipes and stored in plastic bags for a week or so, until it gives off numbing, intoxicating fumes.
"[9] The process is similarly described in a 1995 IPS report: "Human excreta is scooped up from the edges of the sewer ponds in old cans and containers which are covered with a polyethylene bag and left to stew or ferment for a week.
[3] According to a 1998 report in The New York Times, Fountain of Hope, a non-profit organization, said that jenkem was used by street children in Lusaka, Zambia, to obtain a "powerful high".
[11] John C. Zulu, director of the Ministry of Sport, Youth and Child Development in Zambia, said in November 2007 that jenkem usage is less common than glue-sniffing and, "Initially, they used to get it from the sewer, but they make it anywhere ...
[12] On September 26, 2007, the Sheriff's Department of Collier County, Florida issued an internal bulletin about jenkem based on a TOTSE internet forum post by user "Pickwick", which included purported photos of the manufacture and use.
"[16] Jenkem use was reported uncritically by KIMT of Mason City, Iowa,[17] WIFR-TV in Rockford, Illinois,[18] and WINK NEWS Fort Myers, Florida.
"[14] Journalist Kyle Magistrado from WSBT-TV in South Bend, Indiana advised parents to "wait up for [their children] at night and not let their kids go to bed until they have seen them and smelled their breath."
[27] A Florida syndicated newspaper article focused on the leaked police memo and included interviews with DEA spokesman Rusty Payne, the Palmetto Ridge High School principal, and a spokeswoman for the Collier County Health Department.