At 5:05 p.m. this dark winter evening, the South Pasadena Police Department issued a community press release of the gravest importance. (Its first press release in two weeks, actually. Because South Pasadena Police Department press releases are reserved for the quant little town's most urgent of matters.) It reads as follows.

Information for police, paramedics and parents:

News media investigation into Vodka soaked Tampons used by teens, male and female, to get drunk. Cut and paste the below link into your internet browser.

We're obviously dealing with some 21st-century-challenged press officers here, seeing as what follows these instructions is a bona fied LINK, but we'll look past that small detail for more pressing hilarities. Here's what local coppers want the townspeople to check out:

The video is a news broadcast from Phoenix, Arizona, with little to no relevance to South Pasadena, as far as we can tell.

Furthermore, police have lifted the embed code from freaking BuzzFeed, which should be a pretty clear indication that 1) everyone has already seen it, and 2) these alleged “teens getting drunk off vodka-soaked tampons” very probably do not exist, outside one or two isolated incidents turned urban legends.

We're not going to waste our time making fun of hokey TV journalists — Four Loko's new ad campaign pretty much has that covered. But the South Pasadena Police Department? Really? Way to make it painfully obvious that y'all have been futzing around the Internet at the station all day instead of protecting the streets of South Pas from dangerous criminals. Yet also don't have 10 more minutes to Google some crazy vid for verification purposes. (We called the department for comment, but after sitting on hold for 10 minutes, decided it wasn't really worth it.)

The Huffington Post raises a long hard eyebrow at this supposed teen craze:

Other sites have called KPHO's story into question, saying the practice remains unverified despite multiple reports of incidents in the U.S. and elsewhere. One blogger conducted her own informal trial to see whether the purported method worked, with unfavourable results.

But KPHO News reports there have been some cases of alcohol poisoning after utilizing these methods. In addition to using tampons, the broadcast also stated that teens are taking part in “butt chugging” where alcohol is consumed rectally with a beer bong or beer funnel. “Butt chugging” seems to be done to avoid having alcohol breath.

Indeed, this appears to be one of those evergreen news items that resurfaces for more fun every few years.

Stephen Colbert finished off the job last night, saying he's “worried” about the hot new epidemic, side-noting that this must be the reason chicks in Playtex commercials look so goddamn happy all the time.

“This is not isolated to any school, any student, any financial area,” one school security guard told KPHO yesterday, setting off the hit-meter in a thousand yellow journalists across America. (And uh, the South Pasadena Police Department.) “This is everywhere.“

Colbert's obvious response: “Yes, this is happening, and it's everywhere. A high school security cop heard about it. That means it's true!”

And now that every last teen in this bored-ass nation has heard about it, one lousy Arizonian security guard has probably made his own ridiculous prophecy come true. Isn't this why newspapers didn't used to be allowed to cover suicides? Oops.

[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]

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