Online drinking game blamed for deaths overseas hits BC
Posted February 7, 2014 7:31 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – An online drinking game that originated in Australia has reached BC, and it’s raising a lot of concerns about peer pressure and alcohol poisoning.
“Neknomination” involves challenging friends to chug back large amounts of booze in increasingly extreme ways. Someone sends a video of them slamming back booze to two friends, daring them to outdo it.
Kara Thompson at the BC Centre for Addictions Research has seen it posted on her Facebook page.
“We see high-school-aged girls being dared to consume the same amount as adult men. These are really dangerous behaviours that people are pressuring their friends into doing,” she tells us.
She says there’s a lot of pressure on kids nominated on social media. “Their names are tagged in these posts, so everyone connected to them knows that they’ve been dared.”
“They’re consuming whole pints of vodka or rum in under a minute,” she tells us, saying it’s a disturbing trend. “We should be concerned [that it] is viewed as a form of entertainment.”
“They could be home alone, engaging this behaviour, causing them to overdose. And there may not be anyone there to assist them, which is a bit scary,” adds Thompson.
Neknomination is being blamed for two deaths in Ireland last week.
