Tale Of Lsd-Soaked Tattoos Is Urban Legend, Experts Say

The blue star acid rumor is back.

Like a recurring nightmare it frightens parents with an unfounded warning of LSD in stick-on tattoos.

The Drug Enforcement Administration says there has never been a single documented incident in which LSD-soaked tattoos have been given to children.

Nevertheless, reports of hallucinogenic tattoos are carried along by well-meaning people who use copiers, fax machines and bulletin boards to spread the word.

The rumor is at least a decade old and has spread around the world, according to urban-legend expert Jan Harold Brunvand of Salt Lake City.

This month it landed in the Seattle-Tacoma area in the form of an official-looking ``intelligence report,'' says Tacoma Police spokesman Mark Mann who fielded a dozen calls one day last week from people who saw fliers and wanted more information.

``It is a hoax,'' Mann said. It's a panic-driven document of unknown origin. Copies were distributed by a health club, a preschool and a phone company.

``It causes anxiety and has no educational value,'' Mann said.

He has heard similar reports from Southern California, Montana, Wyoming and Florida.

Seattle Police spokeswoman Tina Drain says the department also received reports that the flier is circulating in schools.

Leilani Ramos saw a copy of the flier where she works at the state Department of Licensing office in Olympia. ``I went out and made 50 copies and have been distributing,'' she said.

``I have a granddaughter who's 2. Kids are always playing with stickers and stuff,'' she said. ``If it's a joke, it's a sick one.''

The impulse to protect children and the ease of using copy machines to keep the warnings fresh have created a message that never ends. It just seems to bounce to another part of the country until it bounces back a year or two later, setting off alarms all over again.

``It's definitely urban-legend material,'' says Brunvand, who teaches at the University of Utah and writes a syndicated newspaper column on urban legends. He is working on his fifth book of such stories - the vanishing hitchhiker, the dog in the microwave, the dying boy trying to set a record for most mail received.

The blue-star acid is one of the most durable and widely spread legends he has studied. Brunvand has debunked the story in two of his books and in recent columns.

He first heard of the tattoo tale in 1981 in Indiana and has reports from across the country and the world, in recent months in Philadelphia, Ventura, Calif., Providence, R.I., and Mesa, Ariz. There have been reports of the rumor in the United Kingdom, Peru and Germany, he said.

The latest twist is that Bart Simpson has supposedly been added to the list of cartoon tattoos that include Superman, clowns, a butterfly and Mickey Mouse dressed as the Sorcerer's Apprentice juggling stars. The rumor gets its name from another common tattoo shape, the blue star.

The warnings are similar. They tell parents to beware of drug dealers who give the cartoon tattoos to children to ``hook'' them. The children stick the tattoos on their body and pick up a dose of LSD either by licking the tattoo or through the skin when they stick it on.

The part about LSD being absorbed through skin is wrong, says Seattle Police narcotics Lt. Jerry Adams. The drug is ingested.

There is a form of LSD called ``blotter acid'' in which sheets of paper are soaked with the drugand cut into tabs, a quarter- or half-inch square. Blotter acid sheets may be decorated with cartoons or geometric designs, the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a March 29, 1989, statement.

The similarity between childrens' decals and decorated blotter acid is probably the basis for the reports.

``This information reappears periodically but so far has always been without basis - probably well-meaning confusion between blotter acid, which frequently has pictures on it, and kids' tattoos,'' said DEA agent Raymond McKinnon in Seattle.

Because that kind of drug exists, ``It doesn't hurt to discuss it with kids,'' said Mark Howard, director of Community Crime Prevention in the Seattle Police Department.

One source of legitimate toy tattoos is the Ace Novelty Co. in Bellevue. Spokesman Charlie Dubose says they are made for the company in Taiwan and sold mainly to carnivals that give them away as prizes.

The paper tattoos are saturated in water then applied to the skin. When the paper is pulled away a tattoo remains. It can later be washed harmlessly away.

Brunvand says in all his research he has never come across a case of a child receiving blotter acid.