Two girls have been found to inhale air from mothballs after one of them ended up in hospital with impaired conciseness and scaly skin on her hands and legs.

Her sister had similar symptoms only less severe. Doctors found this suspicious since the girls had no family history of any of the problems.
They revealed the problem after running into the mothball bag in the girl’s hospital night table. Apparently she didn’t realized that the problem occurred due to mothball air inhalation, so she continued to do it as it felt so good and she sort of got used to it.
The story reveals that the girls’ classmates have been doing the same thing for quite some time and the girl who got sick even admitted chewing a mothball a day for two months. Scary.

The chemical used in mothballs is called paradichlorobenzene prevents moth larva from getting into clothing and is also used in air fresheners and insect repellents. The chemical can cause severe anemia, liver and kidney failure.

It took six months for the 18 year-old girl who ended up in hospital to fully recover and “only” three months to her sister. The girls have been experimenting with other medical drugs at the time like OxyContin and Vicodin they have been buying online.
So far, the trend with mothballs has been recognized in France but health experts fear that the incidence of this chemical abuse is underestimated.