The real substance has roots in Zambia. The earliest known media mention comes from an Inter Press Service wire report on August 26, 1995, describing boys at a sewage pond in Lusaka's Garden Township scooping human waste into containers and inhaling the fumes after a week of fermentation3. A fifth-grade dropout named Mukela Nyambe told the reporter, "Old man, this is more potent than cannabis"10.

The name "jenkem" derives from Genkem, a South African glue brand that had become a generic term for glue-sniffing among children5. On September 18, 1998, The New York Times mentioned jenkem in a report on Zambian AIDS orphans, citing the nonprofit Fountain of Hope1. A year later, BBC News ran "Children high on sewage," describing 16-year-old Luke Mpande's preference for jenkem: "With glue, I just hear voices in my head. But with Jenkem, I see visions. I see my mother who is dead and I forget about the problems in my life"2.

In 2002, a joint report by Project Concern International Zambia and Fountain of Hope listed jenkem as the third most popular drug among Lusaka's street children, behind cannabis and glue5.

The internet hoax began on June 7, 2007, when a user called Pickwick on the now-defunct Totse.com forum posted photos documenting what he claimed was a jenkem experiment4. He described defecating into a glass bottle, capping it with a balloon, and leaving it in the sun. Over the following days, Pickwick posted updates showing the balloon inflating and the contents fermenting9. On June 13, he shared a detailed "trip report" claiming he'd passed out, experienced vivid hallucinations, and spoken gibberish to trees and rocks9.

The jenkem hoax became a frequently cited example of how internet trolls could manipulate mainstream media. BuzzFeed News later called it "the greatest internet hoax" and "the greatest fake drug hoax of all time"6. The incident predated Rickrolling by about a year but shared DNA with it: both involved internet users gleefully watching unsuspecting people fall for fabricated content6.

The story also highlighted real failures in law enforcement intelligence gathering. The Collier County bulletin went out as an official document despite being based entirely on a single parent's report and photos from a forum post by a teenager who had already admitted to faking them3. Palmetto Ridge High School's principal Roy Terry told reporters: "I'm sure that something like this can be done, but I have not heard of anybody doing it nor anyone at our school doing it at all"10.

The South Park reference in "Major Boobage" (2008) cemented jenkem in pop culture memory, though the show substituted cat urine for sewage in its parody4. The American Dad reference four years later showed the concept still had comedy mileage4.

The jenkem panic of 2007 was a case study in how internet trolling could exploit institutional credulity. But the story behind it had been building for over a decade.

Between 1995 and 2006, jenkem existed in a handful of English-language news articles as a grim detail about poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The IPS wire report, the NYT feature, and the BBC piece all described the same narrow phenomenon: orphaned and abandoned children in Lusaka, Zambia, inhaling gases from fermented sewage because they couldn't afford glue or petrol1210. The Drug Enforcement Commission of Zambia confirmed it was real but legal, and Nason Banda of the agency described it as heartbreaking: "It hits right at the heart to see a human being coming down a level"2. John C. Zulu of Zambia's Ministry of Sport, Youth and Child Development told Salon.com in 2007 that jenkem use was actually less common than glue-sniffing, and that children said "it keeps them warm and makes them fearless"5.

The substance's pharmacology was never scientifically studied. No peer-reviewed journal examined its active compounds or mechanisms7. Dr. Fumito Ichinose, a Boston anesthesia specialist who had studied hydrogen sulfide gas on mice, speculated to Salon.com that inhaling gases from jenkem could cause hypoxia, "a lack of oxygen flow to the body that could be alternately euphoric and physically dangerous"5. The drug information site Erowid concluded that "the jenkem stories that have been circulating in the U.S. media are almost certainly the strange result of a hoax" and stated they had "seen no credible evidence" of anyone in the U.S., Canada, or Europe inhaling sewage gas for psychoactive effects7.

The pivot from obscure Zambian poverty detail to internet sensation happened entirely because of Pickwick. His Totse thread was compelling because it included photos at every stage, from production to the alleged trip itself9. The flux64 WordPress blog archived portions of his posts, preserving the step-by-step narrative even after Totse went offline9. Pickwick's "trip report" was vivid and specific: he described passing out for about a minute, seeing random people from his past like his second-grade teacher, hearing screeching and car noises, and staring at spots for long periods while talking to rocks9. In his own conclusion, he said it was not enjoyable and he would "defiantly not" do it again9.

After Pickwick's hoax confession, 4chan users launched a campaign to convince schools and law enforcement that jenkem was a real teen drug trend6. According to BuzzFeed News, the Encyclopedia Dramatica article on jenkem was on the site's front page by June 20078. Someone from the Totse messageboard even emailed South Park Studios about the topic6. The copypasta that circulated included detailed fake instructions and was specifically designed to be forwarded to school administrators8.

The media response was striking in its range. Snopes initially rated the claim as "undetermined" before quickly reclassifying it as "false"3. About.com's urban legend expert David Emery concluded the reports were "based on faulty Internet research"7. The Smoking Gun noted that the Collier County alert "may be full of shit"5. But multiple local news stations ran the story uncritically. KIMT in Mason City, Iowa, WIFR-TV in Rockford, Illinois, and WINK News in Fort Myers, Florida, all reported on jenkem without noting the hoax5. WSBT-TV in South Bend 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"5. An Austin, Texas NBC affiliate interviewed an addiction counselor who speculated that "once it becomes OK with a certain group of adolescents, it becomes OK with a lot more"5.

The DEA's own response was muddled. Washington Post columnist Emil Steiner reported that a DEA spokesman insisted "there are people in America trying jenkem," calling it "dangerous, bad and stupid"5. But another DEA spokesman, Garrison Courtney, specified: "We wouldn't classify it as a drug so much because it's feces and urine"5.

The cultural afterlife of jenkem extended into pop culture. On March 26, 2008, the South Park episode "Major Boobage" featured Kenny becoming addicted to "cheesing," a drug involving cat urine, which was widely read as a jenkem reference4. On March 25, 2012, the American Dad episode "Less Money, Mo' Problems" directly depicted the character Stan inhaling jenkem with a homeless man4. On December 3, 2010, Florida news station WPTV ran a story on a purported jenkem lab discovered by law enforcement in Ft. Pierce, Florida4. A skateboard magazine even adopted the name "Jenkem"6.