Yeh, IMO it's much worse to over react and make a big issue over things like that. We just explained to him that if he carried on he'd get sores all over his face, probably damage his brain and girls wouldn't fancy him. I think that's done the trick (just glad he doesn't know about butane cos that's some fucked up shit).
This twat I used t hang around with as a teenager, who main redeeming feature was the down to the fact that he was the first of our 'crew' to get a car under his arse (his dad was a multi - millionare and bought him a crash course (badly worded but you get my drift) if driving lessons for his 17th Birthday and within 4 weeks he had taken and passed his test (this was probably the last year before they introduced the theory portion)
On an evening, while most of us would be smoking weed and drinking our ciders (a perfectly english way for teenagers to get their kicks) prick for brains would apppear from the shop with at least 6 cans of butane, lie down on the field we used to poss on, and sit there toking CONTINUOUSLY on the cans. He would just lie there and suck on the gas for hours untill it was gone. As butane gas was more within a teenagers budget than weed, it wasn't long before many of our younger, most impresssionable companions developed a taste for what is, despite being disgusting and dangerous, quite a powerful dissociative experience. By this time we were regular users of weed, acid and speed and I had started dancing, but here was this (by now EIGHTEEN year old) still sucking on cans of butane from dawn till dusk, he would chug away on them even as he was driving, often one would see his car go past with a spent can flying out of the window. Unfortunately, one of my best friends had started spending alot of time with him during the day and trhey would often park up somewhere and just mong out on the gas.
Even a child with a primary school level of science understands that concentrated amounts of flammable butane gas will fill a small space up quickly. As with most smokable drugs and inhalents, when you toke on a can of butane is it fairly obvious that you expel most of it as you breath out which, as I have pointed out above, will quickly build up in an enclosed small space, say, a classic Mini. So one afternoon prick for brains is monged out in the car with my freind in the passenger seat, both sucking away, and the dickhead who had unleashed this dodgy behaviour into our world, started idly flicking the flint on his lighter, as smokers do from time to time as a sort of tick.
Now I have explained the conditions under which this basic and unplanned science experiment came about, its time we looked at the results as is typical when follwoing the research process. Of course, after they had got through god knows how many cans of gas between them, it was inevitable that the small amount of sparks coming from Einsteins lighter would react with the 2 litres or so of butane that by now represented a significant proprtion of the atmosphere in the car. As the air in the car ingnited, blowing out one of the small windows in the back of the car, it created a brief but extremely intense fireball which set the back of the pricks hand on fire, but typically, my mate got the worst of it as his face went up in flames, burning for what was reprted to be at least 7-10 seconds.
Yet another long winded post for which I apologise, but after immediate transfer to the loacl specialist burns unit at Selly Oak in Birmingham, he spent 5 days on an ICU before I was able to visit him a weel later. By this stage he was still imobile, but comfortable due to a continuous morphine infusion / drip, but none of this stopped me from collapsing like a newborn deer in a fit of hysterical tears when I actually saw the damamge. His head was almost twice the size as normal and he couldnt speak due the swelling around his mouth and nose which made him require supplimentary oxygen. Although my friend was stupid to develop such a habit It was abovious that twat face was directly resposible for the explosion. His dad was aware of this and by way of apologising for his son nearly killing my best friend, he went out of his way to make ONE visit to my friend, in order to give him £5000 in return for his silence as the incident was serious enough to attract the local press.
I dont know why you had to read all of that aside from the fact that Fubars reference to butane is the first time I have seen this habit brought up in EADD. Of course I had a couple of blasts on it as a 14 year old but by that time, with access to quality drugs I had lost interest in it long before 'the gasman' managed to create a mini epidemic of solvent abuse across our manor.
My friend made a slow but thankfully complete recovery, as your face and mouth as far as I am aware are able to repair itself much quicker than the rest of your skin on your body (I have no evidence for this but I have heard it repeated so many times both at home and in health care settings that even if it is an old wives tale its one that has never, to my knowledge, been challenged). But as he was left with brand new skin on his face it had to be treated as if it was a newborn babies, and 18 years later he still cannot expose his much to direct sunlight with plastering himself in factor 1,000,000 sunscreen.
Stick to the prit. It may not be quite as potent as butane but it certainly causes less deaths and injuries . This post has been far too long so ill leave it there, but if anyone is interested in a more positive sequal, I would be more than happy to share the fate of this horrible idiot, as it is pure karma, quite funny and is the only incident in my entire life where I have taken pleasure in another humans misfortune.