No truth to recirculating 'strawberry quick' drug hoax: Sri Lanka officials

"A new drug in schools," reads a Sinhala-language Facebook post published on February 7, 2025 shared more than 12,000 times. "This smells like strawberry. This is given to children. This is called strawberry quick or strawberry meth."

"Children have taken this thinking it is candy," adds the post which includes an image of pink pills shaped like teddy bears.

Image

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on March 14, 2025

Similar posts circulated elsewhere on Facebook, via messages in WhatsApp and recently in Malay-language posts.

"This is how they promote drugs. Everyone gets to know about drugs from Facebook," a user who appeared to believe the claim commented in one of the posts.

"The relevant officials see every other thing. But unfortunately they don't see these. When parents send their kids to school, they don't see these. Parents can't guard the schools," another wrote.

Old hoax

But the circulating posts are "baseless", Chamara Karunarathne, spokesperson for the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board of Sri Lanka, told AFP on February 24.

"We have not found any evidence to suggest school children in Sri Lanka are using this drug," Karunarathne said.

"However, there are reports of some school children using tobacco-related and pharmaceutical products though such cases remain relatively low in number." 

Buddhika Manatunga, spokesman for the Sri Lanka police, separately told AFP on February 27, "We haven't received reports that something of this nature is being used by school children."

He added that different versions of methamphetamine are being used and the police continuously carry out raids related to narcotics.

A keyword search found the circulating Sinhala-language posts appear to be a translation of claims already debunked in an April 29, 2007 report from US-based publication Snopes (archived link).

AFP has debunked similar claims that surfaced in South Africa in 2016 and 2018.

Police authorities in New Zealand and the United Kingdom also issued statements refuting "strawberry quick" claims that had surfaced throughout the years while Malaysian police dismissed the claims in a statement sent to AFP (archived here and here).

A reverse image search on TinEye found the image in the false posts is not recent and has appeared in various posts since at least 2016 (archived link).