Thousands of ravers across Quebec are indulging in a new and perplexing fad: they’re tossing salad in order to get high. Some say it’s just a hoax, but many others swear that it works. “I don’t care what Snopes says, I don’t care what the Society of Quebecois Skeptics says, I don’t care what doctors say,” says 18 year old high school drop-out Milaine Maribou, “tossing salad definitely gets you high. I do it all the, and it always ends up with me tripping balls."

The act of salad tossing, a slang term for licking a person’s anus, has long been the butt of many jokes. Only recently, however, has salad tossing taken on a nearly religious fervour among teenagers. “Most teenagers would rather toss each other’s salad than spend time on Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr, or any of those other social media sites,” says teenageologist Mary Chapeau. “Salad tossing is to today’s teenager what going to the mall was to teenagers in the 1980s. While I personally don’t think tossing salad will get you high, if you look at it from a sociological point of view, it makes sense that teenagers would imbue the act with mystical meaning. Every generation creates new ways to both rebel against authority and to establish status among their peers. These ritual forms of both rebellion and communion often take religious undertones, even in a secular society such as our own. In effect, it’s not the act of anus licking itself that is causing teenagers to get high, it’s their belief in the magical properties of the act that causes those drug like sensations. The ritual is a kind of placebo."

Chibougameau University biology teacher Barryl Hogwits disagrees. “Many sociologists often try to explain human behaviour without bothering to understand the biochemical basis of many of our actions,” says Barryl. “In recent years, we’ve discovered that human anal glands secrete a chemical compound that has similar properties as THC. Consuming this secretion orally will, in fact, produce a small buzz. It’s not as intense as smoking a joint, but it’s still pretty pleasant. You’ll get a much more powerful high if you snort it, though."

Barryl says people shouldn’t be disgusted by the sometimes magical properties of anal glands. “It might sound disgusting, but the fact is, nearly everyone in the West has consumed animal anal juice at one point in their life,” says Barryl. “For example, castoreum is a commonly used flavouring product in foods. It’s made out of beaver anal glands. Anyone who has ever eaten vanilla ice cream has consumed beaver anal glands. If you didn’t find that disgusting, why should licking someone's anus be any different?"