Teens Turn Legal Plant Into Dangerous Drug

wlky ^ | 11-14-03

[steppenwolffe]

Police: Parents Should Look Out For 'Angel Trumpet.'

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Television station KMBC uncovered a new drug craze that could turn deadly.

The drug, which is ostensibly legal, is made from a plant available at many nurseries. When distilled, toxins in the plant's leaves can cause hallucinations that last for hours or days.

Last month, someone twice stole the plant -- called the Angel Trumpet, Datura or Jimsonweed -- from Johnson County Community College's botanical department. The plant has become such a hot commodity, local nurseries are getting calls from teens who ask how much the plant costs and how they can get one, the station reported.

Jesse Rollwagon, a narcotics detective with the Overland (Kan.) Park Police Department, first took notice of the plant a few months ago.

"Basically, this is just a poison," he said. "It cooks your brains sometimes."

The plant is not smoked, but instead brewed into a tea that can have disastrous results.

Bobby Wainscott, a nurse at the Mid-America Poison Control Center, recently took a call from someone who had taken Angel Trumpet.

"By the time they got him to the hospital an hour later, he was already hallucinating," Wainscott said.

And the hallucinations can be nightmarish and last for hours or sometimes days, the station reported. Those who take the drug are often left seriously ill, combative and uncontrollable. A German teenager who was reportedly high on the drug recently mutilated himself by cutting off his penis and his tongue.

Wainscott said the poison center has taken about 20 calls about Angel Trumpet in the last few months.

Police believe curious kids have been doing research on the Internet and taking it without considering the dangers.

"Word of mouth gets around, gossip gets around. Unfortunately, they don't tell them 'Here's the danger here, here's the danger there,'" Rollwagon said.

Police warned parents to keep an eye out for the new -- and potentially deadly -- drug.

[Lee Heggy]

Your quite welcome. I am fast catching up with you on the age thing. About the only 'experimentation' I do now-a-days is in regards to scotch. Before or after dinner? :^)

[nw_arizona_granny]

The Kingman Daily Miner published the story of the deaths of 2 or 3 girls who died after drinking a tea made from the Datura plant. They were students of the Kingman High School.

This was about 1989, in Kingman, Arizona.

I have read of a child 2 years old who died from eating the seeds.

It grows all over the Arizona desert, does not need water.

In the Yuma area, the tomato hornworm will eat the plant, till there is only coarse stems left.

Thank you for all the knowledge the Freeper group has shared with me. It is often amazing what I learn here.

Yes, this is my first Freeper post, have been lurking for years.

No, I do not have spell check, and more than likely can't see the mistake or may not know how to spell the word and can no longer enjoy using the dictionary, the eyes got old more quickly than they needed too.

Ruth

[GrandMoM]

HOLY $HIT, I have an eight foot Datura growing in my side yard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder if that's why the gardeners cut off to big stalks of it????????????????

....well, if they don't show up next week, guess I'll know why!!!!

[BansheeBill]

There was an article in the Patriot Ledger Newspaper (Quincy, Mass) last week,about three Milton, MA High School students who were hospitalized after eating some of this plant. The story said that one of them read about it somewhere on the net'.

[MonroeDNA]

Welcome to FR!!!!

Please post more often!!!

[Independentamerican]

Might as well just legalize the weed instead of having kids inhale toxins out of cans underneath our sinks. My senior year in High School I went to a Christian Academy in VA and 2 kids decided to chew on tumbleweed seeds or so they said. In any case one of them walked into history class and in front of the whole class urinated in the trash can right by the chalk board. They were expelled for that incident.

[bc2]

welcome to FR!

[stands2reason]

Didn't Oliver Sacks have a story about Jimson weed in one of his books?

I don't recall...though I love his books...."The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" is my favorite...

[stands2reason]

One of the unique aspects of this drug is its ability to create visions that the user finds IMPOSSIBLE to seperate from reality. It makes for some, an extremely bad time.

Forgot to mention also that this stuff will dialate your eyes beyond belief, I'm talking unable to read newsprint for a week or so. But at least it forces you indoors durring daylight hours.

Are you sure you're not talking about Belladonna? Those are the exact symptoms.... you hallucinate, but you aren't "aware" of it. You think it's all real....scary stuff....

[stands2reason]

Here's an experience using Belladonna on Erowid.com:


"This last saturday me and my friend picked 4 leaves off a Belladona plant in my front yard. We boiled this in a pot of boiling water, and made 2 water bottles full. One for each of us. We drank one bottle each. We felt nothing after 30 minutes, i went home, and he remained at his house. I started tripping so hard when i got home, and my blanace was completly off.

This trip was not like acid (i have done acid way over 20 times) and this was to real. I first noticed i was tripping when i went off at the reflection in the mirror cause i didnt know it was me and i thought the person was mocking me. Then i kept putting my hand to my face and acted as i was talking on the phone (and in my mind i was, i heard the other person too) i kept seeing people in my living room, and for some reason there were squirrels everywhere (understand, i did not relaize this was fake, this was completly real in my state of mind) at 3 in the morning, i got a phone call (a real one) from my friend's parents, he was in a coma.

Apparently his parents came home to find him banging his head against the wall (he thought it was his pillow) and they pumped his stomach and he was in a coma until monday. The hallucinations i saw were unreal, but at the same time seemed perfectly real. At one point i called my girlfriend at 4 in the mornin to tell her i just got back from my stepmoms house and i was going back over there (my stepmom lives with me, and i had been no where that night). All in all.. the trip was horrible, too real, too strong. The belladonas i used were a string of plants brought over from Cuba (supposed to be the strongest in the world) the trip lasted 3 days (full affect) and i still do not have my vision back.

My friend is okay now, he stopped tripping yesterday and his vision is pretty bad to. I advise everyone to STAY away from this drug, this can and WILL kill u. if we drank one more sip each we both would have been DEAD. this is not something to fool around with..."

[Centurion2000]

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

R. A. Heinlein

[webstersII]

Thanks for the Heinlein quote.

That's what most people don't understand. If someone wants to do something stupid there's not much you can do to stop them. When they are small children you can, but once they get to the age where they can get out and about, it's up to them to be smart enough (or wise enough) to know that there are things out there which can hurt them.

Our society is not willing to ask anyone to take responsibility for themselves anymore, so this is the kind of idiocy that seems rampant.

[webstersII]

" the victim can't help being stupid. "

One additional comment: sometimes they can help it.

[Yeti]

And that is why most gardeners call Datura "devil's trumpet" and Brugmansia "angel's trumpet" -

Brugmansia will do ya, too.

Some of the South American varieties are known as "dream trees" because if you fall asleep under one, you will never wake up. The flowers have atropine and scopolamine in them, among other things. I'm told that the trees weep in hot weather, like crepe myrtles, and the mist they drop contains the intoxicating alkaloids.

The ground, dried flowers are alleged to be used to produce the notorious "burundanga," which has been the topic of several State Department travel advisories.

[adam_az]

I don't know what to say about the alleged dangerousness of this drug. The government doesn't have a very good record of honesty in regards to recreational chemicals. If the stuff is as potent as they claim, it won't catch on except in very limited quarters, and even in that case, is probably more an example of evolution in action than anything else.

The only safe way to consume this or it's relatives like Belladonna is in a highly diluted ointment form, which is how "witches" used it in Europe a few hundred years ago. Algonquin ate it's seeds as part of their coming of age ceremony as well, if I recall. Brugmansia flowers are used ritually by Peruvian shaman types, as well. This is definately a poisonous plant, not one to trifle with.

[adam_az]

Woodrose is a morning glory, and contains Lysergic Acid Amide.

Datura is a solnaceous plant, amd contains Atropine and a few interesting alkaloids.

[gitmo]

You're supposed to leave your address, or it won't work.

[tallhappy]

Number one, you are an idiot.

Number two:

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for someone to isolate the active ingredient and synthisize it.

You are ignorant as well. The active ingredients are known, mainly scopalamine and also atropine to a lesser extent. They differ markedly from indole based hallucinogens such as LSD or psilocin.

[tallhappy]

Are you sure you're not talking about Belladonna?

Yes. This is the same stuff. Or at least has the same active ingredients.

[piasa]

That's the problem with common names. They tend to vary from region to region, time period to time period and with every fad. They're very misleading. I've even heard people refer to 4 O'clocks as 'angel's trumpets.'

Instead of the problem getting resolved, nursuries and landscape designers compound the problem by giving their own cute names to plants to increase sales.

Journalists don't help, either.

And scientific names are changed on occasion as genetic research goes on, so even scientific names can get people confused if they are working out of old field guides. That can't be helped, but it's annoying once you've finally memorized the latin names for all your plants only to discover your info needs serious updating. (I still keep forgetting what they changed uniola latifolia to.)

Kids should stick with smoking Indian cigars and save their brains for calculus.