Posted on 11/14/2003 9:45:37 AM PST by 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.
Ah yes, the venerable ad hominem. I wouldn't want a day to pass without having the minions of the empire gratuitously insult me.
=snip=
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.
Ya got me there. I was, in fact, ignorant of the chemical makeup of the active compounds in the plant. Did I claim in my post to be otherwise? Would that be the cause of your uncalled for insults? Thanks for enlightening me. Now that I have some useful names to look up, I can be further educated in the details of the issue at hand at my leisure.
Ignorance of a given subject is easily remedied. The fact that you are an ass is not.
No. An important observation and message to you. Your idiotic statement had nothing to do with the fact that you didn't know the active ingredients of datura. If you don't know what I am specifically referring to read your post again and try to figure it out.
And never grow up to be taxonomists!
Link to the Datura vault at erowid. Covers nightshade, jimson, brugmansia too.
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.cgi?A=Search&S1=15&S2=-1&S3=-1&C1=-1&Str=
Link to Datura experience vailt at erowid.
Professional stoners on closed course. Do not try at home! This can be very dangerous stuff to play with. For starters you can be delerious for a week.
Wasn't Datura one of the hallucinogens given to Castaneda by his Yaqui mentor in The Teachings of Don Juan?
It's very dangerous. Don't worry about it being just alleged --- it really is. It grows all over around this area and there have been a number of deaths from it.
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