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4 Youths Poisoned by Jimson Weed Tea
Stacy Wong, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times 14-May-93
ORANGE -- Three teen-agers lost consciousness and another suffered spasms Thursday morning after they tried to get high by drinking a tea made with jimson weed, a poisonous plant, police said.
The youths, ages 15 to 17, were taken to hospitals and are expected to recover. One remains in intensive care.
Poison control officials said several dozen Southern California teen-agers become ill each year after smoking, drinking or eating parts of the jimson weed, a member of the poisonous nightshade family. Although no fatalities have been recorded, ingesting the plant can cause seizures and severe nerve and muscle damage.
"We have not had any patients die from it, but the potential is there," said Kathy Karlheim, assistant director of the Regional Poison Center at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange.
Helen Burke, whose 17-year-old son, Travis, is in intensive care after drinking the tea, warned other parents to get rid of the plant if it grows near their homes or if they see their children bring it home.
Burke said the four teen-agers apparently brewed a pot of the jimson weed tea at her house sometime after midnight.
ARDILA A; MORENO C
Scopolamine intoxication as a model of transient global amnesia.
Brain Cogn. 1991 Mar; 15(2): 236-45
In Colombia (South America) during recent decades the administration of scopolamine, extracted from plants belonging to the Datura or Brugmansia genus, has become an important neurologic and toxicologic phenomenon. These extracts have been popularly known as 'Burundanga.' Chemical characteristics and clinical features of scopolamine intoxication are described. Anterograde amnesia and submissive behavior found in patients intoxicated with scopolamine are analyzed. Burundanga intoxication is related to other toxic phenomena found in different countries and similitudes with transient global amnesia are emphasized.
HALL, RICHARD C; POPKIN, MICHAEL K; MCHENRY, LAUDIE E
Angel's Trumpet psychosis: A central nervous system anticholinergic syndrome.
American Journal of Psychiatry; 1977 Mar Vol 134(3) 312-314
Warns physicians that intoxication by Angel's Trumpet ( Datura sauveolens ) is becoming more frequent due to its use by adolescents and young adults as a legal, readily available hallucinogen. The case report is presented of 2 15-yr-old boys who were brought to a hospital by police after they were found wandering naked and delirious following ingestion of the plant. Ingestion of the flowers or a tea brewed from them results in an alkaloid-induced CNS anticholinergic syndrome characterized by symptoms such as fever, delirium, hallucinations, agitation, and persistent memory disturbances. Severe intoxication may cause flaccid paralysis, convulsions, and death. Treatment with iv physostigmine reverses the toxic effects of Angel's Trumpet.
Hallucinations or The Rational History of Apparations, Visions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism, and Sonambulism. A[lexandre-Jacques-Francois] Brierre de Boismont. Arno Press. New York. 1976 reprint of 1853 original. hardcover. 553 pages. $46. mentions datura briefly. [box 4m]
Safford, William E.
Daturas of the Old World and New: An Account of Their Narcotic Properties and Their Use in Oracular and Initiatory Ceremonies.
Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution 537-567. (1920)
SAGAN, CARL
Dragons of Eden
Dragons of Eden, p 201, p 203-204
p 201: Recent evidence indicates that such limbic hormones as ACTH and vasopressin can greatly improve the ability of animals to retain and recall memories. These and similar examples suggest, if not the ultimate perfectability of the brain, at least prospects for its substantial improvement - perhaps through altering the abundance or controlling the production of small brain proteins. ... pp 203-204: There is already a range of psychotropic and mood-altering drugs which are, to varying degrees, dangerous or benign (ethyl alcohol is the most widely used and one of the most dangerous), and which appear to act on specific areas of the R-complex, limbic system and neocortex. If present trends continue, even without the encouragement of governments people will pursue the home-laboratory synthesis of and self-experimentation with such drugs - an activity that represents a small further step in our knowledge of the brain, it's disorders and untapped potentials. ... There is reason to think that many alkaloids and other drugs which affect behavior work by being chemically similar to natural small brain proteins, of which the endorphins are one example. Many of these small proteins act on the limbic system and are concerned with our emotional states. It is now possible to manufacture small proteins made of any specified sequence of amino acids. Thus, the time may soon come when a great variety of molecules will be synthesized capable of inducing human emotional states, including extremely rare ones. For example, there is some evidence that atropine - one of the chief active ingredients of hemlock, foxglove, deadly nightshade and jimson weed - induces the illusion of flying; and indeed such plants seem to have been the the principal constituents of unguents self-administered to the genital mucosa by witches in the Middle Ages - who, rather than actually flying as they boasted, were in fact atropine-tripping. But a vivid hallucination of flying is an extremely specific sensation to be conveyed by a relatively simple molecule. Perhaps there are a range of small proteins that will be synthesized and which will produce emotional states of a sort never before experienced by human beings. This is one of many potential near-term developments in brain chemistry which hold great promise both for good and for evil, depending on the wisdom of those who conduct, control and apply this research.
The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon: A Quest for Unity in Consciousness. Andrew Weil. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston. 1980. 289 pages. paperback. $6.95. Discusses datura, ayahuasca, mushrooms, marijuana, etc. [box 1m]
From: morgan_j@summer.chem.su.oz.auThe following was clipped from:
Newsgroups: alt.psychoactives
Subject: Re: Datura Stramonium
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 00:33:17 GMT
Organization: School of Chemistry, University of Sydney
| EthnobotDB--worldwide plant uses is a searchable ethnobotany database at the National Agricultural Library. |
| The National Plants Database at the US Dept. of Agriculture includes information about wetlands, threatened/endangered and economically important plants. |
| The Entheogen Law Reporter Issue No. Six - Spring 1995 pp.48-58:
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