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Datura stramonium

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Datura stramonium, also called Jimson Weed, Jamestown Weed, Thorn Apple, Angel's Trumpet, and Zombie's Cucumber is a common poisonous weed in the Nightshade Family. It contains tropane alkaloids that are sometimes used as a hallucinogen. The active ingredients are atropine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine which are classified as deliriants, or anticholinergics.

Datura stramonium is, on average, 30 to 150 cm tall with erect, forking and purple stems [1]. The leaves are large, 7 to 20 cm long and have irregular teeth à la oaks. The flowers are one of the most distinctive characteristics of Datura stramonium: they are trumpet-shaped, white to purple, and 5-12.5 cm long [1]. The flowers open and close at irregular intervals during the evening, earning the plant the nickname Moonflower. The fruit are grape-sized, egg-shaped, and covered in prickles, they split into four chambers, each with a few kidney shaped seeds [1]. All parts of the plant emit a foul odor when crushed or bruised [1].

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Cultivation and Uses

Jimsonweed grows in most habitats, but thrives in high nutrient soil. It is found throughout all of the United States, barring the Northwest and the northern Great Plains [1]. It is most commonly found in the South. Datura stramonium is also found throughout many other parts of the world.

Teenagers occasionally use datura as a cheap alternative to illegal drugs. It is not illegal, though a few states do have some laws regulating its consumption. It is typically consumed as a sort of herb tea, though it can also be eaten or smoked. Overall, it has a very low demand as a recreational drug, because it has a reputation as a very poor/unpleasant high.

Effects

There is a mnemonic for the physiological effects of datura/atropine intoxication: "blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as a hare, dry as a bone, the bowel and bladder lose their tone, and the heart runs alone." The actual effects are reported to be: cycloplegia and mydriasis (extreme dilation of the pupil), flushed, warm and dry skin, dry mouth, urinary retention and ileus (slowing or stopping of intestinal movement), rapid heart beat, hypertension or hypotension, and choreoathetosis/jerky movements. In case of overdose the effects are hyperthermia, coma, respiratory arrest, and seizures. The vast majority of atropine-poisoning cases are accompanied by delirium with hallucinations.

The effects of Datura have been described as a living dream: consciousness falls in and out, people who don't exist or are miles away are conversed with etc. The effects can last for days. Tropane alkaloids are some of the few substances which cause true hallucinations which cannot be distinguished from reality. This is unlike psylocybin or LSD, which only cause visual distortions.

The doses that cause noticeable effects, and the doses that can kill are very close with datura. This makes overdosing on Datura stramonium very easy. This can be fatal, and it can cause fevers in the 105-110 range which is a range that can kill brain cells, and lead to brain damage. There are many instances of teenagers looking for a cheap high poisoning themselves to death on datura. If someone overdoses on datura it is advised to cause vomiting, to wash out his or her stomach, and to get the person hospitalized immediately.

If taken recreationally, the Datura experience seems almost identical from person to person. After ingestion, the user does not notice any conscious effects, no matter how bizarre, for quite a while, which is why overdoses are so common; most people redose, thinking it's not working, when in fact they're passing an imaginary cigarette to an imaginary friend. According to some reports, Datura causes very similar experiences from person to person; often effects are not noticed at all until an unsuspecting user realizes that he or she was hallucinating. Some users have reported seeing an array of people from their lives. A few anecdotal reports also mention the user's perception of "phantom cigarettes"; the person believes that he or she is smoking a cigarette only to find that it has disappeared later, thus realizing that it never existed. At the peak of such experiences users often enter a true psychotomimetic state, in which they "lose touch with reality" altogether; at this point, many find it difficult or impossible to communicate with others.

A majority of users who have written reports on experiences with this drug have described those experiences as unpleasant and often terrifying. This is possibly due to their having taken excessive doses. The powerful effects of Datura continue until the body metabolizes the tropane alkaloids.

History

Datura stramonium is either native to India or Central America. It was used as a mystical sacrament in both possible places of origin. The Native Americans have used this plant in sacred ceremonies. In some tribes datura was involved in the ceremonies of manhood. The sadhus of Hinduism also used datura as a spiritual tool, smoking it with cannabis in their traditional chillums [4].

In the United States it is called Jimsonweed, or more rarely Jimpson Weed; it got this name from the town of Jamestown, Virginia, where British soldiers were secretly drugged with it (in their salad), while attempting to stop Bacon's Rebellion. They spent several days chasing feathers, making monkey faces, generally acting like lunatics, and indeed failed at their mission:

...some of the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebellion of Bacon (1676); and some of them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows [grimaces] at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.
In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves- though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements, if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after 11 days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed.
:The History and Present State of Virginia, 1705, Robert Beverly
In the 1600s, probably 1607, starving settlers, in desperation, attempted to eat the known toxic plants by repeatedly boiling them. The toxins were diluted enough to prevent death, but the settlers were dazed from the drug's effect for days.

There was a time when stramonium, a drug obtained from the leaves and seeds of Datura stramonium, was used medicinally. The alkaloid was known as daturine. From the seeds was made extractum stramonii. The tinctura stramonii was made from the leaves. Stramonium was used to relax the unstriped muscle of the bronchial tubes, and thus it was used to treat an asthmatic's bronchial spasm. Cigarettes were made of stramonium leaves which could be smoked; or the tincture was taken internally. Frequently the leaves were powdered together with equal quantities of the leaves of Cannabis and lobelia mixed with potassium nitrate, and were burned in an open dish. The preparation was reported to give off dense fumes which afforded great relief to the asthmatic paroxysm. Around the turn of the century numerous patent "cures" for asthma contained these ingredients in varying proportions. Daturine was also used to treat acute mania as hyoscyamine was said to produce sleep. Because of the dangers of tropane poisoning, datura is not used medicinally today, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined it to be unfit for human consumption.

References

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