Teenagers seeking a hallucinogenic high from the seeds of a poisonous weed that now is in bloom are landing in hospitals across the country, reports USA Today. Fall is prime time for jimson weed, a legal plant that can grow nearly anywhere. Police and hospitals have reported scattered outbreaks of jimson weed poisonings in California, Colorado, Indiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“Lunatic, crazy kids,” says Dodge County, Wis., Sheriff Todd Nehls, whose deputies picked up three hallucinating teenagers in October. “I can’t imagine what would possess them to start eating strange seeds from the pod of some plant that they read about on the Internet.” Poison centers last year recorded 975 incidents involving anti-cholinergic plants such as jimson weed, down from 1,058 in 2004, according to one count.
Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-01-jimson_x.htm