by Amy Stewart
ILLEGAL
Opium Poppy
PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM
The opium poppy is the only Schedule II narcotic (defined as having a high potential for abuse but can still be prescribed) that you can order through a garden catalog, find at a nursery, buy in a floral arrangement, or enjoy in your own flower bed. While possession of opium poppy plants or poppy straw is strictly illegal, most local law enforcement officers will admit that they have bigger problems on their hands than a few pink or purple flowers in Grandma’s garden. Only the seeds of this plant are legal to possess, in recognition of the fact that they are a popular food ingredient.
FAMILY:
Papaveraceae
HABITAT:
Temperate climates, sun, rich garden soil
NATIVE TO:
Europe and western Asia
COMMON NAMES:
Breadseed poppy, peony poppy, Turkish poppy, “hens and chicks” poppy
Experienced gardeners have no trouble distinguishing the opium poppy from its non-narcotic cousins. The plant’s smooth, bluish green leaves; enormous pink, purple, white, or red petals; and fat blue-green seedpods give it away. When the flesh of freshly harvested seedpods is scored with a knife, a milky sap oozes out. That sap produces opium, which contains morphine, codeine, and other opiates used as painkillers.
Papaver somniferum has been cultivated in the Middle East since about 3400 BC. Homer’s Odyssey mentions an elixir called nepenthe that allowed Helen of Troy to forget her sorrows; many scholars believe that nepenthe was an opium-based drink. In 460 BC, Hippocrates championed opium as a painkiller. Records of its use as a recreational drug date back to the Middle Ages.
Homer’s Odyssey mentions an elixir called nepenthe that allowed Helen of Troy to forget her sorrows; many scholars believe that nepenthe was opium based.
It was combined with a few other ingredients and distributed as a medication called laudanum in the seventeenth century. Doctors extracted morphine from the plant in the early nineteenth century. But the drug company Bayer introduced the most popular extract in 1898 when it created a much more powerful drug from the poppy. The name it coined for its new product? Heroin. Bayer sold it as a cough syrup for children and adults, but it was only on the market for about ten years. Still, the drug-using crowd caught on and started taking heroin recreationally.
An alarming increase in heroin use led the U.S. government to clamp down, and by 1923 it was banned altogether. However, heroin use only continued to grow, and today 3.5 million Americans report having used the drug at some point in their lifetime. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 9.2 million people use heroin worldwide. Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the world’s opium, but users in the United States primarily get their fix from Colombia and Mexico.
Opium creates a feeling of euphoria but also depresses the respiratory system and can lead to coma and death. It interferes with endorphin receptors in the brain, making it difficult for addicts to make use of the brain’s natural painkillers. This is one of the reasons why withdrawal from heroin is so difficult. Addicts who are thrown into jail and forced to go cold turkey will sometimes throw themselves against the bars of their cell for a distraction from the intense muscle pain. Even tea made from the seeds and seed heads can be dangerous because the level of morphine varies widely from plant to plant: in 2003 a seventeen-year-old Californian died from an overdose of “natural” poppy tea.
It would take an annual harvest of at least ten thousand poppy plants to supply the typical heroin user for a year, but there are no exceptions under the law for gardeners who want to grow the flowers. In the mid-1990s, the DEA asked seed companies to stop selling the seed in their catalogs voluntarily, fearing that the availability of the seeds could contribute to domestic heroin production. Most seed companies ignored the request, and the flower continues to be popular among gardeners. The seeds used in baked goods are harmless in small quantities, but eating a couple of poppy seed muffins could cause a positive result on a drug test.
Meet the Relatives Other poppies include the Oriental poppy, Papaver orientale; the Shirley poppy or Flanders field poppy, P. rhoeas; and the Iceland poppy, P. nudicaule. The orange California poppy is not related; this native wildflower is Eschscholzia californica.
DANGEROUS
DREADFUL BOUQUET
On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot President James Garfield. His aim was not quite good enough to kill the president; Garfield lived for eleven weeks as doctors probed his internal organs with unsterilized instruments, searching for the bullet that was actually lodged near his spine. Guiteau tried to use this bit of medical malpractice in his bizarre, theatrical trial, claiming, “The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him.” Nonetheless, he was sentenced to die by hanging.
On the morning of his execution, his sister brought him a bouquet of flowers. Prison officials intercepted the bouquet and later discovered that there was enough arsenic tucked between the petals to kill several men. Although the sister. denied having poisoned her brother’s bouquet, it was well known that Guiteau feared the hangman’s noose and would have preferred to die some other way.
Was the arsenic necessary? With a little planning, Guiteau’s sister could have put together a bouquet of flowers that would do quite a bit of damage all by themselves.
LARKSPUR AND DELPHINIUM
Consolida ajacis, Delphinium spp.
Favored by flower lovers for their tall spires of pink, blue, lavender, or white blossoms and their fine, lacy foliage. The plants contain a poison similar to that found in a relative, aconite. The amount of toxins vary according to the species and the age of the plant, but a lethal dose would not be out of the question if someone ate enough of it.
LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY
Convallaria majalis
A spring-flowering plant with a heavenly fragrance, it contains a few different cardiac glycosides and can cause headache, nausea, cardiac symptoms, and even heart failure at high doses. The red berries the plant produces after it blooms are also toxic.
BLEEDING HEART
Dicentra spp.
A lovely, old-fashioned flower named for the shape of its blossoms, which resemble a heart with a drop of blood suspended from it. Bleeding hearts contain toxic alkaloids that could cause nausea, seizures, and respiratory problems.
SWEET PEA
Lathyrus odoratus
Resembles a normal pea vine, except that its flowers are larger, more colorful, and incredibly fragrant. All parts are mildly poisonous, but the young shoots and seedpods contain poisonous amino acids called lathyrogens. Sweet pea is one of a number of pea and vetch plants in the genus Lathyrus that can cause lathyrism, which brings on paralysis, weakness, and tremors.
TULIP
Tulipa spp.
Produces a highly irritating sap hazardous to horticultural workers. Touching the bulbs can irritate the skin, and workers in Holland’s bulb industry know that even the dry dust produced by the bulbs may bring on respiratory problems. A syndrome called tulip finger is an occupational hazard for florists who handle the plants all day. They can experience painful swelling, red rashes, and cracks in the skin.
Tulip bulbs have been mistaken for onions and eaten during times of famine in Holland—a bad idea since a dinner of tulip bulbs would bring on vomiting, breathing problems, and severe weakness.
HYACINTH
Hyacinthus orientalis
Also well known in the flower industry for causing “hyacinth itch” if the bulbs are handled with bare hands. Its sap can also irritate the skin.
ALSTROEMERIA OR PERUVIAN LILY
Alstroemeria spp.
Brings on the same kind of dermatitis as tulips and hyacinths. Cross-sensitivity can develop among these different varieties of flowers, making for a potent combination of painful skin problems.
CHRYSANTHEMUM
Chrysanthemum spp.
Blossoms have been used in teas and for medicinal purposes, but the plants can c
ause a severe allergic reaction. Some people may develop skin rashes, swollen eyes, and other symptoms. Certain species are used to produce pyrethrum, an organic insecticide.
Prison officials intercepted the bouquet and later discovered that there was enough arsenic tucked between the petals to kill several men.
ACONITE
Aconitum napellus
Aconite, or monkshood, is a popular garden flower that produces spires of blue or white blossoms similar to those of larkspur and delphinium. While they are beautiful in a bouquet, the poison contained in the plant is so deadly that it can paralyze the nerves and even kill. Florists should avoid handling the stems with their bare hands; even skin contact can bring on numbness and cardiac problems.
DANGEROUS
Peacock Flower
CAESALPINIA PULCHERRIMA
(SYN. POINCIANA UICHERRIMA)
The peacock flower plays a tragic role in the history of the slave trade. Tins beautiful tropical shrub, with its fine, lacy leaves and brilliant orange flowers that are irresistible to humming-birds, produces a seedpod whose poison was well known to women of the West Indies.
FAMILY:
Fabaceae
HABITAT:
Tropical and subtropical mountain slopes, lowland rain forest
NATIVE TO:
West Indies
COMMON NAMES:
Red bird of paradise, Barbados pride, ayoowiri, flos pavonis, tsjétti mandáru
Medical literature of the eighteenth century describes the attempts of slave women to end their pregnancies so that their children would not contribute to the wealth of a slave owner. This rebellion took many forms: some women sought medicine from the plantation doctor in the hopes that it would cause a miscarriage, but others relied on plants like the peacock flower. It was believed to help bring on menstruation, or “bring down the flowers,” as European doctors sometimes called it.
In 1705 botanical explorer Maria Sibylla Merian first described the ways in which West Indian slaves would use the plant as a form of resistance against their owners: “The Indians, who are not treated well by their Dutch masters, use the seeds [of this plant] to abort their children, so that their children will not become slaves like they are. The black slaves from Guinea and Angola have demanded to be well-treated, threatening to refuse to have children. In fact, they sometimes take their own lives because they are treated so badly, and because they believe they will be born again, free and living in their own land. They told me this themselves.”
“The Indians, who are not treated well by their Dutch masters, use the seeds [of the peacock flower] to abort their children, so that their children will not become slaves like they are.”
The peacock flower became a popular ornamental shrub among plant collectors in Europe. It flourishes throughout the southern United States, especially in Florida, Arizona, and California. In areas with mild winters, it can grow to twenty feet tall. The bark is covered with sharp prickles that make it difficult to handle. The red, yellow, or orange flowers bloom all summer, giving way in the fall to flat brown pods that contain the poisonous seeds.
The women of the West Indies hid their secret well: throughout its history as an ornamental shrub, very little has been mentioned in the botanical literature about the role it played in the lives of desperate slave women struggling against the terrible situation they found themselves in.
Meet the Relatives Caesalpinia includes about seventy species of tropical shrubs and small trees. C. gilliesii, also called bird of paradise shrub, is a popular ornamental in the Southwest. The tannin in its seeds makes it toxic, but most people recover from the poison’s severe gastrointestinal effects after twenty-four hours.
ILLEGAL
Peyote Cactus
LOPHOPHORE WILLIAMSII)
When Spanish missionaries arrived in the New World, they observed the ritual use of the peyote cactus (mescaline) by Native Americans and called it witchcraft. Conquistadores and colonists banned it and drove its use underground. Ironically, when white settlers objected to peyote use, it was usually expressed in terms of the harm it might inflict on Native Americans. This belief continued into the twentieth century. In 1923, the New York Times quoted one antipeyote crusader as saying that those who use peyote may be beyond help: “The alcoholic subject may by careful treatment escape physical and mental weakness, but the mescal[ine] fiend travels to absolute incompetency.”
FAMILY:
Cactaceae
HABITAT:
Desert, but prefers some humidity for seed germination
NATIVE TO:
Southwestern United States and Mexico
COMMON NAMES:
Peyote, buttons, mescaline, challóte, devil’s root, white mule
This diminutive, slow-growing cactus forms the shape of a button one to two inches across, with no spines. Left to its own devices, a small, white flower blooms on top of the cactus and then goes to seed. But don’t go looking for peyote gardens in the desert: overharvesting of the cactus has made the plant scarce in the Southwest.
The bitter, dried peyote buttons are either eaten or made into a tea. The initial effects can be quite terrifying and include anxiety, dizziness, headache, chills, extreme nausea, and vomiting. The hallucinations that follow have been described as an intense experience of bright colors, increased awareness of sounds, and clarity of thought. However, the experience of peyote intoxication can vary widely and has also been described as “a chemically induced model of mental illness.”
Use of the peyote cactus in Native American religious rituals has long been greeted with skepticism in the United States. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, a tireless advocate for food and drug safety in the early twentieth century, once complained to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that if the religious use of peyote is permitted, “we will have an alcohol church and a cocaine church and a tobacco church.” In 1990 the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Employment Division v. Smith that the First Amendment does not protect Native Americans who wish to use the drug in the practice of their religion. In response, Congress amended the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to allow the use of peyote in Native American religious ceremonies. For everyone else, mescaline is a Schedule I controlled substance, and possession is a felony.
Meet the Relatives Peyote is a member of the cactus family, which contains two to three thousand species. One relative is Lophophora diffusa, which has been shown to contain only traces of mescaline, along with other psychoactive components.
INTOXICATING
PSYCHEDELIC PLANTS
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is scarcely able to keep up with the public’s appetite for mind-altering plants. While some of these plants are not necessarily illegal, they are highly sought after among people looking for a “natural high.” Unfortunately, most people are not experts at plant identification and can’t be sure what they’re taking. Also, the level of active ingredient can vary from plant to plant and may even rise and fall throughout the day as weather conditions change. Here are just a few of the psychedelic plants making their way around the counterculture scene:
DIVINER’S SAGE
Salvia divinorum
A tender perennial sage native to Mexico that resembles many other garden sages. It has gained popularity on the Internet as an easy high. The leaves are smoked or chewed to produce a hallucinogenic effect, but many users report a short and frightening experience that’s not worth the effort. Although the plant isn’t included on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) list of controlled substances, the agency has identified it as an area of concern. Several states have outlawed it; it’s banned on most military bases; and some European countries have banned it as well. Unfortunately, news reports often fail to distinguish between this particular species and the many varieties of salvia that are popular in gardens and have no psychoactive effects.
SAN PEDRO CACTUS
Trichocereus pachanoi, syn. Echinopsis pachanoi
A columnar cactus with f
ew spines that grows throughout the Andes mountains, where it’s used in tribal ceremonies. Like peyote, the San Pedro cactus contains mescaline, but it’s not listed on the DEA’s controlled substance schedule. As a result, the plant is widely cultivated, but someone growing it with the intent of producing or distributing mescaline could risk prosecution. Another, less-documented cactus relative is Echinopsis lageniformis, called the penis cactus for its anatomically correct shape.
KRATOM
Mitragyna speciosa Korth
A Southeast Asian tree whose leaves are chewed as a stimulant in the same manner as coca or khat. At higher doses it delivers a mild euphoria and possible unpleasant side effects including nausea and constipation. Though not illegal in the United States, it’s been banned in Thailand, Australia, and a few other countries for its addictive qualities.
YOPO
Anadenanthera peregrine
A South American tree with long, brown seedpods. The seeds contain a psychoactive compound called bufotenine, which has been used as a snuff in the religious ceremonies of some indigenous tribes. The seeds are taken for their hallucinogenic effects, but they can also trigger seizures. Bufotenine is also secreted by certain species of toads. People actually lick toads in an attempt to get high, an act that could land them in the hospital with convulsions and heart problems.
