Re: Datura or Brugmansia--Yes, very poisonous

Hullo Moira, Catherine and all

We have grown Datura stramonium and many other toxic plants here for years
and found that invariably, it is the adults that are a problem rather than
their children. Babes in arms of course will stick anything in their mouths
and it is remarkable how few parents will stop them seizing a bunch of
leaves as they carry them past lethal shrubs in spite of a large sign in the
entrance warning them against this. When the children become mobile,
prejudice against anything vegetable sinks in. This to the extent that when
we have had school parties round and I have tried to get the kids to taste
salads in an attempt to convince them that leaves aren't unpleasant things
that grow in plastic bags under the lights of a supermarket, they have
refused to touch them  But again, we have had parents who try and get
their offspring to fiddle with plants, chew them, stick their noses in them
(try doing that with rue and see what happens!)  without being aware of
their identity.  Any problems resulting from such stupidity would mean the
immediate withdrawal of insurance cover and the closure of the nursery.
Faced with adults ignoring  written warnings and behaving so irresponsibly,
I just tell them to go away; they would never spend enough to justify the
risk in having them on the place.Adolescents are no problem, they
seldom come here, we don't publicise the hallucinogenic properties of our
medicinals and the kind of teenager in search of easy thrills is too dumb to
recognise the raw material anyway. Caterers used to be the worst.: they will
bung any old thing in their mouths in search of new flavours to get the jump
on their competitors  but they have been so terrorised over the years by
Health and Safety inspectors, nut allergies and mad cows that even these are
few and far between these days. Children will rarely eat plants unless their
curiosity has been whetted by adults telling them not to, though I agree
that peer pressure in the form of dares is a very real problem. The local
education authority here has  tried to address this by including toxic
plants in school gardens on the grounds that "we can't teach children what
not to eat in abstract" but that requires an on-the-spot and undistracted
teacher to ensure the kids don't start playing Russian roulette behind the
bike sheds. However,  I doubt whether the teachers have the requisite
knowledge or the time to give adequate supervision.. Moreover, modern
children
are brainwashed with so many scare stories  that unless the warnings are
accompanied by lurid pictures and graphic descriptions of stomach pumps,
death throes etc, the kids will just think it all the more exciting to try
these things and the warnings will have done more harm than good.

So education good, ignorance generally OK, half an education,
a recipe for disaster.   This with the caveat that the educators should be
selected not merely for their botanical knowledge but also their common
sense. I attended a conference at Kew several years ago, called as the
result of a panic over vain people consuming Aristolochia in an attempt to
lose weight  and losing their kidney function instead. Here a Dutch academic
in all seriousness, advocated the destruction of all wild populations of
plants potentially harmful to humans. Now, more moronic, ill-considered and
totally blinkered suggestions might have escaped the cloud cuckoo land that
passes for Dutch academia, but I have yet to hear of any. Apart from losing
most of the world's medicinal herbs at a stroke, what would become of the
caterpillars that rely on these plants and what would be the consequences
further up the food chain for instance? The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam
should have been enough to teach the world a lesson. Obviously one could
spend all day enlarging on the theoretical consequences of such an action .


Incidentally I had a girl friend who used to take the odd Datura seed in gin
for migraine and toothache she said it worked brilliantly but it was scary,
like a train hurtling through a dark tunnel until she passed out. I had to
stop her doing it as the effects are cumulative and cardiotoxic. I always
believed it was one seed as a pain killer, three to completely knock oneself
out and any more to make the effects permanent , howeverone of my customers
proudly told me she had taken twelve in gin........but God, she looked it!
Anyway I have got a large coffee tin of the things for if and when the
cancer comes back, I would rather slip away surrounded by my own toxic
plants than the viruses and toxic dirt of a modern British hospital.
Meanwhile restaurateurs have been warned not to put holly with berries on
their Christmas puddings in case some total prat eats them and sues. So
happy Christmas everybody


Anthony




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony and Moira Ryan" <tomory@xtra.co.nz>
To: "Mediterannean Plants List" <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 8:17 AM
Subject: Re: Datura or Brugmansia--Yes, very poisonous


> Catherine Ratner wrote:
>  > Dear Moira,
>  >
>  > I think the best way to prevent children and young people from
>  > ingesting poisonous plants is to give them accurate information about
>  > such plants starting when the children are very young.
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