208 Jimson Weed
hallucinations from recreational jimson weed usage. A few years earlier a sur-
vey of drug users in the South African military found about 3% to be using
jimson weed. U.S. military personnel have been known to “accidentally” inject
themselves with the jimson weed component atropine, on hand as a nerve gas
antidote but also able to create hallucinations.
Some jimson weed users describe sensations of flying, instant travel between
one city and another, and communication with plants and inanimate objects.
Although insects are a commonly reported visual hallucination from jimson
weed, one uncommon sensation is a feeling of crawling insects, reminiscent
of the “coke bugs” hallucination associated withcocaine. Jimson weed expe-
riences have sometimes been likened to those fromLSD, but reasons for that
comparison are unapparent from accounts given by users of those substances.
Both may be hallucinogens, but users relate very different observations. De-
scriptions of jimson weed experiences often have an ominous tone and lack
LSD qualities such as striking down barriers between senses (hearing colors,
seeing sounds). In keeping with an old but largely abandoned tradition of
medicine, an articulate medical journal author engaged in Datura self-
experimentation and produced a graphic account of interactions with charms
of nineteenth-century Paris and with horrors of twentieth-century monsters.
A witness later “told me that I fought the restraining devices so violently that
he thought every blood vessel in my face and neck would explode.”^2 The
researcher did not repeat the experiment.
Drug interactions.Not enough scientific information to report.
Cancer.The Ames test, a standard laboratory procedure that screens sub-
stances for carcinogenicity, indicates jimson weed seeds have potential for
causing cancer.
Pregnancy.Daturaplants are suspected of causing birth defects in farm an-
imals. Birth defects did not become more common in children of 450 pregnant
women who received the atropine component of jimson weed. The same lack
of effect on congenital abnormalities was observed in a similar number of
pregnancies after the women used the scopolamine component of jimson
weed, a finding consistent with a rodent study.
Additional information.Jimson weed is botanically classified as thestra-
moniumspecies of theDaturagenus. OtherDaturagenus plants around the
world are used for similar effects, but they are not jimson weed.
Additional scientific information may be found in:DiGiacomo, J.N. “Toxic Effect ofStramoniumSimulating LSD Trip.”Journal of the Amer-
ican Medical Association204 (1968): 265–66.
Gowdy, J.M. “StramoniumIntoxication: Review of Symptomatology in 212 Cases.”Jour-
nal of the American Medical Association221 (1972): 585–87.
Jacobs, K.W. “Asthmador: Legal Hallucinogen.”International Journal of the Addictions 9
(1974): 503–12.
Johnson, C.E. “Mystical Force of the Nightshade.”International Journal of Neuropsychi-
atry3 (1967): 268–75.
Keeler, M.H., and Kane, F.J., Jr. “The Use of Hyoscyamine as a Hallucinogen and
Intoxicant.”American Journal of Psychiatry124 (1967): 852–54.