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Datura: The Scariest Drug I've Ever Taken
These herbal cigarettes might cure your asthma but they'll blind you for three days in the process.
The first time I took LSD, it was like being thrown out of an airplane without a parachute only to discover that I’d always had the power of unassisted flight. It just came naturally to me; there were no bad trips. If the experience started out unpleasant, it didn’t stay that way for any length of time (or at least any length of time that I was conceptually aware of). As long as I embraced what was happening and stayed in the moment rather than fighting it, the possibilities were endless.
With magic mushrooms (my real weapon of choice, psychedelically speaking) it was even better. While an acid trip was vivid and comic-book sharp, mushrooms were more blurred and the colours more muted; like walking about in an ever-mutating, endlessly hilarious and profound impressionist painting.
But my experimentation with hallucinogens was never just some thoughtless necking of tabs or shrooms at house parties. I actually studied and read about psychedelics in great detail long before I ever embarked on physical experimentation. From Ken Kesey to Tom Wolfe, I devoured the literature.
From anthropological tracts on shamanism to detailed reading of Tim Leary’s experiments at Milbrook in the early 1960s, I understood all about context (or set and setting), and I embraced all sorts of shamanistic ideas about the sacramental nature of this kind of drug use. I could have gone on Mastermind with LSD as my specialist subject long before I ever got my pupils dilated to saucer-size.
It was never just about recreational diversion, even though it turned out to be massively enjoyable when I finally did get thrown out of that airplane. I was always curious about the different effects of different hallucinogens; from Fly Agaric toadstools to peyote buttons to the little psilocybin ‘pookies’ that grew in native Irish abundance every October, I read about and consumed them all.
I studied and read about psychedelics in great detail long before I ever embarked on physical experimentation.
But the only substance I ever happened on that scared the mother-loving bejesus out of me was Datura. A friend of mine at University had discovered a local pharmacy that was still selling a long-discontinued preparation known as Potter’s Asthmatic Cigarettes.
Now straight away, that’s counter-intuitive; who smokes to cure a life-threatening respiratory condition? But I guess they were simpler times….The active constituent in this dubious preparation was a herb or weed called Datura stramonium or Jimson Weed. It does have a number of more colourful monikers should you ever need to avoid it: devil’s trumpet, devil’s weed, locoweed, devil’s cucumber and hell’s bells.
Datura is not an hallucinogenic per se, it is a deleriant which is to say it blocks certain neurotransmitters in brain and creates an all-encompassing delirium. You remember those old scare stories that used to be told about taking acid? The old urban legends about people taking LSD, thinking they could fly and then walking out of third floor windows? (Of course if you’re on acid and you think you can fly then it’s not the acid that makes you jump out the window; it’s plain stupidity that makes you do it on the third floor instead of testing your theory first on the ground…)
But with devil’s weed, you really are so removed from reality, that the possibility of doing yourself a fatal mischief is all too real. Here’s what the US Department of Agriculture says: “Datura intoxication typically produces a complete inability to differentiate reality from fantasy (delirium, as contrasted to hallucination); hyperthermia; tachycardia (increased heart-rate); bizarre, and possibly violent behavior; and severe mydriasis (pupil dilation) with resultant painful photophobia that can last several days.” It has high enough levels of toxicity that it can also kill you if you’re not careful about the dosage.
Historically, Datura has had ceremonial and sacramental use in India and the Americas. Europeans have generally had a less than religious experience of the Devils trumpet. The name ‘Jimson weed’ for example is a corruption of the term ‘Jamestown weed’ which derives from its use and abuse in the 17th century English colony in Virginia.
With devil’s weed, you really are so removed from reality, that the possibility of doing yourself a fatal mischief is all too real.
An extract from ‘The History and Present State of Virginia, In Four Parts’ by Robert Beverley (1673-1722) should give some idea of how this weed’s effects are to be judged: “The plant, was gather’d for a boil’d salad, by some of the soldiers 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.”
So far so good, but there was a clear downside for the whacked out squaddies: “In this frantic condition the soldiers 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.”
And that’s about right…When myself and some of my braver colleagues had prepared our own broth by breaking up the ‘asthmatic’ ciggies into a teapot with some boiling water, the first thing we noticed was the awful taste and the powerfully astringent quality of our broth. It dried our mouths out very quickly leaving us with dark green tongues and blackened lips.
I wish I could give a more scientific account of my encounter with Jimson Weed but my memories of the experience are fragmented, disjointed and disconcerting with most of it seeming to take place on an inexplicably fog-strewn moor with shadowy faceless figures screaming at me from the periphery of my vision.
One of my unenhanced colleagues (the de facto control for our experiment) told me we went to a night-club and I narrowly avoided arrest after trying to attack someone on the dancefloor during a prolonged strobe-lit techno set.
One of my colleagues went blind for about three days afterwards and none of us felt too clever for about a week. The looks we were getting from strangers on the street were enough to tell us that the devil’s trumpet was not an instrument to be taken up lightly. Potters Asthmatic Cigarettes were taken out of retail circulation shortly afterwards, not that we ever went looking for them again…
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COMMENTS
You probably wear t shirts with cannabis leafs on them.Twatttt
Dude...duderino...your dudeness...why so like...hostile...?
shouldn't your foda be over your e?
Only if I'm deliberately misspelling my name. No, seriously, the fada lengthens the a...With a fada (or long mark) over the e, my name would be pronounced 'Shane', instead of being misspelled 'Shaun' or 'Shawn'. Is é seo, scéal fada na fada...(Tr: This is long story of the long marks)
By the way,no hostility mean't,its just that I spent the last month in Camden Town and as I'm not young any more and do not possess a whey hey hat,I felt like a fish out of water.
Yes, the famed Camden whey hey hat, cocked no doubt at a jaunty angle...Camden Lock is no country for old men...
That's because burning datura drastically reduces tropane alkaloid concentrations, and boiling does not at all. Hence smoking it would have been safe. Drinking tea is also safe when you know how, and it requires much less datura. BTW, I have asthma and use datura instead of the prescribed corticosteroids. It does wonders :)
I like Camden. More so the older I get. It's like an anti-mid life crisis. Far from wanting to re-capture my youth I delight in having nothing in common with the twats.
Good read that, Seán.. interesting, thanks..
informative nice thanks
You took a drug you were unfamiliar with and went to a nightclub? And you call yourself an introspective psychonaut? Fucking whatever.
nice read. datura seems to be the new up and coming fad. i woulda probly tried it had i not quit drugs 26 days ago. interesting how its a deliriant (theclub is right about going to a nightclub on an unfamiliar drug hahaha but it seems impossible to have ANY safety precautions with a drug that might make you bug out for days)
In the UK in the earlt 80's we used to get Potters Asthma Powder....... Make a brew with this stuff was wild(e). The trip was astonishingly real... It was a hold on to yer hats boys type of real......... Loved it at the time.... scares the shite outta me now though..
Really good and interesting read, thanks. Was never really a Tripper myself but was quite partial to Mushrooms when in season and there to be picked. At least you can regulate them as compared to Acid you cant!
Who goes to a nightclub on Datura?!
i have seen it all the heroin addicts of the sixties walking up my street and dumping a beautiful cay on our driveway that i called monty and he lived to his old age and one day i came home and he was gone,my sister had him put down in his old age.she is still looking over her shoulder, haha. anyway the y say then when you chase the dragon beware of the burning flame.
Me and a friend/housemate took Datura once at a 3rd friend's flat (we just ate the flowers raw) and then went to the pub round the corner, god knows why and drank beer. I somehow made it home (two trams, 8 kms), with my housemate I thought - I remember quite vividly walking down our street from the tram and having an intense conversation with him, but it turned out he never came home with me, he stayed behind - I'd hallucinated the whole conversation. I woke up the next day in my bed and there was mud all over my clothes. I must have stopped off somewhere on the way home and got dirty somehow (this was the inner city so I'm not quite sure how). My friend woke up the next morning in the carpark of the block of flats with no clothes on. Went back to the pub 3 days later for some takeaways and the owner took one look at me and yelled "Get the f**k out of here and never ever come back or I'm calling the police!!!" That really scared me. Never took it again. I was 20, you know how it is when you're 20.
I saw a plant with beautiful flowers in the drainage wash and thought they were so pretty I had to take a piece of the plant home so I could plant it's seeds in my yard ... that was last night. after some research I found out that they were moon flowers, also called datura. then I read your page about them. now I'm throwing them away! I have kids, one of them is 2 years old and likes to taste everything. another is 10 years old, she wanted to make the spiky seed balls into rings for her friends... the information you gave was very helpful and appreciated. .. THANK YOU!
I was going to use datura stramonium to commit suicide, how much would I need to take to top myself ?
Go see how its being used to intentionally cause brain damage by a group of Midewiwin to create "new" people according to The 7th Fire Prophecy
Go see how its being used to intentionally cause brain damage by a group of Midewiwin to create "new" people according to The 7th Fire Prophecy http://midewiwincrime.blogspot.com/2013/01/its-considered-perfect-crime.html
i have to agree with others, i think ur experience on Datura would have been better at home or a nice comfortable environment, if u had done more research with getting right dosage, and what to expect, and what types/levels of Alkaloids Datura contains, and how they affect the body, not just some ciggie u drunk. thx doof doof techno
Shayyyt
ok...i eated about 25..to 30 seeds...my mouth went dry ..i couldn't hardly swallow..my eyes were red...and i got some visual...i saw the rain falling...but it was fake ..and i could see like ..not real miskito or fly(i don't know) fly ..at random places ..very very bizarre..but the weird dry mouth effect is too horrible .
I say that account is 100% BS! This is my experience with Datura: I took some seed pods and boiled them, and then evaporated the water and got a very small pea size amount of resin. I sat for my friend who took it. And he just fell asleep after a short while, but then began crawling on the floor super slowly - like one tiny crawl every 30 minutes or so. Nearly the entire time, he was just on his hands and knees examining the plush carpet with his fingers, parting the strands as if he was seeing something deep within them. After a few hours of this, he did try to pee in the bathroom, and I felt a need to guide him a little, but ended up peeing into his pants in front of the toilet. I guided him to his bed to lay down, and he woke up the next day fine, except for dialated pupils, which he said lasted a day or two after. He reported absolutely zero memory. Anyway, I think these accounts are turned into much more far out accounts than actually occur. If people were so intoxicated to be hallucinating that bad, I doubt they would be roaming around cities. In my experience, this stuff puts you down, and while it is true that you may stumble dangerously (it is like a "sleepwalk") and you may do things like pee in your pants, or maybe mumble to people in your own mind, it's not so fantastical as almost all accounts I have read. And it is dangerous to under-rate or over-rate the actions of drugs - the safest thing is to be truthful and accurate. Nobody dosing on Datura is going to remember anything if they are hallucinating into other worlds. Just nonsense. It is potentially dangerous, it is never anything to do without a high degree of knowledge/experience/sitter, it can kill you, and it's not fun. That said, everybody has a natural right to experiences of nature.
> I was going to use datura stramonium to commit suicide, how much would I need to take to top myself? If you would trust an answer from a comment section, I wish someone would just tell you the truth :)
I had to come back to make clear that this is about Datura Stramonium, which may not be applicable to Brugmensia, Meteloides, and other varieties that contain other alkaloids (esp Meteloidine).
Probably the most freaky drug i ever did as well. Things you need for a successful trip: Babysitter, whatever you do, try to find one. Get out of town, city bad, big safe park good. Avoid knives, traffic, people. You will see peoole that are not there, accept that fact now. You may start thinking you are at work, if youre a cook, unplug the stove. You may not be able to talk or hold onto things. Mirrors turn into televisions and can keep you occupied for hours. This shit is not to be trifled with but a little preparation can be enjoyable.
We'll i have taken Datura many times! i've smoked it' eaten it! mixed with alcohol and cocaine! i didn't trip at all..all it gave me was a headache!
i say this is a great cover for the drug i went to a sound tribe show(ive been to many) the first time i ever experimented with datura and had a great time until i took the rest, i ended up vomiting uncontrollably and running into the streets of alpharetta telling people i would kill them, making a fool of myself. i made it back to my hotel thanks to my good friend only to continue making threats the police ended up being called only when they arrived i went nuts again and threatened to blow the whole alpharetta police force up i told them i was heavily armed with bombs and guns and kept shouting that i was the anti-christ? i ended up getting tased 4 times and that still didnt stop me i fought the cops until 5 of them subdued me, it was like i had a super strength. this stuff is highly dangerous and looking back on it i could of gotten killed many times that night. its easily the scariest night of my life it gives me chills just to think about it be careful what you buy and who you buy it from. im grateful to be alive today. im the same way abt my hallucinogenics and other drugs Sean i do extraneous research before i experiment ive tripped acid over 100 times and its one of my favorite drugs out there but nothing will ever compare to the nightmare that datura was. i havent been back to a concert neither have i tripped anything since. it made me so fearful that i checked into a drug-rehab. if you ever get hold of real datura you will know it guys i promise
Datura figures quite prominently in Clan of The Cave Bear, an awesome novel about Cro-Magnon girl raised by Neanderthals. That's right, ya heard me.
That's what drove me here, Larry. lol
Soo an anthropology professor told us a freaky story regarding datura once in a class about rituals/religions. Apparently my stupid university was freely growing the flowers all around, and some students thought it would be a fun idea to boil the flowers and make tea. They went to the bars in the square and waited for it to take effect. Well, apparently the girl (it was two guys and a girl) wanted to bail and go home early but she couldn't figure out how to use her phone and couldn't ask for a ride. Too incoherent, I'm assuming. She crawls back to her apartment from the square. It's a few miles to her place, I'm guessing, because she woke up in front of her complex COVERED in crusty blood and scraped her knees so bad she could swear she saw her own bone. And the guys... Oh, boy. Apparently one of them was just fine, except he got into a few fights. The other one allegedly flung himself into a cactus and stabbed himself in the dick. APPARENTLY. So, yeah, needless to say my professor told the university to get rid of those flowers and they did. The end.
The only time I ever tried it, me and a buddy boiled a hand full of leaves, then drank it, and ate the leaves(too much)... We just chilled for about an hour, and neither of us felt anything, so I leave to go home(about 12 blocks away), and I have no idea what happened from that point on, until I woke up in my own bed at home, I still had my clothes, but lost my shoes, and a set of juggling sticks I made.. lol The only thing i slightly remember about my walk was that when I would come to a curb, I would try to step onto it while still being 3-4ft away. For about two or three weeks after, my vision was jacked up, it was hard to focus, and nearly impossible to read anything. After doing some reading on it though, I think my friend, and I are lucky to be alive. I would love to try it again, under a more controlled dosage, and environment..
Nurseries sell the Datura as annuals. The plant comes in many colors, and are called "angel trumpets". The blooms are beautiful. Like many of the noxious plants, the Datura needs not to be sold commercialy.
This story wasn't BS! @Chad the reason u didn't get the full effect is because you guys boiled seed pods instead of the flowers. Me and two others made the tea, and i was talking to people that weren't there as well as searching for things I thought I could find by climbing under my bathroom sink. My girlfriend at the time recorded some of the stuff I did while under. It's such a long crazy story, but it consists of the same thing you guys were doing and much much more. I'll say I did attack a random guy on the streets, and barely (if not for my ex) dodged life in prison a number of time in various situations. My advice don't do it unless u have a babysitter for yourself, or u will end up in jail the next morning. Also there isn't any proper way to measure dosage, you can also go permanently blind. With that said....have a safe trip
Sounds fucking awesome see yas on the flip side datura up
Devil seeds was the first drug I've ever done, even before weed, alcohol or tobacco. ( Not quite drugs if you ask me but still classified as drugs) Anyways I was 14 years old and had skipped class with two friends. We headed to my friend's boyfriend's house which was a 10 minute walk directly west of our school on the same street. Upon going there he had offered us seeds, my friends happily accepted them but me never touching drugs in my life and before watching a friend smoke weed out of a bong and it being scary (I was a VERY timid person back then, mother was into drugs and with no knowledge of drugs every drug seemed equivalent to crack to me). My friend's boyfriend convinced me they were fine, just take about 8-10, chew them, build up saliva in your mouth, hell stick them under your tongue for a few minutes and suck on them like that then swallow them. I felt like if they could all do it no problem I should at least try, and I did everything he suggested in that order. We talked for a while then said goodbye to him and my two friends and I left back to school. We stopped at the park to let it kick in and laid on a hill to stare at the clouds and talk. The effects kicked in as we were laying there and I had seen clouds form into smiley faces. I couldn't help but smile back at them and laugh a bit. Silly clouds ! :) Guess they didn't like me laughing because cannon balls started falling thru them and I half ran, half rolled down the hill in a frantic attempt to avoid them. My friends followed after me claiming we forgot to go to school so we started walking. Mind you the school is a straight nearly 8 minute walk from the park so we start walking down the sidewalk. Things didn't feel right at all, I was paranoid, constantly looking at everything I couldn't keep my focus. I had gotten a very panicy urge to look behind me on the road and had seen a car driving towards us, well in my mind it was driving towards us to come hit us on the sidewalk !! So again I jumped onto a lady's grass to avoid getting run over. My friends must have been feeling the effects to but not as badly as I had. They picked me up and we continued to walk. My memory is blank completely to how I got to school or what happened on our walk. I ended up sitting in science class (Horrible idea to go to class high on devil seeds I don't advise it). We were watching a documentary on whales, and I could understand them ( I assume it was the narration I was hearing) so I started making loud whale noises in class thinking they could hear me and talk back to me. I QUICKLY got kicked out of class and sent to the office. I definitely wasn't going to deal with the principal so I found some of my other friends skipping class in the hallways by my class. They instantly knew something was wrong, and got me to walk with them back to their house so I could be babysat properly. I don't remember the walk to my friend's house, my memory really started cutting out at this point, but we ended up at my one friend's house. They sat me on the couch, and the pillow sitting up top of the couch fell on me. I felt an extremely sharp pain and dropped to the ground crying screaming "THE PILLOW IS BITING ME, ITS BITING ME". Of course being sober seeing and hearing that they thought it was funny but also felt bad... I told them I needed to get out of here badly. They wouldn't let me go by myself and my father would kill me if he ever seen me like that, which added to an anxiety feeling more and made me pace back and forth. I felt like I was running from one wall to another but really was only taking two steps each direction... They took me to the other person's house and there I sat on an ottoman with my legs held against my chest afraid to touch the floor, it felt so hot like lava... I don't remember much more but when it came time to go home my friend walked me as I was still very high and afraid of my dad. The moment walking through the door my dad yelled what is wrong with her, he knew. My friend still didn't know what exactly Devil Seeds were so he simply told me dad "Someone drugged her with acid omg I wanted to make sure she got home safe I didn't drug her though-" My dad cut him off and told him to leave. He tried to talk sternly to me and I looked at him and said "I'm tripping out so badly I can't handle this I'm gunna have a panic attack please talk when I'm sober" And went to my room and slept. The next day I felt VERY light waves of a body buzz almost, but mostly fine. All in all, it may have seemed like a bad trip, but its not the worst possible considering a very paranoid timid young girl weighing only 95lb and never touching a drug in her life was able to do them without doing anything TOO stupid... Gone on to smoking weed, salvia, done shrooms, xanax once, hydro once, morphine once, MDMA many times, cocaine, tobacco, alcohol, meth once and not sure if I've done other drugs can't think off the top of my head atm. Point is Devil seeds was definitely the most trippy of them visual wise, but I feel wasn't the worst drug I've done/you can do. Hope my story provides some insight to people or entertainment at the least lol !
My friends and I prepared a tea from the root. We carefully used only the middle area of the root, not the skin and not the core. We boiled the chunks in water and spooned out the froth that formed on the top which was supposed to be the lethal stuff. We had a babysitter. 3 of us drank about a half cup of the tea. The first thing that happened was the loss of language. I witnessed one of us babble before I myself could no longer understand or speak words. After that- 8 hours or so of no memory. Apparently bizarre behaviors. We were in a rural cabin, thank goodness. I experienced very strong hallucinations. I felt things in my hands that were not there. I saw creatures and scenes that did not exist. I could warp my vision by will after awhile, just thinking that a stump looked like a bear and then waiting would turn it into a bear. One poster mentioned mirrors turning into televisions, occupying users for hours. This is true! I spoke to a mirror for a very long time and was thrilled. The tripping stopped after about 24 hours. My vision was blurry for 3 days, I had the worst cotton mouth ever for about half that time. My stomach was sick for a week. I never tried it again because the smell of the tea would make me vomit immediately. I had been poisoned and my body rejected any subsequent exposure. I don't think anyone who values their life should try Datura. It is very dangerous. I'm glad I survived.
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