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[Ballard]

A friend linked me to an excellent 9-part documentary on what I believe to be the scariest fucking drug I've ever heard of. It's called burundanga in Colombia; it's also known as datura, scopolamine, or Devil's Breath. It looks exactly like cocaine, but an ounce of it is enough to kill 15-20 people. Administered correctly, it turns the victim into a virtual zombie. Countless stories are told of people who robbed their own houses, emptied their bank accounts, or allowed themselves to be raped while under the influence of the drug and had no memory of the events the next day. The burundanga plant thrives in forests all over Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador and even on sidewalks in city centers.

In other words, this is quite possibly the most frightening drug known to man.

http://www.vbs.tv/player.php?bctid=1119242704&bccl=MTExOTE3NDYwNF9fTkVXUw==

[thehollow]

I actually found out about this stuff awhile ago, from a lyric in a Murder by Death song about zombies that mentions datura. It knew it was pretty fucked up shit, but the stuff they talk about in this video is insane. I only watched a bit of it, I'll probably watch the rest tomorrow.

[KickThatBathProf]

"Columbia is essentially fucked"

nice

[ImRonBurgundy?]

In the United States it is called Jimson weed, Gypsum weed, Angel Trumpet, Hells Bells or more rarely Jamestown Weed; it got this name from the town of Jamestown, Virginia, where British soldiers were secretly or accidentally drugged with it, while attempting to suppress Bacon's Rebellion. They spent several days chasing feathers, making monkey faces, generally acting like lunatics, and indeed failed at their mission:

Some of the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebellion of Bacon (1676); 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.

In this frantic condition they 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. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after 11 days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed. – Robert Beverly, The History and Present State of Virginia, 1705

[dennis]

The documentary sounds like a lot of scaremongering mixed in with good information.

The datura and its active components are pretty well-documented in the medical literature and atropine and scopolamine are widely-used. I think the documentary is basically blowing up a couple of sensationalist stories.

I mean, scopolamine is what they put in motion-sickness patches.

(I'm watching it now and will amend my comments if necessary)

Ok, finished watching. I have been trying to find corroboration for the scopolamine-assisted crime stories in the VBS piece, but all I can find are articles that mention the VBS piece itself, or this article which seems to be the source material for nearly all of the content in the VBS piece. There is this article from the Overseas Security Advisory Council which mentions scopolamine being used to rob tourists, but it says that the drug "can render a victim unconscious for 24 hours or more" and not that it turns them into zombie puppets.

Also, I didn't find the interviews very convincing. The first scopolomine victim they interviewed remembered in detail his experience, even though they point out that scopolamine causes amnesia and none of the other victims interviewed remembered anything. The guy they found to get them scopolamine appeared to be high on something. Maybe it's just because I don't speak New World Spanish, but I also got the impression that the interviewees were embellishing their stories or just straight up acting. Everyone was well-spoken and fairly polished, as if they'd been practicing like Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs. Also, the video was mostly so badly lit that I couldn't see anything anyway.

[SeanBateman]

I know people who've done Datura, it ain't no shit.

[dennis]

I know people who've done Datura, it ain't no shit.

I am not saying that Datura is fucking around. I am saying that Vice Magazine is fucking around.

Not that it would be a revelation that Vice is journalistically irresponsible.

[Oli]

CAKE IS A MADE UP DRUG!

[ledhendrix]

" It effects the part of the brain known as the 'Shatners Bassoon' "

[Oli]

One young kiddie on Cake cried all the water out of his body. Just imagine how his mother felt. It's a fucking disgrace.

[Ballard]

The datura and its active components are pretty well-documented in the medical literature and atropine and scopolamine are widely-used. I think the documentary is basically blowing up a couple of sensationalist stories.

I mean, scopolamine is what they put in motion-sickness patches.

Yes, there are medical uses for scopolamine that have been heavily documented. It's not a crazy mystery drug. The scary thing here is that it is freely available in a country that is responsible for the production of over three fourths of the world's coke. It grows on the streets.

Furthermore, I'm sure what they put in the motion-sickness patches (as well as sleep-aids and asthma medicine until the FDA forced medicines known to be ineffective off the market) is a drastically weakened form of the drug. Even then, the dose of it in a patch is something like .33 milligrams. An ounce of the drug in the form showed in the documentary is about 29,000 milligrams.

In the United States it is called Jimson weed, Gypsum weed, Angel Trumpet, Hells Bells or more rarely Jamestown Weed; it got this name from the town of Jamestown, Virginia, where British soldiers were secretly or accidentally drugged with it, while attempting to suppress Bacon's Rebellion. They spent several days chasing feathers, making monkey faces, generally acting like lunatics, and indeed failed at their mission

It sounds to me like the soldiers ate of the fruit, or were given it. The effects of that are a days to weeks long trip. To the best of my knowledge, scopolamine only causes minor hallucination.

Fuck you Tommy.

[onewheelwizzard]

I knew that ingesting datura (jimsonweed) had extensive and unpleasant results ... blurry vision, hallucinations (of very unpleasant things), delirium, terrible dehydration, tripping for a week etc. ... but I didn't know you could extract a fucking mind control drug from it.  That is some fucked up shit.

Basically all the stories I've heard about datura are along the lines of "I was completely delirious, tripping balls but in a really really really bad way, for half a day, I got dehydrated as all hell, and my eyes didn't clear up for a week" ... and those tend to come from people who took the stuff out of curiosity (and did corresponding research into what a reasonable dosage would be).  I've heard about some pretty crazy hallucinations, too ... one report I read was from a guy who took the stuff while camping with buddies and at one point jumped up, grabbed the camp machete, and ran into the woods and fought orcs for 3 hours.  He said he was being chased by something the whole time.  Creepy shit.  Up until now, though, I've never heard of people extracting any specific chemical from the plant.  It's pretty goddamn terrifying to realize that there's actually a chemical in the world that allows you to make a person do what you want, willingly, no matter what.  I hope I never see it in my life.

[redglasscurls]

I know people who've attempted to trip on Jimson weed as well, most of them just ended up vomiting loads, feeling completely horrid, and getting their stomachs pumped. Never seemed really worth it, y'know?

[onewheelwizzard]

I checked Erowid and the first report I read summed it up really well.  It's a hell of a read and it'll definitely convince you never to do something as stupid as trip on datura.

http://erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=17700

[supersheep]

Man, if it's a drug that even Erowid tells you not to do, I'm out.

[SeanBateman]

Yes, there are medical uses for scopolamine that have been heavily documented. It's not a crazy mystery drug. The scary thing here is that it is freely available in a country that is responsible for the production of over three fourths of the world's coke. It grows on the streets.

It also grows on the streets in LA.

[Cartilage Head]

Well some people huff embalming fluid. And I don't mean PCP, I mean fo' real.

[Boro_Bandito]

don't mix worcestershire sauce with it though, really bad idea.

[morca007]

Man, if it's a drug that even Erowid tells you not to do, I'm out.

Quoted for truth.
People on Erowid even have occasional positive comments about meth.

[Slick]

Scopolamine used to be used as a truth serum in spy movies!
Also, pregnant mothers would sometimes opt to take it during labour; it would not numb the pain but they would not remember it. That sounds kind of creepy to me.
Both of these uses could fuck people up afterwards so they don't use it like that anymore (I hope).

[Ballard]

Problem with using it as a truth serum is, there's a fair bit of hallucination mixed in with any truths you tell as a result of ingesting it.

Yeah, the way the pregnancy thing was explained was weird. It doesn't stop the pain of childbirth- it just removes all memory of it.

[Inlander]

Maybe used by women wanting to have another child some time down the line, and not wanting to be put off by memories of the horrible pain?

[Hat]

So am I the only person here who's actually done this stuff? It's pretty fun. Ruined my short term vision for a few days though, couldn't focus on anything close to my face.

It was pretty nuts for a while. I was in the house alone for a while and people kept turning up wanting to party with me. Old friends I hadn't seen in years, total strangers, they were all welcome at my house. None of them were there of course. It was quite interesting to think about later, that this wasn't simply a hallucination, this was my mind creating a mundane scenario and convincing me it was completely real. When you hallucinate on other drugs theres  a certain element of detachment from the hallucination, knowing that its the chemical result of the drug, but this was just completely 100% real to my mind.

Later on I found out I'd actually taken a phone call from a friend of my parents, and spent five minutes literally talking gibberish to them until they hung up, thinking I was just being an idiot.

Also, massive cotton mouth. I actually spat out a burrito I was trying to eat. A BURRITO.

[Jooooosh]

Use of Datura brings on anticholinergic poisoning, the same thing youd get from an overdose of anti-histamines like diphenhydramine. Symptoms include:
    * Tachycardia
    * Hypothermia
    * Convulsions
    * Midriasis

[Boro_Bandito]

The use of this drug on someone else is sounding more and more to me like the cruelest practical joke in the world the more I read about it.

[Ballard]

Oh my god Phil.

[dennis]

The datura and its active components are pretty well-documented in the medical literature and atropine and scopolamine are widely-used. I think the documentary is basically blowing up a couple of sensationalist stories.

I mean, scopolamine is what they put in motion-sickness patches.

Yes, there are medical uses for scopolamine that have been heavily documented. It's not a crazy mystery drug. The scary thing here is that it is freely available in a country that is responsible for the production of over three fourths of the world's coke. It grows on the streets.

Why is that scary?

What is supposed to be scary in that VBS piece is that it's supposed to make people into easily manipulated zombies, with the further danger of easy overdose.

However, I am skeptical of the claims made in the VBS piece because: 1) There is no corroboration of the zombie thing that I can find via Google; 2) Everything I do find on scopolamine states that high doses make people unconscious and amnesic, not zombies; 3) if it were as effective as it's made out to be in the video, its use would be widespread--but for some reason, reports are limited to Colombia; 4) Reports of recreational datura use on sites like Erowid don't mention anything like the claims made in the video; 5) it's Vice. They're sensational.

Furthermore, I'm sure what they put in the motion-sickness patches (as well as sleep-aids and asthma medicine until the FDA forced medicines known to be ineffective off the market) is a drastically weakened form of the drug. Even then, the dose of it in a patch is something like .33 milligrams. An ounce of the drug in the form showed in the documentary is about 29,000 milligrams.

It's not "drastically weakened". It's the same chemical, the dose is just smaller. My point was that the effects of scopolamine are well-documented, and those documents really do not reflect the claims made in the video.

[Dimmukane]

It's also supposedly the one drug Jim Morrison couldn't handle. 

There are ridiculous amounts of stories on erowid, none of them good.  One guy almost put his niece in the freezer because he thought she was ice cream (an infant), all of them were talking to (supposedly) dead people, smoking cigarettes even though they didn't have a pack and had been non-smokers their entire lives.  I'm talking about Datura, not Scopolamine.

[Ballard]

I don't know 'bout you but I make baby ice cream all the time.

OMNOMNOMNOM

[Scandanavian War Machine]

i'm glad this thread exists. i was planning on making a thread about stupid drugs, now i don't have to.

i'd like to bring two ridiculous things to your attention. the other day my "friend" asked me this very question: "man...have you ever tried a joint...dipped in jet fuel?" he had a ridiculous name for it but i forgot it. i guess it gets you incredibly high...but that sounds like a bad idea.  (where do you even get jet fuel? espescially if you're a drugged out weirdo.)

also, have you guys heard about "sherm" ? (not sure how to spell it) i guess it's a problem amongst florida teens right now. basically, you piss and shit in a milk jug, put a balloon over the top, put it in a closet or something for a few days until the balloon fills with gas, then inhale said gas.

anyway, those are two of the stupidest things i've heard lately.

[Ballard]

Dude how the fuck would that even get you high? That is disgusting and possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Also how bad an idea is it to dip in JET FUEL an object you are going to hold in your hand and light on fire?

[Scandanavian War Machine]

that's what i'm saying. i tried to look those things up on the interent to see if other people actually do that shit or if it's just my dumb-shit, heroin addict friend, but i couldn't find anything on either of them.

[Ballard]

The term "embalming fluid" is often used to refer to the liquid PCP in which a cigarette or joint is dipped (a "sherm" or "dippy"), to be ingested through smoking. Smoking PCP is known as "getting wet." There is much confusion over the practice of dipping cigarettes in "embalming fluid" leading some to think that real embalming fluid may actually be used. This is a misconception that may cause serious health consequences beyond those of consuming PCP.

I'm assuming he just used another slang term for the same practice.

'Cause dude if he had actually dipped a joint in kerosene and lit it on fire, your dumb-shit heroin addict friend would either be dead or severely mutilated right now.

[thehollow]

but the video of it would be the most-watched thing on youtube.

[Dimmukane]

the shit and piss jug thing is supposed to be akin to huffing gasoline, except it leaves the worst taste in your mouth for several days.  And I think the name starts with a j...can't remember what, though.

[öde]

Jenkem!

[Johnny C]

(where do you even get jet fuel? espescially if you're a drugged out weirdo.)

You fill a paint can with regular petrol and use a permanent marker to write "JET FUEL" in capital letters on the side.

[Johnny C]

TOMMY: He Understands Principles.

[onewheelwizzard]

I think the difference between scopolamine effects as presented in the VICE video and the effects of datura itself can be ascribed to the fact that datura has many more chemicals in it than just scopolamine.  If you extract the scopolamine and use it exclusively in the fashion shown in the video, you get the effects shown in the video ... if you just take datura, there's so much going on in your system that you're just tripping really badly instead.  I have to admit that the testimonials in the video were pretty convincing (the police chief and professor interviews in specific), although it was VICE after all and I really should not allow myself to trust them without further research.

[öde]

it was typical to produce one of the bottles from nowhere, hold it above your head and let the water stream everywhere.

What? I think I need to try it to understand it.

[öde]

Oh, I thought you meant stream over your head or something cos you didn't say guzzling.

That is hilarious!

[onewheelwizzard]

Erowid just taught me that one of the methods of extracting datura alkaloids results in an oil that you spread on your genitals in order to take a dose.  It immediately occurred to me that if you are an enterprising and malicious man in the middle ages, you can very easily convince a woman that you are of demonic origin by doing precisely this immediately prior to having sex with her (or vice versa).  The power that could be gained from dosing someone with datura BY HAVING SEX WITH THEM would, at the very least, make for a very good piece of fiction (the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf comes to mind as a reference point).

[stella]

Are you sure you aren't an evil genius?

[jhocking]

As in, pretend to be guzzling vodka, like half a litre at a time. Since the neck was too wide for your mouth, you'd end up getting soaked but the point was it looked funny because it was a gigantic Vodka bottle.

aw I thought you meant splashing it around the room so it looks like you're gonna set the house on fire.

[Tom]

Erowid just taught me that one of the methods of extracting datura alkaloids results in an oil that you spread on your genitals in order to take a dose.  It immediately occurred to me that if you are an enterprising and malicious man in the middle ages, you can very easily convince a woman that you are of demonic origin by doing precisely this immediately prior to having sex with her (or vice versa).  The power that could be gained from dosing someone with datura BY HAVING SEX WITH THEM would, at the very least, make for a very good piece of fiction (the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf comes to mind as a reference point).

You sir, are absolutely brilliant.

[supersheep]

i'd like to bring two ridiculous things to your attention. the other day my "friend" asked me this very question: "man...have you ever tried a joint...dipped in jet fuel?" he had a ridiculous name for it but i forgot it. i guess it gets you incredibly high...but that sounds like a bad idea.  (where do you even get jet fuel? espescially if you're a drugged out weirdo.)

also, have you guys heard about "sherm" ? (not sure how to spell it) i guess it's a problem amongst florida teens right now. basically, you piss and shit in a milk jug, put a balloon over the top, put it in a closet or something for a few days until the balloon fills with gas, then inhale said gas.

Maybe the jet fuel thing is PCP, or possibly even formaldehyde? I mean, kerosene is kinda flammable after all... Also, wiki says sherm is another name for PCP. Just going on what I read.

Also, to be honest, I am not TOTALLY opposed to the idea of doing this stuff, just I would want a lot more experience with hallucinogens than I currently have.

[Boro_Bandito]

Demon Sex

See? See what I mean? Insanely bad practical jokes people! I'm not crazy, I swear.

[jeph]

This thread should be about Baby Dango.

   He haunts my thoughts!
      /
   

[onewheelwizzard]

Also, to be honest, I am not TOTALLY opposed to the idea of doing this stuff, just I would want a lot more experience with hallucinogens than I currently have.

I don't know, dude.  I mean, I have the same mindset in general, that is, about a lot of other things ... but really the only possible benefit from taking this stuff appears to be learning the lesson that taking that sort of attitude isn't always a good idea.  Finding out that something is a bad idea isn't a good enough reason for doing something if it looks like the only reason for doing it.

[supersheep]

Well, it's a fair bit off in the future if I do try it, there are so many less crazy things I'd like to try first, so maybe, maybe not. And not all the stories are bad. I'd definitely do far more research if I was thinking seriously about doing it, which really should be Rule Number One when it comes to mind-altering substances.