Pubdate: Sat, 18 Sep 2004
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2004 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Chuck Carroll, Mercury News
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

S.J. GIRL INGESTED LOCOWEED, POLICE SAY

East S.J. Property Owner to Cut Down Drug Plant

An East San Jose property owner has agreed to remove a plant known as
locoweed from his property after at least one student got high on it,
according to police.

On Tuesday afternoon, a student at Overfelt High School began acting
strangely and looked ill after ingesting the hallucination-inducing
plant. After being sent to the principal's office for observation, she
grew increasingly irrational and incoherent, saying she was so hot she
wanted to take off her clothes, said Rick Abeyta, chief of safety and
security for the East Side Union High School District.

When a school liaison police officer arrived, he gave the girl a field
sobriety test and concluded she was on some sort of drug. She was sent
to a hospital.

When officer Dave Gonzales followed up the next day, "more than a
few" other students at the school told him the girl had ingested a
plant growing on a tree in a yard on Calview Avenue, a short distance
from the school, Abeyta said. Gonzales also learned that a student at
Fischer school, a middle school in the same general neighborhood, had
the same sort of experience after ingesting the same weed about six
months ago.

When school and police officials approached the property owner, he
said he had no idea that children were raiding the plant. Police said
he has agreed to cut down the tree on which the plant has been growing.

Officials have since identified the plant as Datura stramonium, which
has long been known for its powerful and unpredictable hallucinogenic
properties. Also known as jimson weed and locoweed, it can be smoked,
brewed in a tea or eaten. People and animals that ingest it can become
extremely agitated.

Abeyta said the East Side Union High School District was not planning
to warn parents and students about the weed because they consider the
recent incident to be "isolated."

"It's the first involvement of any of our students that we're aware
of," Abeyta said of the girl's experience. The Fischer school is in
the Alum Rock Union School District.

Last year, poison control centers in the United States received 151
calls about jimson weed, said Rose Ann Soloway, associate director of
the American Association of Poison Control Centers. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake