Datura poisoning worries doctors

Press, 9 January 1986, Page 4

Datura poisoning worries doctors

PA Timaru Hospital authorities warned yesterday that it would be only a matter of time before someone died from experimenting with the poisonous juice of the datura plant. One Timaru teenager had already come close to death after an attempt to get high on the juice, they said.

He was recovering in Timaru Hospital after medical staff battled through Monday night to save him from respiratory arrest and to raise his blood pressure. The hospital’s superin-tendent-in-chief, Dr H. R. C. Benny, said the patient was one of six young people admitted to hospital in the last week after experimenting with the drug. “The problem has occurred before, but never to this extent,” he said.

One of the hospital’s consultant physicians, Dr J. C. Doran, has officially regis-

tered his concern at the level of datura abuse.

In a letter to Dr Benny, Dr Doran said that because of the mania and hallucinations induced by the drug, nurses, orderlies and the police had had to control patients physically. Those taking the drug should be made aware that medical treatment might not save them from death, he said.

Only a small amount could be lethal to some people. “It will be only a matter of time before someone dies, or is permanently mentally or physically disabled,” said Dr Doran.

The Timaru district medical officer of health, Dr K. F. X. Bourke, said the plant, datura Candida, also known as angel’s trumpet, was not prohibited. It was a member of the genus, datura, all of which were poisonous, containing alkaloids and hallucinogens.