[ This was stolen off of the internet before the source could mysteriously
vanish, as happened to most of the rohypnol citations I have encountered. If
anyone has any citations about any potentially dangerous drugs which nobody
seems to have heard of, please notify me and I'll web-mount them quickly. ]

Richters Herbletter

Published by: Richters, Canada's Herb Specialists Goodwood, Ontario L0C 1A0, Canada Editor: Conrad Richter

Issue ID: 94/09/07 15:30 GMT

Content
1. Drug Derived from Herb Used to Rob or Rape Victims
Drug Derived from Herb Used to Rob or Rape Victims - TORONTO, Sept 7, Globe and Mail
Thousands of people in Colombia have been robbed or raped in the past two decades after being slipped the drug scopalamine. Often used as a treatment for motion sickness or Parkinson's disease, the drug -- known locally as 'burundanga' -- can render a person "disoriented and powerless to resist the criminal's orders," warns the U.S. State Department; some people have emptied their entire bank accounts for crooks. Burundanga can be blown in a victim's face or offered in chewing gum. Victims rarely remember their assailants. In rural Colombia, a tree that supplies the drug is grown in front yards, as a warning. [The anticholinergic tropane, scopolamine, is also found in the European herbs belladonna (Atropa belladonna), henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), mandrake (Mandragora officinarum), scopolia (Scopolia carniolica), and stramonium (Datura stramonium). All are members of the potato family, the Solanaceae. Scopolamine is an ingredient in over-the-counter sleeping pills like Sominex. The Colombian tree mentioned may be a species of the tree daturas of genus Brugmansia. These small trees are closely related to Datura and are widely used by aborigines from Colombia to Chile as ritualistic hallucinogens. Another possible candidate is the Solanaceaeous tree, Culera Borrachero (Methysticodendron amesianum), a Colombian tree with high concentrations of scopolamine and a history of use in divination, prophecy and witchcraft.
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