Edmond Teenagers Hospitalized After Ingesting Hallucinogenic Plant

EDMOND, Oklahoma -- Edmond police are warning parents of the dangers of plant growing wild in Oklahoma and popular for landscaping.

Two Edmond families are thankful their teenage sons are alive after the boys ate the toxic weed. They are now recovering at Children's Hospital.

The plant is called Jimson weed. Its street name is Moon Flower Seed or Locoweed. Teenagers are known to abuse it, but in most cases, the user ends up like these two boys, in the hospital.

"Horrible, this is a horrible reaction," Edmond Police Department Spokesperson Glynda Chu said. "He had a violent reaction to these seeds he ingested. He was hallucinating."

Chu is talking about a 14-year-old Edmond boy. She says he and a friend had searched the Internet about Jimson Weed a flowering bush that blooms during this time of the year.

"They had seen this information and they had it in their yard apparently and decided to try it," Chu said.

"The people I've talked to, I've said 'Would you do this again,' 'uh...no.' It's not a fun way to have fun," Director of the Oklahoma Poison Control Center Lee McGoodwin said.

McGoodwin has written a medical article about Jimson abuse.

"Mainly teenagers, mainly males that think they're harmless because they're natural," McGoodwin said. "They make teas or eat these seeds and then they don't realize what's going to happen next."

Besides hallucinating, users become hot, flushed and red. Their pupils become large, leaving them almost blind. They're dehydrated and unable to urinate.

"Now, we don't have any deaths reported to us, but deaths have occurred," McGoodwin said. "It's really not a pleasant experience. It's very dangerous."

After consuming the seeds, the mother of one of the Edmond boys noticed something was wrong and rushed her son to the hospital.

As for the other 14-year-old, he was found lying in a field near Mitch Park about eight hours after his mother reported him missing.

"We want people to know about this plant, and parent's talk to their kids about this plant, and know this could be potentially deadly," Chu said.

Police have not released the boys' names, but are expected to make a full recovery.

According to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics it is illegal to ingest the plant's seeds or sell them. However, there will not be a criminal investigation into the two 14-year-old boys.