Watching the news as I was going through my morning ritual this morning, they covered a story about the hallucinogenic effects of eating or otherwise ingesting the seeds of the Morning Glory plant. I remember this story from when I was a kid, but never paid much attention to it as fact or fiction. Apparently, it's fact, but the mere mention of this on the morning news show, with clear instructions as to how to obtain it and use it to get high seemed more than a little irresponsible to me.
Why not show a meth lab experiment from start to finish? I mean, most kids are savvy enough to figure this stuff out on their own, and the internet makes everything from running a meth lab to building a nuclear bomb seem like an 8th grade science experiment, but do we have to promote it on the morning news?
Jack Shafer's column in Slate this morning also brings a lot of criticism to the Washington Post article which generated the buzz in the first place and precipitated the morning news story. His point is that the article's author recycles this story as an amusing anecdote of a rekindled 60's pastime. In doing so, she ignores the fact that the drug has been widely used historically going back as far as the Aztecs and has never really disappeared from the drug culture.
Well, if it had disappeared, they've done a great job resurrecting it publicly. Way to go, Washington Post.
