BEAUTIFUL BLOSSOM DEVILISH ON HUMANS

Schofield Barracks bans the beautiful blossoms.

Emergency room doctors have stories about patients who have experienced
its devilish highs.

Now parents in Kailua are taking notice of a pretty plant that carries a
potent punch.

They say the Brugmansia species plant commonly called Angel's Trumpet,
known for its long, white or salmon bell-shaped flowers that face the
ground, is angelic in name only.

A 15-year-old Kalaheo High School student ended up in the Castle Medical
Center emergency room last week after experimenting with the drug-like
flower. The toxic effects made him so sick he was hallucinating, out of
control and later embarrassed by an experience he doesn't remember.

"I'm just trying to help other parents," said his mother, who asked not
to be named to protect her son's identity. "It's a poison. It's not like
you have to buy it from a dealer. You just pluck it from a tree. But it
doesn't seem to be a fun high."

The high of what Hawaiians call Nana honua, meaning "earth-gazing," is
an agonizing one, said Craig Thomas, a Castle emergency room physician
and an author of last year's book "Poisonous Plants of Paradise," which
has a picture of Angel's Trumpet on its cover.

"It cannot be fun, and what's more, they don't remember it," Thomas
said. "I guess if the word 'dangerous' doesn't turn people off, it's
'horrible.' You are disconnected from reality. You are seeing things
that aren't there, and they're not nice."

Thomas once treated a high school science teacher who ate a couple of
blossoms out of curiosity when he picked some up during an evening walk.
The teacher and his wife, who took him to the emergency room, came to
regret the experiment, Thomas said.

The Hawaii Poison Center handles at least a few calls a year from people
experiencing the ill effects of the plant.

"We are well aware of its toxicity," said Val Leverenz, a nurse who
answers poison center calls. "A couple weeks ago, we got a call from a
guy who made tea out of the leaves."

The tea time was followed by a trip to the emergency room because of his
hallucinations and blurry vision, she said.

Simply put: "It's not to get you high. It makes you nuts," said Heidi
Bornhorst, director of the city's five botanical gardens. "Plant poisons
are among the most dangerous poisons."

Shirley Gerum, a botany professor at Chaminade University of Honolulu,
has been known to stop her car and get out just to get a closer look at
Angel's Trumpet trees.

It has nothing to do with admiration. She stops to knock on doors or
leave notes to warn people of their dangers.

Gerum once had to go to the hospital after accidentally touching a
flower and experiencing a bad allergic reaction after touching her eye.
She said she sometimes gets headaches when she transports the Angel's
Trumpet in her car for show-and-tell for her poisonous plants class.

"To me, it's one of the most dangerous plants and one of the most
beautiful plants on the island," she said.

The plant is similar to Jimson Weed, which was a drug fad on the
Mainland a few years ago, she said. But she recommends that people rid
their yards of Angel's Trumpet.

Schofield Barracks banned the flower from yards on its Army base in
1996, after soldiers had used flowers on base to get high. A clinical
investigation written by a Tripler Army Medical Center doctor described
what a bad high it was: One 19-year-old soldier brewed tea from the
plant and then began suffering from emotional swings, poor coordination,
disorientation and hallucinations about propeller blades.

Botanists warn that the pretty plant is nothing to play around with. It
was linked to the 1982 death of a 50-year-old Nanakuli man, Nauga Savini
Sr., who collapsed after drinking the juice of the plant in a concoction
intended to treat abdominal pain.

While the plant has a history of being dried and smoked by asthma
sufferers, it is too risky for experimentation, said David Duffy, a
University of Hawai'i botany professor.

"It's sort of like Morning Glory on steroids. In the '60s, people
experimented with that," said Duffy, who works near Sherman Laboratory,
where Angel's Trumpet grows. "This is just way too powerful. It's like a
12-foot wave instead of a one-footer. It's not a hallucinogen. It's a
poison. Things can really go wrong. You can overdo it far more easily
than you can achieve what you want."

Kalaheo High School is handling the case of the boys with the bad high
as a disciplinary matter. While Angel's Trumpet is not an illegal
substance, the school follows the Department of Education's
zero-tolerance policy regarding being under the influence of any
dangerous substance.

Honolulu police have talked to the parents involved, but school
administrators don't plan to change any rules regarding the flower.

"We really aren't police, and we aren't judges in school. We're
parents," said Pamela Bond, Kalaheo's vice principal. "We use common
sense. We tell little kids: 'Don't put stuff in your mouth.' We don't
tell the big kids: 'Don't put stuff in your mouth.' We think they should
know better."

At Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist association on Pali Highway in
Nu'uanu, Henry Miyamoto trims the Angel's Trumpet trees back as far as
he can. He doesn't like it when the branches hang over a nearby bus stop
bench.

"Those kids, if that's what they're doing, they're crazy," he said. "We
know the potential of it, so we try to keep an eye on this stuff as much
as possible. But it is a beautiful flower. We tell people: 'Just look at
it.' "