Lab Tests of Drugs Purchased Online Reveal Risks
Psychoactive herbs such as salvia and kratom may be legal in most states, but are they harmless? For every positive experience reported by someone who ingested a legal mushroom, smoked prickly poppy leaves, or drank ayahuasca tea, it's easy to find a horror story about the same substance.
"If you want to try this drug [datura], please consider what the effects of this on others will be...a $20,000 hospital bill…[a visit to a] ICU for days, a CAT scan, ambulance, and specialists. Please take warning," wrote someone identified only as Karrie in a comment on Erowid, a clearinghouse site for information on psychoactive drugs.
"Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's safe," says Dr. Ikhlas Khan, assistant director, National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR), at the University of Mississippi. Khan's lab checked all 19 sample products that PC World purchased online for this story to determine what they were, and chemically analyzed some of them to determine their potency.
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