Hacker News

Another is Kalmia latifolia, the mountain laurel, the state flower of Pennsylvania. According to records at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History [1], "Benjamin Smith Barton (an American botanist in the late 1700s) wrote that in the autumn and winter of the year 1790, many people died in Pennsylvania from the effects of wild honey, collected from Kalmia plants."

[1] https://carnegiemnh.org/collected-day-1959/

I know that West Virginia has entire Rhododendron forests. They are pretty awesome.

And yet we are only hearing of this now, whereas botulism risk for example is a widely known reason to avoid honey for infants.

It must end up being rare for some other reason.

I have a genuine fear that someone will stop me in the street one day, grab me by the shoulders and say

> You have to wake up. Please wake up. We're all here at your bedside waiting for you to wake up. Just wake up. We love you. Please.

And I'm convinced it's because of that episode.

That was you??

Most kids that are ingesting the devil's trumpet are doing so explicitly because they're chasing after the anticholinergic toxidrome and the badge of honor. "Safe" doses of nightshades like datura and belladonna dilate your pupils and make you sleepy. That's not what they're interested in the plant for.

Datura is fucking dangerous. Deliriants are no joke in general. That one in particular is really dangerous because it grows absolutely anywhere and is very easy to identify.

Source; chemistry was my favorite class in high school and college because it helped me understand how to extract what I wanted from plants like jimsonweed and Mimosa trees.

Also no one should do that.

Florida's manchineel tree (with the tiny apples) is the OG wood you don't burn because it blinds you.

That makes sense. We definitely weren’t going to eat random plants, but we could have easily accidentally grabbed some for firewood or kindling.

> If you maintain the pairing with the statement about the concentration in the honey varying, it's somewhat harder to argue that it is overblown.

Those are two separate worries connected by an "and". I'm not arguing worry #2 is overblown.

And it sounds like the problem of variance is that it isn't small. If one batch can be 5x as strong as another (made up number), then even a pretty good medicinal response curve leaves you vulnerable to that much variance.

Grayanotoxin is a neurotoxin with a lot of unpleasant side effects. It would make a terrible drug for high blood pressure.

because we already have actual medication that does that in a controllable and well-characterized way

There could be a case for doing it for people that will refuse anything but natural if it doesn't have other problems, assuming not synthesized, but there's a problem of funding the safety studies and standardization process if a patent is unlikely to result.

Good luck with that, doesn’t really seem like the kind of seller you can take to the FDA

> Many to many are born. For the superfluous ones the state was devised... The state, I call it, where all are poison-drinkers, the good and the bad: the state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad: the state, where the slow suicide of all—is called “life.”

But why would we poison our society by trying to protect these superfluous ones? They may not deserve death, but the more we eliminate the consequences of irresponsible actions, the more irresponsibly people can be and survive, thrive, and even rise to the throne.

I agree they don’t “deserve” to die, but someone comfortable with that level of risk management is quite hard to fully protect from themselves.

This article seems rather reckless. They admit that there is insufficient evidence to secure the safety of consuming ghost pipe, and go on to talk about creating an ethanol extraction (intended for consumption), without really explaining why one would extract with ethanol. I’m all for wild medicinal remedies but in 2026 we could take a slightly more scientific approach than a paper from 1889. Funny though, it grows in my back yard, perhaps I could find I way to study the full chemical composition. I do certainly lack the equipment however.

I suspect if you're buying mad honey that's collected wild on cliff faces and then imported from Nepal, it is likely pretty clear to whoever got it that it is special.

Maybe kid could accidentally get a hold of it, or other adults that didn't buy it. However, from the article (as far as I could get before the ads locked me out) there is a type that tends to have this happen to them (middle aged men IIRC). So it seems to be intentional.

There are no longer any reasonable people with the shift in demographics.

Then again, many reasonable people would avoid, rather than specifically seek to buy raw honey from India (or the vicinity).

Tobacco can make you really sick if ingested.

Anything distilled may contain methanol.

Mushrooms can be a different type than what’s on the label.

Fermented products may contain poisons from dangerous bacteria. If you’ve heard about entire churches full of people dying in South America from bad food, it most likely fermented corn.

Expired food products may be contaminated with bacteria. (Unless they canned, jarred, or too dry Etc.)

Fresh apples may contain enough pesticide to make you sick. Wipe them off with a paper towel before use if you’re not peeling them.

Yohimbine is popular for weightloss but its dangerous if not dosed correctly

* Sibutramine (weight loss medication)

* Suldenafil or tadalafil (ED medication)

* SARMS (steroids in general)

* Caffeine powder (another game of guess the dosage)

Escorts, ideally.

The dose makes the poison, or something like that.

- Sand (inhaled)

- Air (intravenous)

- Blood thinners or rat poison

Pre-workout supplements

Water (in the right dosage)

Token prices without cache.

Knife.

Taurine