Nov 15, 2007 12:01 am US/Eastern
Kids Brewing Ancient Herb For A Dangerous High
BOSTON (CBS) ―
-
-
Kids are now turning to the ancient herb kava to get high.
CBS
It's been around for centuries but an herb native to the South Pacific is growing in popularity among young people.
Some kids are turning kava, an ancient stress reliever, into a legal high.
Jocelyn Jones, of Allston, Mass. knows all about kava. She worked on a farm in Hawaii that grows the plant.
"It's a social thing," she said. "It's kind of like drinking alcohol."
When harvested, the root is ground into a powder that is then mixed with water into a drink.
"It makes you feel good," Jones said. "It makes you feel like there's nothing really in the world that you have to worry about."
"It inhibits anxiety, worries and fears," said Dr. John Kelly.
Dr. Kelly, of Massachusetts General Hospital, said clinical studies have shown kava can relieve stress and anxiety.
"It does help people," he said.
Here's the problem. Some young people are taking an ancient island custom to the extreme. There are clips all over You Tube showing young people drinking mass quantities of kava.
CBS station WBZ-TV in Boston talked to dozens of college kids about kava and found a few who said they had tried it but only one would talk about it on camera.
"It would make me a little loopy," one girl said. "Just a little slow kind of."
Anyone can buy kava legally in the U.S. The $30 bag we ordered from Hawaii says "not for use by anyone under 18" but the Web site never asked for an age.
The bag does have a warning that says, "Excessive consumption may impair ability to operate heavy equipment."
"With any psychoactive substance that makes you feel sleepy or dopey -- you shouldn't drive with it," Kelly said. "You shouldn't operate machinery. You shouldn't do things where you need your faculty about you."
In California, prosecutors have charged some people with DUI after too much kava.
But getting drunk on kava isn't the only danger. It's been banned in Canada and several European countries because it's been linked to serious liver problems.
"Some people have had to have liver transplants as a result," Kelly said. "Those cases are few and far between. Never-the-less, we can't accurately predict who will respond that way and who will not."
It's a big risk for a brief high.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about kava's potentially toxic effects but the herb remains legal.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Click to enlarge
Gov. Rendell Presents $29B Spending Plan 50 mins ago
Stumble It!
Comments