A '60s Buzz Recycled

"We don't sell pocketknives to children under 16, but can I keep them from buying morning glory seeds?" Peterkin asked. "We struggle with this."

Owen Ryan, 23, who works at Meadows Farms Nursery in Falls Church, said he knows about the seeds because of incidents at the nursery. In particular, he remembered a teenage boy whom employees called Shaggy because he was a dead ringer for the scruffy-haired hippie in the "Scooby-Doo" cartoon.

"He would just come in and buy a few packs at a time," Ryan said. "I found out from a guy who used to work here what people were buying them for, other than planting.

"It was sort of a shock to us all," he said.

It is difficult to say how many teenagers in the area are using the springtime seeds as a drug. Since it is legal to buy them, there are no police reports to track. And law enforcement officials across the region said they weren't aware that the seeds produced effects similar to those produced by LSD. Neither were many substance abuse counselors or organizations charged with monitoring the drug industry.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, citing ignorance about the seeds, referred an inquiry to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, where a spokeswoman, Sara Rosario Wilson, said, "We really don't have enough information on it to make comments." She referred calls to Lloyd Johnston, a research professor at the University of Michigan and the principal investigator of Monitoring the Future, a study of drug abuse among adolescents.

Johnston spoke with well-researched authority about drugs ranging from cocaine to methamphetamines, but he, too, admitted ignorance when it came to morning glories.

"I am afraid kids are ahead of me in that case," he said, adding that drug trends emerge every decade. "Over time, the regulatory agencies and Congress begin to catch up with these things, but there's usually a pretty long lag."

The use of morning glory seeds as a recreational drug is just beginning to register nationally. After hearing in March about use among teenagers, the Ohio Early Warning Network issued an alert to school, health and law enforcement officials. Louisiana passed legislation that made morning glories and 38 other plants containing hallucinogenic compounds illegal when intended for human consumption. State Rep. Michael G. Strain (R), who proposed the legislation, said a number of youths had been hospitalized after abusing such plants. "Some tried to literally fly," he said.

Drug counselor Mary Ellen Ruff said she believes the issue has remained under the radar for several reasons: Drug tests don't detect such plants; they're legal; and their use appears to be an adolescent phenomenon that doesn't extend into adult drug use.

"It is more for kids that want to be druggies but aren't really," she said. "It is sort of them dipping their toe into the waters of drug use with something that is legal and easily accessible."

When she asked the adolescents she works with at the Inova Keller Center in Fairfax City about the seeds, she said, they explained nonchalantly how kids soak them in water and make a tea out of them.