A '60s Buzz Recycled

"These are bright kids. They are getting information and they are like, 'Ooh, I could do that,' " she said, adding that on the Internet, one site that talks about morning glories and other drugs has garnered a loyal following. "That's a one-stop shop for anything you want to know: how to beat your drug tests and testimony as to why everything is so great. Every kid in treatment knows about that Web site."

The fear among professionals, Ruff said, is not that a teenager will die from using morning glory seeds but that the teenager has chosen a lifestyle that could lead to use of more serious drugs.

"It's sad that there is something so not right that they need to go to these lengths to feel better," she said.

But drug abuse counselor George Swanberg said that kid will always exist: "That kid who will find something. He will find something under the sink or on a walk through the woods."

Swanberg, executive director of Life Line Counseling Center in Fairfax, said he hears sporadic reports of morning glory abuse. He believes, however, what he once read in the popular 1970s book "Licit and Illicit Drugs": The surest way to start an epidemic is to talk about a drug.

Jeff Davis, whose 16-year-old daughter knows of at least one boy in her Manassas high school who has tried morning glory seeds, said talking is the only way to stop the problem.

"I've never met a kid that is not more intelligent than their parents on the Internet," he said. "How can I prepare my kids for what they're going to face if I don't have a clue what they're facing?"

A few feet away, wearing all black on a sunny day, Matt Edelblute, 16, slouched with three friends on a bench near a skate park. Music from the punk band Morning Glory ripped through his headphones.

Without pause, Edelblute explained how the seeds are used. "You have to eat a lot of them," he said. "I know it lasts between six and eight hours." A friend of his had done it, he said, but he hasn't.

"I never felt I had enough time to sit there and eat 500 seeds," he explained.