In a disturbing new trend, teens across America are ditching common party drugs for easily accessible garden plant seeds like Hawaiian Baby Woodrose, Sleepy Grass, and Blue Morning Glory, which are believed to replicate the hallucinogenic effects of LSD. One of the main advantages of this move is that it’s very easy to get your hands on a packet of seeds from any garden store without raising suspicion.

Experts are now warning that the seeds mentioned contain LSA (lysergic acid amide), which is a hallucinogenic substance. They can easily put anyone on a high when swallowed whole or crushed and added to tea, affecting the user’s vision and sense of time. Extreme euphoria and extreme fatigue are the other symptoms involved. In extreme cases, consumption can also trigger flashbacks, psychotic episodes, vomiting, and overwhelming paranoia.

In fact, a number of teenagers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island were hospitalised last week with extreme psychotic reactions after ingesting garden flower seeds. Local police have issued warnings to parents, and Home Depot stores are pulling the seeds off their shelves.

According to Craig Mace, Police Chief at Seekonk, Massachusetts, this isn’t the first case of people using bizarre substances to get high. “We as human beings have a tendency to come up with different ways to become impaired, or however you want to describe it,” he said in a statement on the department’s Facebook page. “Here we have a natural product that’s intended for ornamental purposes, and somehow, someone figured out that it could create a hallucinogenic effect. Parents should know if their children are into planting flowers or not, so if they see these things in the household, the radar should be on, the red flag should go up.”

“Apparently, these seeds contain d-lysergic acid amide (LSA), which closely resembles LSD,” added Arlene F. Bosco, the Seekonk Superintendent of Public Schools. “Similarly, when ingested they can cause auditory and visual hallucinations, spatial and temporal distortion, introspection, and side effects such as nausea and vomiting. We are fortunate indeed that there were no serious outcomes.”

This is only the latest in a series of dangerous teen trends reported in the last few years. We previously wrote about crushed candy snorting, drinking hand sanitizer and vodka eyeballing.

Sources: Daily Mail, Turn to 10