Now, we're not knocking public schools in the slightest by relating this story. A student at San Jose's Overfelt High was sent to the principal's this Monday for her strange behavior. In the principal's office, she said she was feeling so hot she wanted to take all her clothes off. The principal determined she was "on some sort of drug," and had her sent to the hospital.
Investigations this week revealed that a number of students had been eating a plant growing in the yard of a guy who lived near the school, and that a middle school student had had similar experiences eating the same plant. Turned out the plant is locoweed, or jimsonweed, which causes hallucinations and feelings of euphoria. (Pictured above -- pretty, huh?) One teen in New Orleans who drank it tried to eat his arm, thinking it was a sandwich, and two others ran naked into someone's back yard to ask for spark plugs. The owner of the plant near Overfelt High has agreed to remove it from his property.
Now, folks, locoweed can be deadly (it's what killed that guy in Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild), so don't go and try and eat all the pretty flowers you see this weekend or anything. (You'll probably just end up eating irises or something anyways.)