They gave me what?

So one of the things I was thankful for during my north and southbound voyage over the drake was a transdermal patch that delivered medication into my bloodstream. This seems more effective than oral medication since you don't have to worry about "keeping it down." I had saved the wrapper from one of the little patches, as I wanted to lookup what this medication was all about when I arrived home, as I had never heard of it before. A little bit of research yielded some interesting facts.

Scopsinceolamine is the name of the drug. While on the boat, I had a chance to talk to an older Doctor who had stories of using the medication on pregnant women to help them through "a procedure," whatever that is supposed to mean. He said that the dosage that was used on them was significantly higher than what is delivered via the patch though, but it often yielded a room full of crazy howling women. The drug essentially plays with your nerves and how they handle acetocholine. I'm kind of surprised that something like that would help prevent nausia, but I'm certianly not a doctor. The only side effect I really had from it was a very dry mouth and throat. During my trip I witnessed others have worse reactions. Some had blurry, vision, and mild halucinations, others had memory loss and disorientation. This is what made me extra curious about this stuff. I was surprised an EMT could have standing orders to just pass this stuff out after reading some information to you.

A little further research led me to find out that this same stuff comes from a plant family thats known to be poisonous. The Datura. Mainly the roots and seed pods are used from the plant to make the drugs. More amusingly, my wife grew these things in our backyard, back in Pennsylvania. If I only knew the potential! Just kidding. Apparently Scopolamine is also used as a drug designed soley for criminal intent, mostly in Colombia, as at the right concentration it can cause its "user" to agree to others suggestions without resistance.

Further looking around at this stuff lead me to a video segment that is produced by and can be viewed at vbs.tv. The show is called "Colombian Devil's Breath." Please be aware that the stuff on vbs.tv often has a fair amount of "adult" language on it, and probably isn't suitable for all family members to view :) Its kind of ashame, since a lot of the stuff on vbs.tv has a documentary kind of nature to it. They also have a series on the big mass of plastic garbage in the middle of the pacific that I thought was quite interesting (and they also showed someone using "the patch, on that). Essentially though, I'm really amused that this drug doesn't seem to be more controlled than it is, considering what the film segmant had to say. Granted, the oral or transdermal routes of the medication take quite a bit longer for the effect to take (3 hours for the patch).

I imagine a lot of the worlds drugs probably have similar stories, but it was fun just kind of fleshing this one out.