For even in Grandmother’s garden you’re apt to find datura and morning glories (the seeds of which some Indians consume as a sacramental hallucinogen) and opium poppies—right there, the makings of a witch’s flying ointment or apothecary’s tonic. The knowledge that once attended these powerful plants, however, has all but vanished. And as soon as this plant knowledge is restored to consciousness—as soon as, say, one forms the intention of slitting the head of an opium poppy to release its narcotic sap—so too must be its taboo. Curiously, growing Papaver somniferum in America is legal—unless,
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