Beware the Devil's Breath

Remember in High School when you were applying for college and everyone and their mother would constantly berate you with the question, "Where are you going?".  Well, telling people I'm in the GPP minor feels very reminiscent.  After the initial "Where are you going?" (Peru), comes the "What are you doing?".  I often receive positive reactions, with people saying things such as "Oh, you're going to love it", "Cusco will be wonderful", "This is going to be an adventure", etc, etc, etc.

However, I recently received an unprecedented reaction that served as a firm wake up call to me.  Upon telling a complete stranger I was going to Peru, he warned me that Peru is home of the "world's scariest date rape drug" known as Devil's Breath.  It is a derivative of the solanaceous plant family, and the active drug is called scopolamine.  Devil's Breath is used to sedate victims, turning them into conscious docile zombies with bending wills.  Furthermore, there is a hallucinogenic component to scopolamine and you cannot store memories while under the influence of the drug.  It does not need to be orally ingested, and is often blown in the face or wiped on the skin.

Needless to say, this pretty much terrified me, especially after he added his own personal footnote of "primary targets of devil's breath are foreign college age females".  Well thanks stranger, have a great day yourself.

After this encounter, I did some personal online research about Devil's Breath and found a short documentary on the drug by Vice.  Turns out the drug is native to Columbia, but nearly everything else the stranger told me turned out to be true.  After watching the documentary, I learned two clear lessons.

1. Although Devil's Breath is actually native to Columbia, this stranger reinforced the idea that I need to be extremely cautious on my Practice Experience.  Having been previously met with reactions such as "Oh Peru? How nice" allowed me to romanticize my experience while the reality of the situation is that I am traveling alone to an unfamiliar country and need to use common sense and rationality while traveling.  Not everyone is a predator lurking in the shadows ready to sedate me with Devil's Breath, but not everyone is a trusted friend.

2.  While watching the documentary on Devil's Breath (I've included the link to part 2 in this post), they showed that most people using Devil's Breath were people in poverty.  People in Columbia using Devil's Breath on unsuspecting victims were using the drug due to their dire circumstances.  Most of the perpetrators were prostitutes robbing men.  In an interview, a prostitute seducing victims with Devil's Breath since age 15 quoted "I look at my life and see that I have nothing to gain or lose".  This prompts the notion that we cannot fully understand motives, and again reiterates the pernicious effects of poverty.


http://www.vice.com/en_uk/vice-news/colombian-devil-s-breath-2-of-2