Poisons, medicines, gardens and treatments
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Dr. Dayne Laskey’s research delves into the very things that can cure or kill us
By Roger Desmond
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Be careful before you bite into that freshly foraged mushroom. If you’re lucky, according to Dr. Dayne Laskey, you’ll wind up in the hospital during his shift. If not, it could be your last meal.
Dayne Laskey, PharmD, DABAT (Diplomate of the American Board of Applied Toxicology) is a professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Saint Joseph. The pharmacist and clinical toxicologist sees patients at Hartford Hospital, where he diagnoses and treats poison victims and threats from medicines, plants, chemicals, and toxic exposures at work. He teaches and conducts research on these and other topics at USJ.
Laskey is also the founder and curator of the University of Saint Joseph Medicine Garden at Elizabeth Park, which houses more than 30 species of medicinal plants, many of which have contributed directly to the development of modern pharmaceuticals.
Laskey’s interest in plants is central to his work with toxins and medicines that emerge from nature, not from a laboratory. In the Medicine Garden, some of the plants are not only used for healing; they are also poisons depending on certain conditions.
“The reason why we study poisons is that they can become medicines,” he said. “One example is the Yew tree, most of which is toxic, but it gives us paclitaxel and docitaxel, both very useful in treating cancer.
“Sweet clover, if used with caution, is an effective anti-inflammatory.
“The bark of the willow tree yielded aspirin.”
But “that same plant can be toxic, therapeutic, or both, depending on dose and preparation.”
“Some drugs that we think of as medicines can be quite toxic,” he added. “Insulin is a high-risk medication. Millions of people with diabetes take it every day but it can be dangerous in an overdose. When used to treat an overdose of beta blockers, however, in very high doses it can be an effective antidote.”
Laskey also provided an example of how animals provide helpful substances. The Gila Monster, the reptile that dwells in the Southwest U.S and Mexico, can inflict venom which can cause severe pain, but not death. According to the professor, “the venom has the components that mimic GLP-1. After further study it was approved for use in humans. A lizard gave us Ozempic.”
The issue of the need for research on plant medicines is something Laskey stresses. Just because an herb has been used for centuries to heal, popular ideas are not science.
“The dose makes the poison. All substances, even water, are toxic to the body at the wrong dose. Folk remedies can be difficult to dose correctly (does this sprig of plant matter contain the same active alkaloids as that sprig?). The FDA does not regulate herbal products, so contamination and adulteration are issues with many over-the-counter products. Finally, harm might occur if a person foregoes effective treatment for unproven alternatives.”
Laskey spends a good deal of his week at Hartford Hospital where he works with physicians to consult and advise on cases involving overdoses or accidental cases of mistakes people make in a drug they are taking and other situations where an antidote or some other treatment is called for. Some cases are people who may have eaten toxic mushrooms, have been injured by firearms, or have experienced some other kind of trauma. Others might be patients who simply overdosed on prescription medicines.
Laskey argues with the popular notion that marijuana is a benign drug. “The recent strength of some cannabis is 30% THC or more. That’s many times the strength of what people smoked at Woodstock several decades ago. But we have observed that rubbing strong capsaicin (the substance that represents the heat in hot peppers) on the stomach of people who come to the emergency room with symptoms of cannabis overdose is effective in some cases. Of course we need more research on how that works.”
Of all the drugs he studies and treats Laskey says that opiates are the largest killer of people in Connecticut and elsewhere. He sums up the issue with a shocking fact: “More than firearms or accidents, opiates kill more people in Connecticut that any other drugs.” Nearly 1000 people died of opiates in 2024 in Connecticut, much of it due to the synthetic opiate fentanyl. While heroin has historically been the preferred substance, a lot of it has been contaminated by the stronger fentanyl.
He is also concerned about synthetic drugs. These substances are often formulated in Asia or other countries to provide a “high” for users who are looking for the latest marijuana substitute. “These are available to anyone, and young people can buy them at the gas station or elsewhere since they aren’t regulated,” he said.
One of the early examples was a substance titled K-2 or Spice. The drug is sprayed on a plant material to resemble marijuana and when smoked may bring on symptoms of severe vomiting, kidney problems, psychosis or death.
He points to a mass overdose of K-2 in New Haven in 2018. A crowd of mostly adolescents and young adults on the New Haven Green were treated for an overdose of K2. After 36 hours, 116 people had been treated without any deaths reported. According to Laskey, “the reason that there were so many is that some of the people who were treated returned later to be treated for a second overdose because they used again!”
Laskey has a great deal to say about people who base their decisions about the need for science on folk tales and advertising. “In the current era, we are seeing a rise in science skepticism, distrust of institutions, and growth of "do your own research" culture. I think everyone should learn the hallmarks of pseudoscience to better distinguish real science from bad science.”
One example? “Beware of an ‘expert’ who goes directly to the public (rather than to a scientific journal) professing a high degree of certainty, with technobabble, exaggerated/fantastical claims, and claims of conspiracy to suppress ideas. This is not to say scientists always have the answers, but the solution to poor, incomplete, or bad science is better science.”
Like so many people, Laskey is not sure about the use of artificial intelligence in the future of future medications and plant science.
“New treatments may emerge; or it might swallow everything,” he said. WHL