Wild Lettuce

Lactuca spp, the wild lettuce, spotted outside the clinic! This is a plant used primarily for sedation and pain relief in Western herbalism. The entire above-ground parts of the plant are harvested in peak summer and blended to extract every drop of bitter sap, then concentrated by evaporating out the liquid. The resulting extract, optionally preserved with alcohol, is sedative in small doses and pain-relieving in large doses, and even reportedly hallucinogenic/toxic in very large doses. Some people smoke the leaves for a stronger effect.