Through a short film, three Psychoactive Pharmaceutical Investigation graduate students tell the tales of poisonous medicinal plants

By Logan Underwood

What if the delicate plant growing in your garden held the power to heal — or to kill?

This is the botanical paradox explored in “Murder, They Planted,” a short film created by graduate students in the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy’s Psychoactive Pharmaceutical Investigation (PPI) program. Through history, science, and storytelling, the film highlights the complexity of plants that can both save lives and take them.

“Here are these plants that are found in community landscapes, you can purchase the seed, you can grow them in your garden, and there’s no risk of going to jail,” says Thi Le (MS ‘24), the film’s director. “But they’re poisonous.”

For example, take the brightly colored purple and white foxglove plant — source of the modern drug digoxin, which is used to treat tuberculosis, edema, and irregular heartbeats. However, it’s also been linked to more than a dozen murders between the mid-1800s to the 1970s.

“If plants need not defend themselves from predators or environmental conditions, where would we obtain their precious phytochemicals that improve our lives?”
—Murder, They Planted

In the film, a host, played by Le, brings together personifications of some of the most famous murderous plants in history. In a ceremony, she recounts their deathly effects and stories of how the plants were used to cause harm.

This imaginative project was started by a simple class assignment from Professor of Social and Administrative Sciences Lucas Richert. Students in the PPI program were given the simple task to create a 10-minute presentation discussing the use of medicinal plants around the globe and throughout history.

However, Le and her classmates Kathy Phillips and Rose Bridges (MS ’23) chose to transform this project into something bigger and more entrancing than a simple presentation.

Personifying poisons

Inspired by real-life stories like the 1882 arrest of Dr. George Henry Lamson for murder by means of a cake laced with aconitine, Le set out to give poisonous plants a voice that could speak to the duality of their purpose.

Aconitine — a toxic compound found in the aconitum plant, also known as wolfsbane or monkshood — can cause heart arrythmia, neurotoxicity, and even death, as it did for Herbert John, Lamson’s brother-in-law. But at the same time, aconitine has been shown to inhibit the spread of breast and cervical cancer.

“In some cases, the villains are a necessary foundation for building up heroes,” Le says in the film. “If plants need not defend themselves from predators or environmental conditions, where would we obtain their precious phytochemicals that improve our lives?”

To create the film, Le soon paired up with Phillips, who had previous experience designing and creating sets and costumes for community theater. The two quickly formed a tight partnership.

They spent weeks brainstorming ideas. Le would think of words and images she wanted to feature, and Phillips quickly worked to bring the vision to life, pulling together the historical, modern, and macabre uses of medicinal plants. 

For example, while castor bean oil has many cosmetic uses, such as managing acne and reducing inflammation, ricin, made from the same plant, is highly toxic — even used in acts of terrorism. In 1978, as the film discusses, it was used to assassinate Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who was stabbed in the leg in public by a man carrying a modified umbrella, which placed a small ricin-coated pellet into Markov’s leg.

In perhaps the film’s oldest example, Socrates is executed for corruption of the young by conium — which comes from poison hemlock.

“Despite their mischief and menace, we cannot survive without some villains in this world,” the film claims.

Between vignettes describing the gruesome uses of these substances, the plants themselves get a voice, explaining their effects.

“It’s amazing how it happened,” says Phillips. “It’s almost like we channeled the film in a way.”

Le and Phillips recruited others to contribute to the project — including original music — and soon brought on Bridges, a fellow PPI student, to serve as an editor. As a remote student, Bridges thought her collaborative opportunities in the PPI program might be limited. But her connection with Le and Phillips proved the opposite.

“Originally I planned on working on another project by myself, as I live in Michigan and could not commute,” says Bridges. “But when Kathy and Thi posted in the class group forum that they would like someone to assist with video editing, I jumped in to help.”

Their film was complete by April 2022, and the trio hosted a screening of the film for friends, family, and contributors at the Marquee Cinema at Union South.

“It was a very humbling experience to be able to showcase the hard work of my teammates and community members,” says Le. “I remember watching the film and looking around the audience thinking, ‘Wow, this is real. We really brought to life the creative, visionary, and artistic energy from within us.’”

Phillips, too, felt empowered by the experience.

“It was so inspiring to see what a group of like-minded people could accomplish working together in a creative way to end up with a project that could educate others in an artful and amusing way,” she says.

Screening success

Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice Cody Wenthur, director of the PPI program, attended the screening and was blown away by the trifecta’s creativity. After the screening, he invited the group to show their film at the UW Psychedelic Symposium, which draws hundreds of attendees to discuss the cutting edge of research into psychoactive substances.

Phillips and Le attended the symposium to speak about the film before it played for the large audience. They were humbled by the positive response from the symposium attendees, as well as their classmates and professors.

“Watching their project start as an idea and turn into this well-executed film that captured their mastery of the course material was amazing,” says Ejura Salihu (PhD ’24), who was a teaching assistant for the course.

“Their projects were super unique,” says Richert. “I’m proud to be involved with students who have this type of creativity and willingness to work so hard.”
—Lucas Richert

Following the success of “Murder, They Planted,” the trifecta decided to create another film. The team created “Psychedelics of Future Past” for their psychedelic history course the following spring.

Inspired by the erasure of Indigenous communities’ contributions to the field throughout history, this film followed two podcasts hosts that travel through space and time to reconcile contributors to psychedelic sciences from the past, present, and future.

“Their projects were super unique,” says Richert. “I’m proud to be involved with students who have this type of creativity and willingness to work so hard.”

The next act

Today, Phillips is using her knowledge from the PPI program to research how setting and sensory input can alter the experience of psychedelic voyages. She recently worked with Wenthur — whose lab aims to develop new mental health therapeutics using opioids, dissociative hypnotics, psychedelics, and cannabinoids — to research the effect of exposing patients to artwork during psychedelic dosing.

“I feel it is important to seek ways to bridge the gaps between the strict sciences of research and academia with the grassroots depths of the humanities,” she says.

Bridges was also drawn to the PPI program for its unique research focus and innovative cohort.

Working in behavior health services with individuals with autism, Bridges is interested in researching how psychedelic therapies can reduce self-injurious behaviors in her patients. While Murder, They Planted deviated from her previous work, Bridges credits the film as motivation to reach out to more classmates in the program.

“I think the most valuable thing that I learned from both the project and the program overall was how to embrace new connections and open myself up to new opportunities,” she says.

Meanwhile, Le owns her own business as a horticultural business development consultant and is leveraging her filmmaking experience, taking part in a documentary team that gets invited by Indigenous communities all over the world to document their practices and resilience, particularly as it relates to mitigating the effects of climate change.

Le is grateful for the PPI program’s opportunity to stretch her creative legs — and for following her gut.

“This could have been a simple 10-minute PowerPoint presentation, as assigned,” she says. “But I’m so happy we didn’t listen to reason.”