OREM, Utah (ABC 4 News) - A startled homeowner got a visit from Orem Police Tuesday afternoon. They were interested in a plant that he was growing by his mailbox in the front yard. They were so interested that they put a call into Homeland Security. No, it wasn’t marijuana. It was a castor bean plant.
Castor beans themselves are poisonous and are used in the manufacture of the super-deadly poison, Ricin. They are also used to make something as innocent as castor oil.
Lincoln Fuqua is a master gardener who grew a castor bean plant in his front yard for nostalgia. Born and raised in Kentucky, he was surrounded by castor bean plants. Fuqua remembers, “I used to chew on them as a kid.”
And when he saw the castor bean seeds this spring at his favorite nursery in Orem, he remembers snapping some up and thinking, “Hey, I’m going to grow some this year because they’re beautiful.”
Fuqua has a background in chemistry and is well aware that terrorists have used them to make Ricin. But he never dreamed that someone would think that he might be a terrorist.
He says with a laugh, “I’m not a terrorist, but I was terribly frightened when the call came in. I was terrorized (for) my humble little plant that’s over there in the corner.”
Orem police have not given us their verdict on the castor bean plant, but it is not illegal. In fact, only the District of Columbia “strongly discourages” the sale of castor bean seeds. And ABC 4 could not find any contemporary effort to either restrict or ban the plant.
