Medicinal Nightshades: Poison As Medicine

Taught by herbalist S.A. Lawless

Original class date: Sunday, January 18, 2026 at 2:00 pm EST

Take a deep dive into the use of medicinal nightshades throughout history and their contemporary uses in conventional medicine and systems of traditional herbal medicine. The nightshade plant family Solanaceae contains many famous edible and ornamental plants, but it also has some of the most important medicines in the world. This class will cover specific nightshade plants such as ashwagandha, belladonna, bittersweet nightshade, black nightshades, brugmansia, datura, henbane, mandrake, scopolia, and more as well as the Asian belladonnas (atropanthe and anisodus species) used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Medicinal nightshades are known as “low dose” herbs in herbalism. Low dose herbs are toxic and require much lower doses than standard herbs as well as the knowledge and experience to handle and dose them safely. In this online class you’ll learn about the history and folklore of nightshades, how poison can be such potent medicine, as well as the practical knowledge of plant identification, foraging, growing, harvesting, processing, storage, medicinal preparations, and botanical safety. This class is designed as an introduction and starting point to researching or working with medicinal nightshade plants and includes resources for further learning.

Please note this is a long class recording and is best listened to as a podcast while doing busywork.

Purchase includes access to a video recording of the class, all of the class notes including the Medicinal Nightshade Materia Medica, and a downloadable pdf resource list for further learning (includes seed sources). Download links are made available after checkout in the order browser window and via email. Order emails are automated, so please check your spam folder for your download links

Online Class Recording

Class Length: 2 hours, 48 minutes