Raise a drink to the kudzu plant

"I creep like the kudzu vines that are slowly but surely strangling our Dixie."

-- Gilbert Dauterive, King of the Hill, "A Beer Can Named Desire"

Driving on US Highway 70 between Dickson and McEwen, TN, motorists pass several mile/two-mile-long stretches of landscape wherein kudzu is clinging to everything in sight: the ground, trees, fences, power lines, long-abandoned farm equipment, etc. Turn onto any highway, byway, or backroad in the South and you likely won't have to travel very far before you encounter similar kudzu-is-everywhere scenes. You might even mutter to yourself, "The person who coined the phrase 'grows like kudzu' knew exactly what in the **** he/she was talkin' about."

Indigenous to Japan and China, kudzu was first introduced into the United States as an ornamental plant in the late 1800s. In 1935, the Roosevelt Administration began encouraging farmers and the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion. It didn't take long, however, before it was discovered that the Southeastern U.S. enjoys near-perfect weather conditions -- hot, humid summers, year-round rainfall, temperate winters -- for kudzu to grow out of control. By 1953, the United States Department of Agriculture was identifying kudzu as a "pest weed."

Southerners have cursed kudzu for years thinking that it had not a single practical use. Well, the cursing days could soon come to an end. According to researchers at a Boston-area hospital, kudzu may be useful for something after all:

"Kudos to kudzu, the Japanese vine that was imported to curb erosion in the Southern US – besides its soil clinging ability it may also be used to curb excessive boozing, binging, and maybe even alcoholism.

"Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital's Behavioural Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory has found evidence that a hormone derived from kudzu can reduce alcohol consumption in drinkers by as much as half by speeding up the effects of boozing.

"The study found that moderate to heavy drinkers who were given pills containing an oestrogen extracted from kudzu drank as much as 50% less than the placebo group drunks. Like rats in another test these guys got drunker faster and on fewer and drank less overall.

"Of course the study is supposedly not intended on making getting drunk cheaper, but rather to prevent the harmful effects of excessive consumption by reducing the alcohol consumption of chronics and to reduce binge drinking. Further studies on kudzu are aimed at reducing the cravings of alcoholics."