This relative of salad lettuce, while edible, is incredibly bitter. The milky latex which is visible when a stem or a leaf is broken, called lactucarium, resembles opium latex in both in appearance and effect and was widely used as a (milder) substitute when opium was unavailable. One of the most common uses for Lactuca is for sleep and an herbalist friend of mine would run the whole plant through her juicer, then dehydrate, powder and encapsulate, to excellent (if not labor-intensive) effect.
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