What I Know About Oleander

I learned of it in Austin, while I was living there.  It was a widely used landscape plant.  I had to cut down three (four?) of them in the small garden space against my first house.  The plants were as tall as the house, and digging them out involved hacking at a root ball as resistant to my efforts as an oak tree.

They were used in the hill country to keep deer away.  The plants grow close together well, and the leaves are poisonous, so deer don't eat it.  Beause they are close together they also form a barrier impenetrable to deer, and to almost any other animal.  I was also told the plant is so toxic it can't be used in a campfire. The smoke from the burning plant would poison the air as well as the food over the fire.

And oleandrin does, indeed, come from that plant.  Best I can tell, it is studied for treating lung cancer and for heart problems.  Word is one study of using it to treat covid-19 has been published (no surprise; this is a situation when everything gets thrown at the wall to see what sticks), but I'd rather inject bleach than take anything with oleandrin in it.

"Snake oil salesman" is too kind for what Mike Lindell actually is.  Oleander won't grow in Michigan, so maybe that excuses his ignorance.  It shouldn't, though.