It is with trepidation that I approach the subject of kudzu.

Recent news that this voracious vine may hold a solution to the problem of binge drinking gives me fresh courage.

The last time I wrote on the subject was probably 20 years ago, when a Moore County woman, whose name has disappeared from memory, complained bitterly that the rapidly growing and tenacious plant had swallowed up her driveway. She didn’t have the money to hire a contractor to come in and physically remove the miscreant plant.

Kudzu, as just about everyone knows, is not native to North Carolina. It was introduced to this country in the 19th century from Japan. An article in The Fayetteville Observer says it was first shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 and became popular as “a fragrant, ornamental shade plant.”

It’s been a long time since such a lofty description has been applied to kudzu.

The plant does not merely grow abundantly in the South. It gallops across the landscape, covering abandoned vehicles, trees, utility poles, entire houses.

The lady who complained about the capture of her driveway would find it hard to believe, but there are people who say kudzu is much preferred when it envelops eyesores, such as trash piles, ramshackle garages and rusting automotive heaps.

People say kudzu cannot be killed. They have tried pesticides, herbicides, and goats, which notoriously will eat anything, along with the old reliable method of digging up the roots. Digging doesn’t work, because it’s impossible to dig deep enough to find where the roots end.

A Moore County goat farmer disputes the charge that goats won’t eat kudzu. He says they eat the leaves. It’s just that goats won’t dig into the ground to pursue those deep roots. Goats have better sense than that.

One tidbit in kudzu history has it that the plant was introduced in the South back in the 1920s as a soil stabilizer. Exactly which government agency had this idea is unclear, but I understand that at one time the highway people blamed it on the Department of Agriculture and USDA blamed it on the highway people.

I’m not sure what persuaded cartoonist Doug Marlette to name the lead character in his popular comic strip after the vine. Was it because Kudzu, always a teen, was growing like a weed? Or was it because he was an accident in the life of his clueless mother? Marlette does imbue the lad with a disarming naivete and a surprisingly insightful view of the world.

Scientists working on the kudzu anti-binge drinking project have yet to determine how the plant works in discouraging binge drinkers from drinking until they become ill or die. There is speculation that an element in kudzu raises blood alcohol levels to a point where the drinker’s body says “enough already” and the drinker feels satisfied without drinking till he bursts.

Researchers conducted traditional group testing. Subjects taking placebos drank about twice as much beer as did those who took the kudzu pill.

It doesn’t halt drinking but stops it before reaching binge level. Binge drinking has turned into a deadly practice for college students and other teens.

If this research can be developed into a useful treatment for binge drinking and other alcohol abuse, then kudzu will be worth it.

I once had neighbors whose property was marked by a couple of tall pine trees dripping with purple wisteria vines. The neighbors on the other side wanted the trees cut down to get rid of the creeping wisteria that was sprawling into their yard. To one family the wisteria was a lovely, graceful vine. To the other, it was a nuisance, an aggravation not worth the beauty of the flowers, which, while beautiful, also attracted stinging insects.

That issue has since been resolved. The neighbors who liked wisteria have moved, and the new owner paid a contractor to cut down both trees — persuaded to do so by the anti-wisteria neighbors. Guess what? With the trees down, one can now see wisteria clinging to the backyard fence. There may be another chapter in this saga.

As with kudzu, it’s great when it covers the neighborhood eyesore. Kudzu is fine if it’s in someone else’s yard. Just remember, it may creep into your yard too.

Now if they could just find a pill that discourages binge chocolate eating.