That's understandable, sorry if it sounded like I was saying I though you should follow suit, just babbling. Hopefully it's encouraging though, if you're in the mood for a fast grower. Mine looked nearly identical to yours when I got it, spring of '13. By now, it's been shared with several people, and is lurking in probably 6, maybe 8 pots. As soon as it got big enough, I started spreading it around. No doubt they make quite a statement when left alone to get bigger. I think I only prolonged that by a year at most, but end result will be several, not just 1. Not everyone wants to go hacking into a plant that might give them a horrible rash just so they can have more copies of it. That's probably actually kind of disturbed? Maybe we should just keep this to ourselves...
If you haven't gotten the sap on your skin, the potential to have a problem has not yet existed. This is good. Latex is in so many other plants besides Ephorbias. If you see colored sap in a plant, suspecting it might be latex and taking appropriate precautions is a smart reaction.
You're right, there are other irritating alkaloids besides latex that can cause skin rashes. Albuca plants (preg. onion) contain calcium oxalate crystals, as do many common house plants such as Aroid & Commelinaceae families. That stuff gives me a rash too. (Between latex and CO crystals, I'm allergic to the sap in most of my plants.) Hope to help others avoid!
