Old school hippie myth! You just got that from an old school hippie too.
It is impossible to remove anything from a plant by flush, leach or any type of over watering.
From the soil, yes.
When you starve a plant, your attempting to lower the nutrient levels in the BUDS, right?
FAIL!
As the plant begins to "starve". It will take nutrients from other locations IN that plant and MOVE them right to the buds (where your trying to lower that from). In a last ditch effort to reproduce.
This in turn actually begins to stress the plant and therefor make any kind of "herming" easier to happen!