A Tasmanian flower farmer who planted a new line of “really beautiful poppies” has issued a warning to other gardeners after learning she had mistakenly grown opium poppies.
Thing is, this isn’t, in fact, illegal in Tasmania.
Tasmania is the largest alkaloid poppy producer in the world, and supplies almost half of all global demand.
Growing them in the wrong field, without the correct licence, that’s illegal, yes.
This makes legal Tasmanian opium really, really cheap. This’s why I’ve always thought the UK was wrong to scrap it’s policy of allowing doctors to prescribe free opium to addicts.
It makes illegal drugs unprofitable. And of course the police can say, ‘You’ll only get your free opium once you inform on your illegal supplier.’
To be a pendant, I very much doubt Tasmania supplies half of global demand.
Last time I checked it was legal to grow opium poppies in the UK and you could buy the seeds from Thompson and Morgan. It’s when you start doing nefarious things in the kitchen with them that you get in trouble.
I wonder, Noel, is there a “personal use” defence to becoming the “slave of the ploppy” as Chou-En Ginsburg in Round the Horne put it?
I can imagine doing nefarious things with poppy juice in your kitchen is frowned upon.
After all, there’s a few steps in there that are quite… temperamental.., and can quite easily give you a detached kitchen…
In Tas it it is illegal to grow Opium poppies without a licence.
The type grown in the (legal) fields are a particular culture where the opium is extracted by steam after the whole plant is harvested. Labour costs rule out daily harvesting as in Afghanistan etc. This started in the 1960’s
There is also a significant number of poppies growing wild (often along the roads) These are descendants of 19th century cultivation and occasional eradication attempts are as successful as most other weeding efforts
Next thing you’ll be telling me that opium wasn’t illegal in the UK or USA when Britons and Americans were running opium into China.
The Chinese Emperor took a dim view of it, mind.