December 08, 2004

• This looks like yer motherlode for poppy news.
• The poppies are not the culprit, it is the "pod" where the sweet addictive nectar is drawn from that is illegal. In my experience, the amount of poppies required for a decent "harvest" is pretty impossible to hide.
• They are different kinds of poppys. Only certain types of poppies produce opium. The ones on bagels don't grow into opium poppies. If they did, I would enjoy my bagel breakfasts much more.
• sweet addictive nectar mmmm. nectar.
• Don't know if it's linked from Abiezer_Coppe's site above, but I read a story not that long ago about a fellow who bought poppy seeds from a grower's catalog, thinking they couldn't possibly be illegal, then got in trouble with the man when he grew them in his garden. Some more research that day revealed that you can brew poppy tea from the dried poppies at your local craft store.
• Here is the story I was referring to above.
• Don't read that!!! Unless of course you aren't a gardener, or don't intend to ever grow poppies. Because the crazy laws in the US are such that if they can prove you know the poppies you planted are "opium poppies" then you can be prosecuted. So what you don't know can't hurt you. Literally.
• As an aside Tasmania, Australia is a major supplier of legal opium and derivatives and they've got an interesting new variety.
• Per The Botany of Desire (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375501290/qid=1102543699/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/102-3537035-8817713?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), there is only one kind of poppy. Knowing that makes them illegal to grow ... as pointed out by Cali
• Certain poppies (Papaver paeoniflorum and Papaver somniferum) legally and easily purchased in the U.S. may be straightforwardly harvested into weak opium. The dead giveaway as to whether your neighbor is doing that is slash marks appearing on the heads of the poppies, just before they would have flowered. Subsequently, no flowers. An even bigger giveaway would be tinfoil hoods around the heads on a sunny day.
• Have you ever seen poppies, and I mean the flower? In a family garden, where they used to grow poppies for their ornamental qualities, there came a time when flowers disappeared overnight, usually before they bloomed. The populace was happy, though.
• As others have pointed out, the American public has deliberately been hoodwinked into believing that poppies growing in the U.S. are somehow different from other ones. They aren't. Their legality depends entirely on whether or not you KNOW this. This article by Michael Pollan I am providing the link to is perhaps the strangest thing I have ever read. http://www.wesjones.com/pollan.htm It is quite long, but well worth the read. Absolutely amazing. Seriously. ( I'd hotlink it, but my one other attempt at HTML here failed miserably) .
• Oops. Sorry, monkeys. I missed the earlier link to that same article. Carry on.
• It takes about 2000 poppies to make a pound of opium. BUT THAT'S A FRICKING POUND OF OPIUM. I'm not sure on opium dosages but I doubt it takes that much for a nice buzz.
• On a hot summer day, a slice with a razor blade on two or three opium pods growing in the garden will produce enough sticky sap to completely coat a rolling-paper. Not that I would condone such a thing.

• The ones on bagels don't grow into opium poppies

  But will cause you to test positive to many heroin drug tests. My wife worked on a kid's book that had pictures of poppies. All the pictures had to be changed so it could be sold into the US education market. They're insane over there.
• I'm getting.....so......sleeepy.......
• The ones on bagels don't grow into opium poppies I think they would if they hadn't been cooked in an oven, yes? McCormick poppy seeds are Papaver somniferum, so I don’t see why the ones on bagels would be different. And why aren't they being cultivated for narcotics? They are being cultivated for narcotics: A Victorian judge was shocked yesterday at how a drug addict was able to grow 230 opium poppies at home from seeds bought from the herbs section of a supermarket I've heard that some brands of poppy seeds that you might find in your local grocery store may be bred to be low in codeine and morphine, but I'm skeptical of that. FWIW, I've foundbeen told that supermarket poppy seeds are both extremely inexpensive and have an excellent germination rate.
• But will cause you to test positive to many heroin drug tests. So always remember to make your first response 'I ate a poppy seed danish for breakfast.'
• There is no difference between the poppy seeds on your bagel, the ones at the Safeway, or any other ones. That is precisely the point of the article linked to by Cabingirl, and then myself. The idea that they are somehow different, or special, is a deliberately propagated myth . The reason that eating a poppy seed bagel might cause one to test poitive for opiates is because they do, indeed, contain opiates. But the powers that be, including the the alcohol and pharmacuetical industries, don't want you to know this. Poppy seed tea is still a common folk remedy for 'colicky' or teething babies on farms up here in Canada, especially prevalent in the Ukranian communities on the prairies.
• The poppy seeds that come from McCormick's jars come from the same harvest as the non-thebaine pods in Tasmania. Tasmainian poppies are the most potent around. Oh, and those seeds? They're generally not from drilled pods. They get them out by crushing the fresh opium rich pods, smearing that wonderful sticky latex all over the seeds in the process. The frequent claim that poppy seeds have micrograms of opium per ounce is absolute poppycock. Try 100-500 mg a pound if they're bulk and unwashed from Australia. This wide variation in potency, along with the facts that they fester with fungus and that sometimes you'll get high-thebaine seeds makes them way too risky to play with. Thebaine acts like strychnine, and seizures aren't fun.
• My Mefi post here. I posted this here, as well. But it was before the data loss. Posted around Sep 22.
• I first became interested in this issue when I bought some wild-flower seeds a decade and a half or so ago to plant along the border between my garage and the house. Imagine my surprise when, amongst all the other wild flowers, I discoverd many astonishingly brilliant poppies growing there. So I went off to the library, searched the periodical index, and discovered that article by Pollan in a magazine. I think it was Mother Jones. Needless to say, my curiousity was piqued. I have been growing poppies ever since. I always laugh when I am in some public place, and I see them growing. Interestingly enough, the last place where I noticed them growing in profusion was in Peace Arch Park; which straddles the border between Canada and The United States, at Blaine. I have some pictures somewhere, if I knew how to uplink 'em I would. I also have one of my cat Sugar Bear playing in the poppy field which blooms every year in the abandoned garden in the apartment building, next door.
• Congratulations! As cabingirl and Cali have pointed out, ignorance is bliss when it comes to poppies. If you managed to read this comment thread this far down, and own poppy seeds or plants in the USA, you have probably obtained the threshold amount of knowledge to make your ownership criminal. This message brought to you by your friends at the DEA: Better Living Through Subpoenas
• My mom used to grow them every year. I always wondered how she put up with my brother and I all those years.
• Interestingly enough, the last place where I noticed them growing in profusion was in Peace Arch Park; which straddles the border between Canada and The United States, at Blaine. The poppy has always been emblematic (is that the right word) of WW1 and these days, I think, of veterans of both world wars. I'm not sure if that's true of all countries though, or just Australia and NZ. We wear poppies on Anzac Day to remember the dead. Prettier than yellow ribbons, too.
• Wait... you can make opium out of puppies?
• I saw real poppies for the first time in a field in England - they are very beautiful. Yes, Canadians wear the poppy on Nov. 11, for Remembrance Day. The Americans don't (some don't even recognise it). They have the yellow ribbon.
• Yes, Canadians wear the poppy on Nov. 11, for Remembrance Day. The Americans don't (some don't even recognise it). They have the yellow ribbon. When I was a kid in the 70s the poppy was still in use.
• Having been a firm believer in the myth, I have a mass of poppies that grow in the front flower garden. In fact, they've grown out of control and I've been ripping them out. Now I must think again, it seems. I'll have lots of seeds next year, for sure.
• When I was a kid in the 70s the poppy was still in use. Ditto the 80's.
• Vitanuova: wow, interesting! How do you know all this? I love to make poppy seed rolls for Christmas? Are you telling me that I'm risking seizures by using supermarket spice shelf stuff? On a hot summer day, a slice with a razor blade on two or three opium pods growing in the garden will produce enough sticky sap to completely coat a rolling-paper. Par-Boy: And what's so interesting about a sticky piece of paper? do tell more What article? What post? Wah? I know nothing. I slept since then. Poppies grow wild on lots of the old homesteads here in Idaho. This old homestead has 'em, too. Pretties.
• bluehorse: if you use a large amount (say, a quarter pound per serving) of unwashed seeds for a serving, yeah. if you boil the seeds first, no. if you're just sprinkling seeds on rolls, no. And those seeds you get in the jars have already been washed. There won't be more than a trace of opiates in it. It's the bulk seeds you have to be concerned about.
• Let the Afghan Poppies Bloom
• Rebuffing months of U.S. pressure, President Hamid Karzai has decided Afghanistan will not implement a Colombia-style program to spray the country's heroin-producing poppies