Where to buy opium poppy plants

Illegal possession of poppy plant parts or substances derived from poppies is a criminal offence and attracts heavy penalties. Poppies cannot be grown in Victoria without a cultivation licence issued by Agriculture Victoria and a valid contract with a licensed processing company. Producers interested in growing poppies in Victoria should first contact a licenced processor to express their interest.

In Victoria, poppy crops will be planted between autumn and spring and harvested between December and February. After flowering, the poppy capsules develop and dry out. The dry capsules and a small amount of stem are harvested for processing. A person cannot enter a poppy crop unless they are accompanied at all times by the licence holder, an employee of the licence holder, or an authorised Agriculture Victoria inspector.

If you see any unusual or suspicious behaviour near poppy crops, please report it to Victoria Police. Signs will be placed at gates and around the boundaries of a crop, with the warning that entry is prohibited and illegal use of the crop may cause death. Poppy crops are grown in various locations across regional Victoria. As a result, employees of shire councils, utility services water authorities and telecommunication or energy companies and emergency services may encounter poppy crops in the course of their business.

All persons involved in sowing, cultivation, harvesting and cartage of the opium poppy crop must also meet a fit and proper person criteria and undergo a National Police Check. The scheme allows for the commercial cultivation and processing of poppies while ensuring effective regulatory controls are in place to manage the risks associated with poppy cultivation. Poppies are grown for therapeutic and research purposes. Alkaloids such as morphine, codeine and thebaine are extracted from poppy straw by licensed processors for use in pain relief and other medications.

Poppy cultivation and processing is high regulated activity and South Australian growers must meet a range of specific requirements in order to become an opium poppy grower. The growing of poppies in South Australia presents a potentially viable and profitable rotational option for farmers who traditionally grow seed and other horticultural crops. Actually, the State Division of Narcotics Enforcement, toward the end of or early in , issued permits for the planting of 2, acres to opium poppy. This was apparently done without consulting or notifying the Federal authorities, and the United States Narcotics Bureau in Washington did not become aware of it until May The United States Commissioner of Narcotics had understood that a tacit agreement existed that the state would not "license" growers except by agreement with the Federal Government.

The state Chief of Narcotics Enforcement explained:. I was informed that the amendments which had been proposed and enacted into law in this state legalized the growing of poppies bearing opium and that we had no recourse other than to inquire into the good moral character of the grower and satisfy ourselves that the individual was not a trafficker in narcotics. He also pointed out that nothing further had been heard relative to pending Federal legislation to outlaw poppy growing.

Actually this legislation was being prepared but the Narcotics Bureau did not wish advance publicity on it. The poppy growers were not the same men as in the preceding-year. Previously they had been seed growers for the companies marketing flower and vegetable seeds; in they were "practical farmers who are in the business for just as much money as they can get out of it.

A number had not had any previous experience with poppies. Some of these latter, after securing permits, did not even plant poppies, others had crop failures. It is said that only acres, registered under state permits, were actually grown in this year. To these growers, however, the crop was enormously profitable.

The Commissioner of Narcotics issued an order to "warn all persons concerned of the danger, inseparably connected with the cultivation of the opium poppy for any purpose, of providing a new source of supply of contraband morphine to drug peddlers and addicts". The poppy growers were not much impressed. They were not interested in possible narcotic dangers but in the high price of poppy-seed. Their fields were unguarded and sometimes quite open to the public road.

Capsules obtained for analyses showed, on the dry basis, from 0. The Federal poppy control bill was passed by both Houses of Congress and was signed by the President on Saturday, 12 December It was headed:. The term 'opium poppy' includes the plant Papaver somniferum , any other plant which is the source of opium or opium products, and any part of any such plant. It shall be unlawful for any person who is not the holder of a license authorizing him to produce the opium poppy, duly issued to him by the Secretary of the Treasury in accordance with the provisions of this Act, to produce or attempt to produce the opium poppy, or to permit the production of the opium poppy, in or upon any place owned, occupied, used, or controlled by him.

All licenses issued under this Act shall be limited to such number, localities, and areas as the Secretary of the Treasury shall determine to be appropriate to supply the medical and scientific needs of the United States for opium or opium products, with due regard to provision for reasonable reserves: Provided, however, that nothing contained in this Act shall be construed as requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to issue or renew any license or licenses under the provisions of this Act.

Any opium poppies which have been produced or otherwise obtained heretofore, and which may be produced or otherwise obtained hereafter in violation of any of the provisions of this Act, shall be seized by and forfeited to the United States. In most states the Opium Poppy Control Act immediately ended commercial poppy cultivation, but in California it only produced protests and demands that the cultivation be licensed.

The law was misunderstood by some at first, and was interpreted in the same sense as the California state law, which had resulted only in expansion of the poppy culture. Thus a "United Press" dispatch published in some papers even had the heading "Opium Poppy to be grown", and went on to say: "President Roosevelt has signed legislation designed to promote production of the opium poppy in the United States, under close supervision of the Treasury and Agriculture Departments, to furnish a domestic source of supply of the narcotic for medical purposes".

The real purpose of the law was the exact opposite-not to "promote production of the opium poppy" but to end it. The Narcotics Bureau replied to inquiries as follows:. There is no immediate or presently prospective need for the growth of the opium poppy to supply medical and scientific needs, and, therefore, it is not now anticipated that any licenses will be issued. The California growers contended that their situation had not been sufficiently taken into consideration by Congress: the law, they said, was all right for mid-western or northern growers, but their seed was already in the ground when the law was passed 11 December , to say nothing of its effective date, 9 February The officials of the Narcotics Bureau had to admit some justice to this view.

Privately, they blamed the state authorities who had issued permits for poppy growing, even when the legislation was before Congress. Moreover, it was now learned that the United State Department of Agriculture had approved the poppy cultivation!

Because of the war, the farmers were required to file, with this Department, their plans for the year's crop; when these plans included the production of poppy-seed for food purposes, they had been approved by the local representatives of the Department of Agriculture, without any question having been raised. Nine permit-holders were not present; two wrote that they had not planted, two that they could not attend that day, and five had not been heard from at that time.

The rather casual attitude of the farmers is illustrated by the explanation of one grower, without a permit, who attended the conference. He said he had not asked for the state permit as he was very busy and wished to see first whether the seed would sprout or not. It was finally decided that the growers would be permitted to harvest their crop, under state and Federal supervision, and with destruction, as before, of all plant residues left after obtaining the seeds.

Of course, neither the Federal nor the state officials anticipated that poppies would again be planted without Federal licences. The Federal officials also expected that the state permits would henceforth be refused. Both these assumptions proved to be incorrect, leading to an apparent conflict between state and Federal authority, and to the so-called "Poppy Rebellion" of California.

Under date of 6 July , the Commissioner of Narcotics received a letter from the California Chief of the Division of Narcotics Enforcement no longer the same man as the one who had held this office when the cases began , stating:.

This promise was not destined to be fulfilled. The last clause may have indicated a hope that the Narcotics Bureau would relent and license poppy cultivation: there was considerable political pressure toward this, but the Bureau remained adamant.

Early in December , the Chief of the Division of Narcotics Enforcement of California informed the Federal officials that the Attorney General of the state had handed down a decision which obliged him to issue state permits for the growing of opium poppies in California.

This decision, which led to a conflict between state and Federal authority, was not addressed to the Division of Narcotics Enforcement, but was contained in a letter to the State Director of Agriculture, in reply to an inquiry of the latter. The letter cast doubt on the Federal law:. You state that for some years growers have been engaged in the State in the production of blue poppy seeds for edible use pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 1, Division 10, of the Health and Safety Code.

It appears from your letter that the variety so grown is distinct from that grown for the production of opium. It is suggested that while such poppy may come within the classification of Papaver Somniferum, it is actually not suitable for producing opium The state Narcotic Enforcement Office decided that they were obliged to issue state "permits", but attached the following warning to them:. The office of the Attorney-General of California attempted to get this "warning" clause left off the permits, because it might seem to make a.

At any rate, the growers were also warned by the United States Narcotics Bureau, as will shortly be related. As of 5 February , the state Division of Narcotic Enforcement bad issued twenty-three permits to grow a total of 1, acres of opium poppies. Heretofore the growers had generally conceded that their poppies were opium poppies, i.

The statement in the Attorney-General's letter, that the seed-producing poppy "is actually not suitable for producing opium", though not originating in his office, marked the inauguration of an intensified campaign to convince the public and Congress of the complete harmlessness of the seed-producing poppy-even in defiance of the facts-and to force the Narcotics Bureau to withdraw its opposition to poppy cultivation.

Some of the propagandists were self-deceived; some of the growers were undoubtedly convinced because they were now being told what they wanted to believe. The letter to the Attorney-General in November from the state Department of Agriculture had actually stated, "Apparently, under California climatic conditions, the morphine content is practically non-existent". Already, in December , an official of the state Department of Agriculture admitted; "We might have been a little over optimistic as to the lack of morphine content in said poppies"-but the campaign kept on.

In February , one of the growers wrote to the local office of the Narcotics Bureau: "We were advised by our State Attorney-General's Office, by the State Department of Agriculture and by the University of California, that, because of recent analyses, it is questionable owing to the lack of opium products in our California adapted edible blue-poppy seed [ sic ] whether we need any permit of any nature".

The issue, really a straight-out one of law observance, was being confused in many ways. Of course, the narcotics officials had not claimed that the poppy seed was narcotic, only that narcotics were inevitably produced in producing the poppy-seed. Even this was now being denied: a commercial chemical laboratory was found in San Francisco, which, with no previous experience in analysing for morphine, made a perfunctory examination of poppy capsules and stems, and was then willing to report, "we can find no trace of morphine".

Poppy growers wrote to their Congressmen, and several wrote to Henry Wallace, then Vice-President, whose interest in agricultural subjects was well known, asking them to intervene in favour of poppy cultivation. One letter to the Vice-President declared:. Narcotics Bureau was, of course, unaware of any such "admissions". So far as the contention had any basis in fact, it may have referred to statements that the legal commercial production of opium could not profitably be made, for the legitimate market; but what was feared was illicit production for the illicit market, in which narcotics commanded prices many times higher than the values in the legal trade.

In , by direction of the Commissioner of Narcotics, a scientific study was made, chiefly, though not entirely, from the published literature, on Papaver somniferum and other poppies. It was shown that all varieties of Papaver somniferum that have been examined produce morphine, while no other plant is known to do so. The reported isolation of morphine in the guise of "hopeine" from hops, in the last century, was a fraud and a myth.

A few erroneous analyses of some plants of the poppy family were made in the early days, but these were later corrected. It is probable that Papaver setigerum -the closest relative of Papaver somniferum -does produce morphine, but no record of a careful botano-chemical study was found. In any case, Papaver setigerum is only a rather rare wild flower, found in the Mediterranean region, occasionally grown in gardens but not grown commercially even for floral purposes.

Other poppies, such as the California poppy Eschscholzia californica , the Mexican poppy Argemone mexicana , the Oriental poppy Papaver orientale , and the common "corn poppy" or "field poppy" of Europe, the progenitor of the Shirley poppies Papaver rhoeas , have been analysed and other kinds of alkaloids found in them, but not morphine.

By original work it was shown that the Tulip poppy Papaver glaucum , though listed as a close relative of Papaver somniferum , is chemically more closely related to Papaver rhoeas, and contains no morphine. In the beginning the Narcotics Bureau had proceeded largely by suasion, because there was not a firm legal basis for more vigorous action. Even after the Opium Poppy Control Act came into effect, the California farmers had been allowed to harvest their poppy-seed, because cultivation had been started before the law was enacted, and the violations were not wilful.

Now the violations were wilful-though supported, to a degree, by some state officials-and it was evident that effective action must be taken or the law acknowledged to be a complete failure.

Beginning early in January , registered letters began to go out to the growers, warning them that they were in violation of the Federal law, regardless of state permits.

Some ploughed up their poppy-fields and planted something else; but others replied with form letters claiming that they had a right to produce poppyseed. They were banding together to fight the law. The growers now left were chiefly well-to-do men who were willing to gamble on having their poppy crop destroyed by the Government, in the hope of enormous profits in case they were able, to bluff out the Narcotics Bureau, or defeat the law in a court case.

They insisted on their "right" to produce a food crop regardless of narcotic dangers. What they refused to take into consideration was the fact that the reason the price of poppy-seed remained so high was that all other farmers were obeying the law-while they proposed to profit immensely by disobeying it.

Early in March , the Commissioner of Narcotics recommended that the poppy plants in several fields be destroyed by narcotic agents, as a test case.

Largely because of the state permits, it was decided to act more slowly, through the Department of Justice. In this month the Secretary of the Treasury found it necessary to say, in reply to poppy propaganda sent to the Vice-President:.

This is incorrect. We have caused analyses to be made by both government and private chemists and have abundant proof that the blue poppies grown in California are opium poppies. If you insist on growing poppies this year, I shall be compelled to report you to the United States Department of Justice for prosecution".

At the same time the Commissioner issued instructions that an agent be sent to inspect the fields. The narcotic inspector who was sent reported, on 1 April , that thirty-three fields aggregating 1, acres had been planted. A few to whom permits had been issued had not planted, and one grower had ploughed his plants under on about 16 March.

Even after the several years of controversy, it was found that two or three farmers were growing poppies without state permits; they had applied for permits but had gone ahead without having received them. A narcotic agent was sent to join the inspector; the two were to keep continuous watch over the situation until it was finally settled. The narcotic "agents" usually worked on enforcement cases, while the "inspectors" chiefly supervised the legal sales and use of narcotics.

By the beginning of May, the growers had received their letters from the Commissioner of Narcotics and a number of them had decided to give up On 4 May, the two narcotics officers reported as follows: Poppy fields ploughed under, 10; in process of disking, 5; did not plant, 3; verbal promise to disk, 3. On 5 May, they reported that twenty-five growers had not yet ploughed under their fields, but ten of them were about to do so, leaving fifteen growers who had acres in poppies.

The earliest analysis of the current poppy crop. A land-owning company wrote to the Commissioner reporting that a farmer leasing some of its land was growing poppies; the officials of the company inquired about their own responsibilities in such cases.

The District Supervisor of Narcotics was directed to obtain samples and find out if these were opium poppies. This he did although he found that the cultivation was under state permit and the plants, at the time, were very small-approximately two inches in height and having only 2 to 4 leaves. Not much was known about the morphine content of such very small plants but it was thought to be minute, consequently the chemist asked for a sample of five pounds.

He got two pounds, and to secure this amount almost an eighth of an acre was denuded of plants. He had no difficulty in proving the presence of morphine in this material. As soon as it appeared that some cases would be fought in court, the narcotic officers began systematically gathering samples in triplicate.