China busts 35 restaurants using opium poppies as seasoning

Associated Press ^ | Jan 22, 2016 1:04 AM EST

[Olog-hai]

Thirty-five restaurants across China, including a popular Beijing hot pot chain, have been found illegally using opium poppies as seasoning, one of the more unusual practices bedeviling the country's food regulators.

Five restaurants are being prosecuted while 30 others, ranging from Shanghai dumpling joints to noodle shops in southwestern Chongqing, are under investigation, said the China Food and Drug Administration.

Cases of cooks sprinkling ground poppy powder, which contains low amounts of opiates like morphine and codeine, in soup and seafood are not new in China, though it is unclear whether they can effectively hook a customer or deliver a noticeable buzz. ...

[BuffaloJack]

I sure hope they aren’t illegal to grow.
My wife’s garden has a bunch of them.
She likes them because the flowers are bigger than the regular poppies.
She has the typical poppy (pink) ones, but also, purple, red, and white.

[Pearls Before Swine]

I have heard that they are legal to grow but if you start slitting the pods with a razor blade and bleeding sap out of them you might have a problem.

So you have to eat the pods whole?

[dila813]

Is it a different poppy than the poppy seeds I back on my bread?

[T-Bone Texan]

There are many different kinds of poppy, and only one or a few produce the opium.

The rest are non-druggy, like the California Poppy.

I have always wanted to try growing them (the opium kind), but they need full sun and my yard has a lot of trees.

PS: You can buy poppy seeds on the internet, the druggy kind. Not against the law to posses the seeds.

[T-Bone Texan]

"...It’s also Gods gift to those in horrible pain..."

You've hit upon a basic tenet of conservatism there. A person should be able to ingest whatever substance they see fit to ingest, without government interference.

Is opium a highly addictive drug? Yes.

Does it serve as a palliative to those in pain, especially those suffering greatly? Absolutely, and people have a right to ease their pain - the government has no right to force a person to suffer.

2 yrs ago, I tore off my rotator cuff. It was so bad that my pectoral muscle descended down my chest a little, because nothing was holding it up. It hurt, and life sucked. I got an operation, but the opioids they gave me (synthesized opiates created in a lab and not deriving from the poppy plant) made my skin itch terribly; terribly I say.

This itching affects a few percent of the people who take it. If I had access to regular, plant-based opiates I could have avoided that terrible period of my life.

[BenLurkin]

A minor complaint that I have — you can never find poppy seed bagels anymore.

[TigersEye]

Ya gotta stir fry ‘em first! ;-)

[Aliska]

It's not a stupid question. No, you have to check your state laws. It is illegal to grow them in my state, even as ornamentals. It's not illegal to have the seeds, however.

Yes, I would love to grow some. They are beautiful.

Not only that, the dried pods are highly sought for floral decorations. There are probably other varieties that would do just as well. Look up bread seed poppies. They are all being sold legally on the internet. Just not the pink and white opium one.

[Aliska]

I only see the sesame seed ones. There is a bagel store not too far, never patronized them. But I would kind of like some pumpernickel ones I don't see in the store. They are sliced and put in that commercial chex mix.

I don't even have any poppy seeds to bake with, used to years ago, didn't bake too often. Next time I go to the store, I'll see if you can still get them. We had them all the time at home growing up; my mom put them on homemade rolls or they came on bakery goods. I loved them, and seriously doubt I got a high from them. I'd even moisten my finger and mop up the ones that fell off onto my plate and lick them off :-)

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

As far as I know you can grow the flowers.

Of course all poppy's have a narcotic effect when you harvest their gum. The opium poppy just has more effect.

It is like the sugar maple, you can make syrup from other maple trees (and other "not maple" trees) it just takes more effort.

[Daffynition]

This is why we can't have nice things

[Daffynition]

When I lived in the M.E. in the '60s, I saw the poppy fields in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. As far as the eye could see, endless stretches of beautiful flowers

During this time, the USDA was busy *teaching* the Afghan farmer how to increase production of their crops, and to grow more products for export, and economic advantage.

The minute the USDA left, the farmers turned their new-found knowledge [Farmers found they could earn as much as $203 a kilogram for harvested opium, compared with only 43 cents a kilogram for wheat or $1.25 for rice] to poppy production ...and when the Russians left, the Taliban arrived and the rest is history.

No good deed, goes unpunished.