While I appreciate that the reading and interpretation of laws can be very difficult, and I don't have a lot of time to try to sort this all out for Paghat, I felt that I should post a short message here stating that there is no question that Papaver somniferum is *technically* illegal in the U.S.
The Opium Poppy - Papaver somniferum (both terms are used in the list of schedules) are Schedule II in the United States. Schedule II substances are illegal to buy or possess without a valid prescription, and are illegal to sell without a DEA license (eg. both opium and cocaine are schedule II). There are also significant DEA controls on how Schedule II materials are produced and stored.
But laws are only as strong as enforcement. In the U.S., the ornamental cultivation of P. somniferum is just about never prosecuted. Now we could argue about the definition of "illegal" if you'd like. It's an interesting question. If a law is never enforced, is it still a law? But that's just semantics.
A few more comments below...
Legal statements are all about definitions of terms. How terms used in the law are officially and legally defined...defines the law.
This is a big misunderstanding of the Scheduling system. Each Schedule has it's own restrictions and requirements associated with it. Schedule I substances are unique in that they are unable to be prescribed by a doctor. But it's still illegal to possess a Schedule II substance without a prescription. The best illustration of this is the fact that both Cocaine and Opium are Schedule II.
Heh. If you think that laws are coherent...you clearly haven't read them very closely. It is *common* for laws to conflict and/or for laws to be interpreted or enforced differently by different jurisdictions or at different times.
In describing laws, it is important to cite the text of the law, the various interpretations of the law, and the actual manner in which the laws are enforced. This gives a more complete picture of the status of any given law.
The laws against them are not generally otherwise enforced. That does not mean they are not illegal.
Please cite the passage of the CSA where it differentiates between different purposes for growing Papaver somniferum. If such a passage exists, I'd very much like to read it.
regularly. New substances are added and wordings and definitions are changed. Even the version you point out is not current. It is the schedules (I-V) that define what is currently illegal.
Again, just to be clear...plants and chemicals which are in Schedule II - V are also illegal to possess without a precription. Penalties vary, depending on the schedule and the quantity possessed...but they can still be very much illegal to possess.
You can visit the DEA's list of scheduled substances at:
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for "poppy" and you'll see the entry for "Opium Poppy - Papaver somniferum".
And, while I'm mostly going to ignore the insulting comments about those at Erowid.org being stoners and pro-drug...please understand that we are serious about our work, dedicated to providing accurate information, and are certainly not "stoners".
I'm not questioning the fact that it may distort a drug test. I just can't believe that the Vice President of the US is made to pee into a cup for drug testing.
Papaver oriental is the perennial poppy; salmon, pink, red, and white. Papaver somniferum is the opium poppy, an annual, pink flowers only. Papaver nudicaule is icelandic poppy, sometimes called champagne bubbles; pink, yellow, white, and orange. Eschultzia california is california poppy; orange or yellow; hybrid thai silk poppies, ruffled pink, salmon, yellow, white, and red flowers.
While it's nice to see someone posting replies who has a deep abiding interest in recreational drugs (Usenet being the ultimate democracy after all), all you really needed to do was quote the relevant portion of the Act that makes it perfectly clear the plant itself illegal. You never have, & never will, because there is no part of the Controlled Substance Act that states this.
Note 1) The Act itself is clear as to what concentration of specific opiates would have to be present for a substance to be illegal; 2) which for opiates is specifically "90 milligrams per dosage unit, with an equal or greater quantity of an isoquinoline alkaloid of opium" required to reach a level of illegality; & 3) no poppy reaches the concentrations that would define them as illegal.
The Act does make them illegal IF AND WHEN they are used for an illegal purpose (or attempted to be used for an illegal purpose; gardened opium poppies are not actually a source of opiates, but attempting to discover otherwise would be enough to render them suddenly illegal).
[more unsubstantiated stuff clipped] > just to be clear...plants and chemicals which are in Schedule
Was your qualifier "CAN be" a confession that you're aware they're otherwise legal, or just bad writing?
Again, you can make this statement in your own words, but you have neither here nor at your web pages quoted it from the Act, because it isn't there. It amounts to what you believe, or what you have heard within the recreational drug advocacy community. If you could've quoted it in law you would've done so just now -- indeed, you would have done so long before now, but you never could do so because it is a phantom law.
You have not referenced a law, nor even a list of banned substances, but only a list derived from the Controlled Subtance Act. The list is not a law, & the list explicitely states that it includes parent sources of scheduled drugs ( Papaver is NOT a drug but is a parent source of many drugs; it is only a "scheduled drug" insofar as IF it were attempted to be used illegally, that would make it illegal; it is otherwise not a controlled substance & gardeners & growers & nurseries, unlike scientific researchers, are not required to register their use, as no law even regulates such use, let alone bans it).
If any congressional Act actually states that opium poppies grown for ornamental purposes is illegal, you should quote that precisely. The extant law makes it very clear that intent is part of the law. Hell, even steer manure & motor oil are illegal if you intend to make bombs out of it, not otherwise. If opium poppies were illegal it wouldn't be possible to buy them in every county & city of this nation from above-board garden centers & growers; if such a banning law existed, it would be easily quoted & sourced. The urban folklore on this is rampant because amateur journalists & mistaken editorialists spread urban folklore as truth. You have failed to quote a law because you couldn't find one, & yet you persist in believing it must exist somewhere in an Act from which it cannot be quoted. No heroin addict or opium smoker in America ever got their shit from gardened opium poppies, & while laws can be very stupid, the CAS isn't quite that stupid.
Papaver is included as a Schedule II "drug" (though it is not a drug) because in any medical or scientific experiments done legally with Papaver, it is that context controlled by law; & if any opiate salt or chemical is extracted or synthesized from it, that too is illegal unless registered for scientific purpose. Iin these contexts only the opium poppy is itself illegal, just like possession of bags of manure becomes illegal if you intended to make bombs out of it, but manure is otherwise yours to revel in, & opium poppies are legal to sell, buy, & grow. This is multiply-explained in the Acts' numerous redundancies, yet in all its redundancies, it found no room to state that the plant is illegal in any other context, or in all contexts, but only in the explicit contexts stated. The law is NOT "schizophrenic" as your website article so absurdly puts it; said schizophrenia is the article-writer's projection born of a confusing their superimposing on the the CAS some deeply believed urban folklore that just isn't in the actual legislation
The Act's preamble "This law is a consolidation of numerous laws regulating the manufacture and distribution of narcotics, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, anabolic steroids, and chemicals used in the illicit production of controlled substances" is not confusing in this matter. It leaves out reference to the plants per se, because if plants with a POTENTIAL for extracting those sorts of drugs would include scores of plants I can harvest in any field or forest or desert growing wild, & only those which function as drugs as picked & misused fit any legal definition of "drugs." Peyote would in & of itself without further processing fit the Acts' preamble about the Act's purpose & content. Marijuana, too, fits the preamble, without further processing. But opium poppies are harmless & you cannot get you stoned or sick on them without considerable processing. If such processing is attempted, despite the fact that temperate-grown poppies lack the required alkaloids, the poppies would upon that mere attempt of an illegal usage come under the Controlled Substance Act & become illegal due to the misuse & abuse. To extract or synthesize opiates, all sorts of otherwise legal chemicals would be required, & each & every one of them would become illegal because of the illegal usage, not otherwise.
Since it is a topic close to your heart, perhaps you'd do well to hire an expert attorney willing to put his name to a little article which would sort out the strictly LEGAL issues for you apropos of the actual CSA, so you can correct your website's misinformation & cease to confuse folklore & non-legal lists & editorials for the actual law! You clearly are no expert, not even slightly expert; I cannot claim to be an expert either, though I certainly can see that no part of the Act bans the cultivation of poppies for ornamental purposes. But since neither of us are experts, perhaps you should hire one, so that a definitive redaction of the Act & its meaning would be available for all the dumbass folklorists out there who can't tell fantasy from law.
Think about it kiddo -- if you could've cited this alleged law FROM the Act itself, you wouldn't be desparately avoiding any actual quotations from it. The fact that poppies are cited as a source of scheduled drugs, & fall under the Act if they are used for any drug-related purpose, does not make poppies themselves illegal. The test is as I said it would be: If it were true that poppies were illegal but the law doesn't have time or energy to stop nurseries from selling them & gardeners from growing them, then take some marijuana plants down to the same nurseries & sell them to the same gardeners & see what happens. When a plant IS illegal, there is not the slightest hint of reluctance to prosecute the matter to the full extent of the law.
Perhaps a little less deadpan seriousness & a lot more humor would serve you better.
Personally I collect opium literature & hashish literature, & I hugely enjoy its influence on art. Unfortunately the lives of the influenced authors & artists were invariably harmed by their habi. While some of the beauty they left behind redeemed them, they most certainly did require that redemption, for since little else about them was admirable. Geza Csath was one of the world's greatest surrealist writers inspired by his laudenum addiction; but it was not admirable him sitting at his kitchen table in his own shit until his ass was infected with soars. Anna Kavan turned her pain into some of the most beautiful magic realist literature of all time, but her paranoia made life hell for her, & people who did not know that she was shooting up every time she had a paranoid fit & returned from the bathroom much better just thought she was crazy.
So recreational drug advocacy is never undertaken by anyone worthy of respect, though it is an equal or greater folly for legislators to make such things as recreational drug use & suicide illegal. So while I disrespect the thuggish policing authorities more than the nitwit stoners, only the tiny handful who succeed at something spectacularly creative within their drug abuse are wholly forgiveable, whether it's something genuinely great like Poe created before he died for his addictions, or something rather stupid but enjoyable like the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers -- which at least notices that it's dorks who recreate with drugs. Those are not "insulting comments" but the truth.
I could imagine him agreeing to pee the cup in the spirit of "To prove it's a good thing, even I will do it. Then every damnone of you will do it or you'e fired, & any who don't pass the test will be shot dead in the white house rose garden."
What appears to be a fact found in Bush's very strange non-service service record in the Texas Air National Guard was his suspension for refusal to take a mandatory drug test -- this at a time when he was known to be a raging alcoholic, which frequently goes hand in hand with other recreational drug abuses, so it's easy to imagine why he'd prefer suspension over getting tested. Suspending him was hardly punishment from his point of view, since he almost never showed up for duty anyway.
See text of London Times artical "Bush Dodged Drug Test"
I suspect he could pass it now, not that I think his synpses are all hooked up right from his past substance abuses. I mean, either he's lost a few too many connecting threads in the old noodle, or he's just plane evil.
Actually, papaver somniferum is available in pink, lavender, white, and stained-glass window red. I have heard that here is one available now in a blackish red as well. It is also availabe in single, half-double, fully double, and frilly center versions. However, pink is probably the most common color, with red second.
I would think if a farmer dedicates his farm, say 1000 acres to P.somniferum, would be doing it for heroine production and would be in harsh violation of the law. Seeds are sold in many catalogs for P. somniferum. Illegal or not, you'd need quite a production company in order to grow enough to make a dent in the heroine industry which comes from the middle east. No war on anything has been able to stop production of heroine in the middle east, and it never will.
Yes, I realize I mistakenly said the wrong thing. I knew what I wanted to say, but I still wrote the incorrect thing. I've been chastised by someone I considered a friend, all because I said I like someone on this newsgroup.
The extent of immaturity I have experienced online is getting worse and worse. I post less and less. It's hateful, angry, and spiteful. I don't have it in me any more.
As a recent chastiser, I feel obliged to correct any mistaken impression by other posters that you might be referring to myself. I have never done anything to deserve the repulsive insult of being considered your friend.
Oh yes you do. When someone you like posts immature, spiteful verbal abuse you give your encouragement and approval.
The message from snipped-for-privacy@aol.comspamfree (Zemedelec) contains these words:
Poppy seeds (and plants) are perfectly legal here in the UK, and we eat loads of them on/in bread and cakes etc. AFAIK, heroin/morphine is derived from the sap of P somniferum, not its seeds. Just as toxic substances are present in certain parts of potatoes, apples, tomatoes, or rhubarb, and not in other parts of the same plant.
While some might take the above as evidence of being "hateful, angry and spiteful", I prefer to think it is more in the category of being nasty, resentful and vindictive. Fear not! Those of us who are coming to know you would never confuse you with being escapee's friend. However, we might wonder if the person who could say that has any friends at all.
Sorry Vox I don't have a citation. Maybe it is an urban legend. I vaguely remember reading in the papers that his very first test came back positive and he re-took it. I'm pretty sure I heard the poppy seed account here on Usenet.
Exactly. That was in the 1980s when drug testing was new and controversial, and conservative politicians were trying to prove that it didn't violate anybody's civil liberties by doing it themselves. The VP was actually the only person in the white house *not* in danger of being fired if he refused Reagan's order.
To be clear, the poppy seed anecdote is about W's father.
-- spud_demon -at- thundermaker.net The above may not (yet) represent the opinions of my employer.
I can see that, but it gets very tiring and I've a good life full of wonderful events and people. I think what happened with the original post I'm annoyed with is that this person was supposed to be a "friend." Not. I'm bored with the whole woe is me, everyone sucks and is always wrong, and I'm very tired of people on their high horse who have nothing in their life but their anger and coldness. I find it very hard to have compassion for people like this. One day they love you, next day, BAM. So, as a growing person, I can clearly see who is and who is not a big, fat phony and I will ignore them because I know misery loves company and I'm not miserable.
I expect people to be disappointing at times, (behaviour, attitude, you name it) but it's hard to understand the malevolence of those who knowingly post dangerous advice to newbies. That is truly saddening. Fortunately, the posters here are usually knowledgeable and generous in giving their time to respond.
By the way, in my experience misery doesn't love company. It loves chocolate. :^)
escapee wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
If this is what you are talking about, I think you are overreacting or taking things too personally:
PGG> I am constantly amazed at the amount of misinformation that gets PGG> disseminated through this group.
You provided some questionable information and she called you on it. Without any gratuitous remarks or Cereoidal comedy hour jabs. One sentence. That's all. It hardly counts as an attack or even as being chastised. To expect an apology for that is ridiculous. You certainly didn't apologize for giving the group wrong information (although you did admit it was a mistake) nor have you apologized for categorizing the majority of the people frequenting the newsgroup, including those who haven't said anything positive or negative about you, as 'bleh'.
While we are on the subject of misinformation, I doubt anyone considers the Middle East the prime source of heroin in the world. You could argue that Afghanistan is either in the "Middle East" or "Central Asia", but as the only source of poppies or heroin of note from either of those regions, you might as well just say Afghanistan, which has to compete with Burma (clearly not in the Middle East) for at least opium bragging rights.
Your message: Message-ID:
Breaking Heroin Sources of Supply: (last updated 2002)
Anyway, I'm about done with Usenet. It's been boring for a long time and I have met people and have true delight in my life. I am very fortunate and I give thanks on a moment by moment basis for all I have and give to others.
So, I will probably stop posting on any regular basis. I used to come here more for the people. Now the people are sucking too...sans the few I named who, whether or not I agree with them, have come to like them...yes, including paghat. She and I can get a bit harsh with each other, but she always wins!
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