Should it be illegal for me to grow Opium Poppies?

[William Bloode]

Have had many broken bones and other traumatic stress to mu body over the years i am now disabled. I am also on opiate pain killers(oxycontin). I have to have these narcotics and others to get by from day to day. I need them to make me sleep and keep me on my feet. Without them i am doomed to a pain racked, sleepless life, in a wheelchair. With these narcotics i can be somewhat ambulatory, and get some decent rest.

Now this dope is expensive. So why not just grow my own poppies and make either poppy tea or raw opium? It's not gonna make me any higher, it's not gonna make me any more of an addict. So why should i and others be prohibited from growing our own natural remedies?

I don't think i should have to enrich big pharma to live my life in relative ease when i could cheaply, and safely do it for myself.

Any thoughts?

[UncleSepp]

1. Heck no. You should be able to grow your own solution.

It's disgusting that you can't. I think that you may be able to get usable tea from poppies that are legal - it might not be enough for you, though. :-(

[William Bloode]

4. You can use poppy seeds from....

the bakery section. You just have to look for a supierior genotype as they tend to be selected for lower alkline, and narcotic propeties. But you can find a gem if you look ;)

[MercutioATC]

I don't believe it IS illegal to grow them (state laws differ)....

It's just illegal to harvest them for drug use. You can admire their beauty all you'd like.

[Kralizec]

2. Not in my opinion. (nt)

[not systems]

3. I think it is not illegal unless...

you know what they are.

A thought crime.

[William Bloode]

5. You and M are right.

Truth be known the laws are very vague. Grow them and look but don't touch lol!

To me it's kinda like marijuana. It's natural medicine, though admittedly more dangerous. I also am in no way claiming that i think it should be legal for everyone to grow their own opium poppies. I do however feel there should be a medical exemption that allows those of us who are in need of them grow them.

It get really tiring sometimes. They have made it so hard to even get the drugs i need for day to day survival. The cost is also prohibitive, and many folks make you feel like you are worthless because you have to live your life on narcotics. I'd like some of those fuckers to live in my bones for a few days drug free, then tell me all i need is more resolve.

A pain racked miserable existence is not a favorable life style. I may be stoned most of the time but i can still be active and have a life. Albeit a stoned life.

[darkmaestro019]

8. Some of our most beautiful art and writing

came from minds sweetly seduced by the opium poppy. And I cannot even begin to imagine or calculate the needless suffering spared hunmanoids (and some other animals) by this and other wonderful plants.

I don't know your religion--and this is not from mine--but I thought in the Christian Bible they said every herb? What gives some humans the right to tell other humans what plants they may or may not cultivate? Sorry, guys, writing a rule on paper doesn't give you rights. Something of an anarchist, I suppose, but I got no proof we get to do this life but once and I am not wasting it obeying the herd-of-monkeys that seek to boss me around.

[SmokingJacket]

20. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan...

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

--- Samuel Coleridge, obviously quite high

[William Bloode]

22. I always loved that poem and the story behind it.

I seem to remember he took 2 grains and rifted off into the dream world, and was then disturbed by a visitor. He came down while visiting and could never find that place again to finish the poem.

[OnionPatch]

6. Personally, I believe

that the way the government and big pharma have effectively blocked the people from producing their own medicine from the plants that Mother Earth gave us, is a crime against humanity.

[William Bloode]

17. To make the sick and infirm suffer...

Is not an enlightened attitude i agree.

[darkmaestro019]

7. I've had very little luck with poppies

but I'm trying indoors. Poke www.erowid.org for general and cultivation info. I like www.greenstranger.com for supplies--good stuff, and he refuses to ship plants during winter months and took forever answering questions for me for my dying salvia divinorum plant, and I wasn't even a paying customer at that time.

Also, I had an interesting dream once that if you are ever able to find dried pods, they can be used for tea and other types of extractions.

EDIT: to add that such things would be a craft-dried-flower store type thing, but are becoming increasingly hard to find due to the war on plant users.

Good luck : ) I'm a newbie gardener and of COURSE I'm only in it for the beauty of the plants but feel free to PM me if I can ever be of any help.

[wildeyed]

9. I think you would have to grow a huge amount to satisfy your needs.

I think I have grown opium poppies, but just 'cause they were pretty, not for any medicinal purpose.

[William Bloode]

12. Not really.

Some nice Persian Whites can produce quite well, averaging up too 2 grams per pod. 2 gms packs a lot of punch and could last me 3-4 days.

They can be grown year round inside with fluorescent lighting very effectively as well.

[wildeyed]

18. The type I grew was literally "garden variety"

so I guess they were more for looks than punch. I did buy the seeds on eBay. Wonder if that is still possible.

Seems to me that you should be allowed to grow them as long as you are not selling the results. But good luck with that. People are nuts in this country on the subject of drugs. Plus big pharma would not allow it. Cuts into the profits.

[William Bloode]

21. Yeah,

They all produce the alkaloids, but too varying degrees. They kinda break down into 3 varieties. Food, ornamental, and drug cultivars. Food producing the most seed for consumption, ornamental being the most beautiful, and drug types producing the most resin.

[mitchum]

10. You can grow them all you want, but when you cut the flower...

(in order to start the bleeding of the good ol' narcotic ooze) is when you are breaking the law. A very stupid law.

[madokie]

11. Not at all, somewhere long ago I read you could buy bread with

poppy seeds, which are opium poppy seeds. that they have been irridated or something to ensure they wouldn't germinate but some, a small percent sometimes came through unscathed.

[William Bloode]

14. Something funny on this note.

I saw an episode of Myth Busters on Discovery channel where they tested the myth that you could test positive simply from eating poppy seed muffins or cake.

The results were wild! One guy at like 3 muffins and the other a samll cake(size of a small long fruit cake if you get my drift). Just several hour after ingestion both subjects tested positive for the next 2 days lol!

So it is not a myth but fact.

[madokie]

19. I've often thought to try to see

[William Bloode]

23. It was a great episode.

You should have seen the companies who made the tests making excuses lol! It was pretty cool i must say.

[madokie]

24. bet it was

[Cleita]

30. Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine flunked a drug

test because she had eaten a bagel sprinkied with poppy seeds?

[TimeChaser]

13. Maybe it's a bit of a stretch...

But I wonder if we wouldn't have so many problems with meth labs and the like that use dangerous chemicals if more people were able to grow natural drugs?

[William Bloode]

16. I don't think your stretching at all.

Big tobacco, alcohol, and pharma know it too. Did you know that they are the largest contributers to the war against marijuana? Gotta protect those profits at all costs lol! Buncha fuckin' greedy asswipes!

[Neil Lisst]

15. It should be legal for you to grow anything you want ...

... on God's green earth.

It's unbelievable that a person who is sick needs a permission slip and an expensive process to get whatever they decide they need for their body.

[Redstone]

25. I do it. Have done for years.

Technically illegal, but you won't get caught. The tea works nicely when made from dried seedpods.

"Danish Flag" is a good poppy to grow.

Redstone

[madokie]

26. well dam Redstone, a man can learn so much so easy

Hmmmn

[William Bloode]

27. I have grown my share.

I just don't enjoy having to live in fear to do it.

Tea is ok but tends to make me ill. I prefer to collect the resin and cook with it or make and alcohol laced tincture.

[Redstone]

28. Do what you need to do in order to deal with your pain.

Nobody has any right to tell you that you can't.

The pain is yours, not anyone else's. I have learned this lesson since 1972.

Redstone

[BJW]

29. I believe that this is prohibited by federal law

[pitohui]

31. should it be or is it? what are you asking?

yes, there was a book on how to do this and how to extract the product at home, last i heard (several years ago) the writer of the book got thrown in jail and i never heard any more abt it

i don't think yr chronic pain issues will be well or correctly treated in prison

what is, and what should be, are two different things

you can even buy the dried poppy seed pods in florist supply shops, hell, i had some from pier one, and this individual did try a process from these dried pods, and he apparently extracted some active product but, like i said, far as i know the story had an unhappy ending

on edit-- i think you folks need to seriously consider taking this discussion to private mail and not bumping it any longer in a public place, people do go to prison for manufacturing, all it takes is one person who doesn't happen to like you