papaver

[agnatha3141]

does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal to grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that definately true?
i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i think that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is the deal with poppies?

[Spud Demon]

agnatha3141 > writes in article > dated Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:55:36 GMT:
>does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what
>kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal to
>grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that
>definately true?

>i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i think
>that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is
>the deal with poppies?

Poppies are legal even here in the US (origin of the drug war). Seeds are
legal too. In fact, George H.W. Bush failed a drug test when he was VP
under Reagan because he had eaten a poppyseed bagel that day.

The actions to produce opium are pretty specific. You have to slice open
the seed pod to make the plant produce a decent amount of latex. As long as
you don't do that, you're in no danger of arrest.

-- spud_demon -at- thundermaker.net
The above may not (yet) represent the opinions of my employer.

[escapee]

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:55:36 GMT, agnatha3141
> opined:

>does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what
>kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal to
>grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that
>definately true?
>i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i think
>that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is
>the deal with poppies?

The only one is Oriental, but I grow them and nobody arrests me. Catalogs sell
them everywhere

[Pam - gardengal]

"escapee" > wrote in message
...
> On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:55:36 GMT, agnatha3141
> > opined:
>
> >does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what
> >kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal to
> >grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that
> >definately true?
> >i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i think
> >that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is
> >the deal with poppies?
>
> The only one is Oriental, but I grow them and nobody arrests me. Catalogs
sell
> them everywhere

I am constantly amazed at the amount of misinformation that gets
disseminated through this group.

Oriental poppies (Papaver orientalis) are NOT illegal to own or grow and are
not the source of opium. Papaver somniferum, aka the breadseed, sleep,
peony-flowered or opium poppy IS illegal, but enforcement is, at the best,
sporadic and half-hearted. The seeds are very commonly sold by a number of
seed supply houses and are routinely included in wildflower seed mixes,
poppy starts are frequently found in nurserires and someone somewhere is
growing them in bulk, otherwise there would be no poppyseed pastries and
bagels.

Since I read somewhere that it takes like an acre or more to produce any
measurable quantity of opium (just a recollection - don't quote as fact),
growing a few plants in your garden will hardly be considered the next major
crime wave and hopefully the police and DEA have more important issues to
attend to.

I have heard of plants being removed from gardens - whether by the
authorities or kids experimenting was never clear - but I have never heard
of anyone arrested for growing a few of them in a garden setting.

pam - gardengal

[Vox Humana]

"Spud Demon" > wrote in message
...
> agnatha3141 > writes in article
> dated Thu, 22 Apr 2004
20:55:36 GMT:

.. In fact, George H.W. Bush failed a drug test when he was VP
> under Reagan because he had eaten a poppyseed bagel that day.
>

Do you have a citation for this? It sounds like an urban legend to me.

[escapee]

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 13:59:43 GMT, "Pam - gardengal" >
opined:


>I am constantly amazed at the amount of misinformation that gets
>disseminated through this group.

Thanks for the attack. I wouldn't expect that from you to me.

>Oriental poppies (Papaver orientalis) are NOT illegal to own or grow and are
>not the source of opium. Papaver somniferum, aka the breadseed, sleep,
>peony-flowered or opium poppy IS illegal, but enforcement is, at the best,
>sporadic and half-hearted. The seeds are very commonly sold by a number of
>seed supply houses and are routinely included in wildflower seed mixes,
>poppy starts are frequently found in nurserires and someone somewhere is
>growing them in bulk, otherwise there would be no poppyseed pastries and
>bagels.

I meant P. somniferum. Sorry. I won't do that again.

>Since I read somewhere that it takes like an acre or more to produce any
>measurable quantity of opium (just a recollection - don't quote as fact),
>growing a few plants in your garden will hardly be considered the next major
>crime wave and hopefully the police and DEA have more important issues to
>attend to.
>
>I have heard of plants being removed from gardens - whether by the
>authorities or kids experimenting was never clear - but I have never heard
>of anyone arrested for growing a few of them in a garden setting.
>
>pam - gardengal
>

[Brian]

P.somniferum grows as freely as a weed locally, but is most attractive, and
hence left to bloom and go to seed and thus goes on and on.. From fifty
plants' fruits I tried to bleed off the sap. This eventually dried to a
speck that would have caused no problem to a constipated mouse!! It tasted
awful and wouldn't respond to heat~~not that I knew how it should have
responded!
I was sixteen and have never bothered since. I have seen the seeds being
collected but don't know if these were for cooking or scattering. They are
not illegal to grow here 'without intent'. Eg. It is not illegal to carry
a crowbar; unless it is being carried to use to break into a property!!.
Best Wishes Brian
"Pam - gardengal" > wrote in message
news:jj9ic.8032$0u6.1529055@attbi_s03...
>
> "escapee" > wrote in message
> ...
> > On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:55:36 GMT, agnatha3141
> > > opined:
> >
> > >does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what
> > >kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal to
> > >grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that
> > >definately true?
> > >i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i think
> > >that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is
> > >the deal with poppies?
> >
> > The only one is Oriental, but I grow them and nobody arrests me.
Catalogs
> sell
> > them everywhere
>
> I am constantly amazed at the amount of misinformation that gets
> disseminated through this group.
>
> Oriental poppies (Papaver orientalis) are NOT illegal to own or grow and
are
> not the source of opium. Papaver somniferum, aka the breadseed, sleep,
> peony-flowered or opium poppy IS illegal, but enforcement is, at the best,
> sporadic and half-hearted. The seeds are very commonly sold by a number of
> seed supply houses and are routinely included in wildflower seed mixes,
> poppy starts are frequently found in nurserires and someone somewhere is
> growing them in bulk, otherwise there would be no poppyseed pastries and
> bagels.
>
> Since I read somewhere that it takes like an acre or more to produce any
> measurable quantity of opium (just a recollection - don't quote as fact),
> growing a few plants in your garden will hardly be considered the next
major
> crime wave and hopefully the police and DEA have more important issues to
> attend to.
>
> I have heard of plants being removed from gardens - whether by the
> authorities or kids experimenting was never clear - but I have never heard
> of anyone arrested for growing a few of them in a garden setting.
>
> pam - gardengal
>
>

[agnatha3141]

my name is pam too. just felt like saying that.
about half of the ones i am growing are the illegal kind. i just found out. p. somniferum. v. persian white. i am soon going to move to another houselhold and planted a full garden, of which most of the stuff is blooming already or about to. the poppies however are not, and now that i know that they are illegal, i am wondering if i will get to see them bloom before i move in september, and have to rip them out so that the next tenants dont get in a heap of trouble. they are currently about six inches tall with about twenty leaves or so each. i planted them in febuary. i live in florida, and they get a lot of sun. does anyone have any experience with these, and might be able to tell me how long it takes for them to bloom? i know that the other poppies i planted, the california one, will take a full year, meaning that i will not see them bloom. :(

[paghat]

In article <jj9ic.8032$0u6.1529055@attbi_s03>, "Pam - gardengal"
> wrote:

> "escapee" > wrote in message
> ...
> > On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:55:36 GMT, agnatha3141
> > > opined:
> >
> > >does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what
> > >kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal to
> > >grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that
> > >definately true?
> > >i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i think
> > >that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is
> > >the deal with poppies?
> >
> > The only one is Oriental, but I grow them and nobody arrests me. Catalogs
> > sell them everywhere
>
> I am constantly amazed at the amount of misinformation that gets
> disseminated through this group.

Quite right! Though I trust you're not leaving out your own ability to
disseminate misinformation, as you do it as readily as Escapee or any of
us! As for example:

> Papaver somniferum, aka the breadseed, sleep,
> peony-flowered or opium poppy IS illegal, but enforcement is, at the best,
> sporadic and half-hearted.

Papaver somniferum is legal in the majority of countries, including the
United States; some of the few countries that ban them do so because they
are noxious weeds or could displace native poppies (they're illegal to
propogate in Finland & Norway). In the USA, what the purchaser does with
the poppies is what defines legality or illegality. As ornamentals,
legal. To attempt to extract alkaloids for use as a drug, illegal, even
though opium poppies grown in temperate climates do not develop noticeable
amounts of these alkaloids. To sell them with instructions on how to make
laudenum, illegal -- though you can SEPARATELY sell a book about how to
make laudenum thanks to freedom of the press. There are many American
companies that specilize in providing seeds, plants, extracts, & powders
of legal herbal intoxicants, & also sell books & pamphlets on how to use
them, always with the disclaimer not to do that, or this information is
for historical or ethnobotanical interest only. They skirt the law in ways
the seed companies do not, as the myriad seed companies know they're
selling opium poppies to innocuous gardeners who'd be surprised how many
of the things they plant could get them high.

If Papaer somniferum was illegal in the US, hundreds of above-board
nurseries wouldn't be selling it, nor a couple dozen other potentially
hallucinogenic plants, many of which require far less preparation to get
high with. We live under a government that puts people in prison for
selling bongs for crine out loud, because laws against interstate sales of
bongs DO exist, & enforcement is pretty nasty. If the poppies were
illegal, policing agencies wouldn't be going "Oh who cares about that,
we're not enforcing it!" Rather, nurseries & our personal gardens would be
raided every day to root out the Evil Weed, & nosy neighbors who never
liked you or your yappy dog would have you hauled off for growing the
Wrong Flowers, just for the fun of seeing you go to jail.

Temperate-grown opium poppies are not even as potently psychoactive as are
morning glory seeds. The law fortunately realized long ago that attempting
to regulate moderately hallucinogenic plants was a lost cause, or even
cinnamen & nutmeg would end up banned from the kitchen cabinets, as would
be hundreds of everyday garden plants, & half of southern california would
have to be agent-oranged to death in order to get rid of jimson & a
hundred other native plants.

So it is the use that is legislated rather than the species. Likewise it
is illegal to buy & sell monkshoods for medicinal purposes, but you can
still buy monkshoods; & it's illegal to buy or sell daffodils for the
purpose of removing the germination to get stoned, but daffodils are
otherwise legal, just like morning glories & poppies.

> I have heard of plants being removed from gardens -

One rather famous case of this happening in Mount Baker, Seattle, to a
H'mong family, resulted in the police department making a public apology
to the whole H'mong community for having profiled H'mongs as from the
Golden Triangle. The police apologized not only because the poppies
would've been legal even if they HAD been Papaver somniferum, but in this
case a lone officer had taken it upon his own authority to tramp through a
garden to pull up the "evidence" -- thereby destroying an elderly woman's
ocra patch.

-paggers

> whether by the
> authorities or kids experimenting was never clear - but I have never heard
> of anyone arrested for growing a few of them in a garden setting.
>
> pam - gardengal

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

[paghat]

In article >, "Brian"
> wrote:

> P.somniferum grows as freely as a weed locally, but is most attractive, and
> hence left to bloom and go to seed and thus goes on and on.. From fifty
> plants' fruits I tried to bleed off the sap. This eventually dried to a
> speck that would have caused no problem to a constipated mouse!! It tasted
> awful and wouldn't respond to heat~~not that I knew how it should have
> responded!
> I was sixteen and have never bothered since. I have seen the seeds being
> collected but don't know if these were for cooking or scattering. They are
> not illegal to grow here 'without intent'. Eg. It is not illegal to carry
> a crowbar; unless it is being carried to use to break into a property!!.

A friend used hers for home-made laudenum. The potency was doubtful since
she grew the poppies in Seattle & it's the wrong sort of climate to
develop the opiating alkaloids, gorgeous though her poppy garden was. But
since laudenum is mostly alcohol anyway, she got roaring drunk on it at
times, & swore it was a better experience than being drunk on wine or
brandy. I for a while planned to get drunk a few times with her, as
laudenum is what most of the major & greatest opium-addict authors were
doing, as opposed to smoking it pure, so they were drunkards as much as
opium addicts. Since the classic opium authors are so excellent I wanted
to do laudenum out of admiration for their art. But being a teetotlar, it
was just too big a decision to decide to drink anything at all, & the more
research I did about it the less wise it seemed to be. It helps to be
stupid about things if you wanna be an addict, or you're bound to change
your mind.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

[Pam - gardengal]

"paghat" > wrote in message
...
> In article <jj9ic.8032$0u6.1529055@attbi_s03>, "Pam - gardengal"
> > wrote:
>
> > "escapee" > wrote in message
> > ...
> > > On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:55:36 GMT, agnatha3141
> > > > opined:
> > >
> > > >does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what
> > > >kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal
to
> > > >grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that
> > > >definately true?
> > > >i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i
think
> > > >that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is
> > > >the deal with poppies?
> > >
> > > The only one is Oriental, but I grow them and nobody arrests me.
Catalogs
> > > sell them everywhere
> >
> > I am constantly amazed at the amount of misinformation that gets
> > disseminated through this group.
>
> Quite right! Though I trust you're not leaving out your own ability to
> disseminate misinformation, as you do it as readily as Escapee or any of
> us! As for example:
>
> > Papaver somniferum, aka the breadseed, sleep,
> > peony-flowered or opium poppy IS illegal, but enforcement is, at the
best,
> > sporadic and half-hearted.
>
> Papaver somniferum is legal in the majority of countries, including the
> United States; some of the few countries that ban them do so because they
> are noxious weeds or could displace native poppies (they're illegal to
> propogate in Finland & Norway). In the USA, what the purchaser does with
> the poppies is what defines legality or illegality. As ornamentals,
> legal. To attempt to extract alkaloids for use as a drug, illegal,

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/drug_law_timeline.htm
pay particular attention to 1942

http://www.freep.com/features/living/poppy16_20010316.htm

http://www.erowid.org/plants/poppy/poppy_law.shtml
Internet sellers of opium poppy seeds are very careful to add legal
disclaimers, since all parts of the plants - except the seeds - are listed
as a controlled substance.

If you read the Controlled Substance Act, it makes no differentiation as to
the purpose for growing the plants - they are simply illegal to grow in this
country. Obviously, DEA and other law enforcement agencies have other fish
to fry rather than SWAT-teaming down on the hobby gardener and as I clearly
stated previously, someone somewhere is growing them commercially for seed
production, if for nothing else. Nonetheless, growing the plant is illegal.
Unless you care to reinterpret the law.

[Ann]

"Pam - gardengal" > expounded:

>If you read the Controlled Substance Act, it makes no differentiation as to
>the purpose for growing the plants - they are simply illegal to grow in this
>country. Obviously, DEA and other law enforcement agencies have other fish
>to fry rather than SWAT-teaming down on the hobby gardener and as I clearly
>stated previously, someone somewhere is growing them commercially for seed
>production, if for nothing else. Nonetheless, growing the plant is illegal.
>Unless you care to reinterpret the law.

Yes, they are illegal to grow around here, a few years back there was
quite a story in the local paper about the police raiding peoples'
gardens (one woman over in Scituate was actually arrested, at 86 years
old, and I have her plants growing in my yard). I think it was an
overzealous sherriff or something who decided to come down hard on all
us opium-growing gardeners ;->. Didn't get anywhere, the courts threw
out the cases, and they've left us alone since then. But rest
assured, it is illegal to grow opium poppies, they posted the
applicable laws and I have the clippings around here, somewhere.
--
Ann, Gardening in zone 6a
Just south of Boston, MA
********************************

[Zemedelec]

<< But rest
assured, it is illegal to grow opium poppies, they posted the
applicable laws and I have the clippings around here, somewhere.
--
Ann, Gardening in zone 6a
Just south of Boston, MA
********************************
I wonder why the state doesn't ban Jimson Weed, poison ivy, water hemlock,
mistletoe, castor bean, etc? They're all harmful to humans without any
bothersome cooking,
cutting, etc. Or could it be that the state doesn't really give a curse about
our hurting ourselves, as long as we don't get some short-term enjoyment thery
can't tax?




>><BR><BR>

zemedelec

[Frogleg]

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 23:55:57 GMT, agnatha3141
> wrote:

> i am soon going to move to
>another houselhold and planted a full garden, of which most of the
>stuff is blooming already or about to. the poppies however are not, and
>now that i know that they are illegal, i am wondering if i will get to
>see them bloom before i move in september,

I grew them from seed one year and they bloomed mid-summerish, as I
recall.

[Bill Oliver]

In article >,
Vox Humana > wrote:
>
>
>Do you have a citation for this? It sounds like an urban legend to me.
>

I don't know about GW, but when I was in the Army, I was specifically
warned against eating food poppy seeds because it gave a positive
on the random drug tests.

See: http://www.snopes.com/toxins/poppy.htm

billo

[escapee]

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 01:17:28 GMT, "Pam - gardengal" >
opined:

>If you read the Controlled Substance Act, it makes no differentiation as to
>the purpose for growing the plants - they are simply illegal to grow in this
>country. Obviously, DEA and other law enforcement agencies have other fish
>to fry rather than SWAT-teaming down on the hobby gardener and as I clearly
>stated previously, someone somewhere is growing them commercially for seed
>production, if for nothing else. Nonetheless, growing the plant is illegal.
>Unless you care to reinterpret the law.
>

I still cannot believe not even as much as an apology to me. Hmm, I thought you
were different. Guess not.

[Ann]

(paghat) expounded:

>Please find the clipping quick! And where exactly is "around here"? If you
>live on Malta, yep, they're illegal even as garden ornmentals!

My location is in my signature, it was in The Patriot Ledger but
damned if I can find it right now. It's in a pile. Somewhere <G>

--
Ann, Gardening in zone 6a
Just south of Boston, MA
********************************

[Vox Humana]

"Bill Oliver" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> Vox Humana > wrote:
> >
> >
> >Do you have a citation for this? It sounds like an urban legend to me.
> >
>
> I don't know about GW, but when I was in the Army, I was specifically
> warned against eating food poppy seeds because it gave a positive
> on the random drug tests.
>
> See: http://www.snopes.com/toxins/poppy.htm
>

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.

> On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:55:36 GMT, agnatha3141
> > opined:
>
>> does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what
>> kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal to
>> grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that
>> definately true?
>> i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i think
>> that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is
>> the deal with poppies?
>
> The only one is Oriental, but I grow them and nobody arrests me. Catalogs
> sell
> them everywhere

nope. that's wrong.

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.

[paghat]

In article >,
(Fire Erowid) wrote:

[much unsubstantiated stuff clipped]
> The laws against them are not generally enforced. That does
> not mean they are not illegal.

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
> 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.

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 can visit the DEA's list of scheduled substances at:
> http://www.dea.gov/pubs/scheduling.html
>
> Search for "poppy" and you'll see the entry for "Opium Poppy - Papaver
> somniferum".

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.

> 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".

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.

-paghat the ratgirl

> peace,
> fire

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

[paghat]

In article >, "Vox Humana"
> wrote:

> "Bill Oliver" > wrote in message
> ...
> > In article >,
> > Vox Humana > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >Do you have a citation for this? It sounds like an urban legend to me.
> > >
> >
> > I don't know about GW, but when I was in the Army, I was specifically
> > warned against eating food poppy seeds because it gave a positive
> > on the random drug tests.
> >
> > See: http://www.snopes.com/toxins/poppy.htm
> >
>
> 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.

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"
<http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2000/6/17/220615>

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.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

[gregpresley]

> wrote in message
...
> Papaver oriental is the perennial poppy; salmon, pink, red, and white.
> Papaver somniferum is the opium poppy, an annual, pink flowers only.

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.

[escapee]

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.


On 24 Apr 2004 16:58:07 -0700, (Fire Erowid) opined:

>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...
>
>
(paghat) wrote in message
>
>> But in the Act itself, the
>> phrase "except the seeds" occurs only in a glossary of the meaning of
>> terms used in the 1996 Act (and in other drug-related Acts of congress),
>> stating only that when the term "opium poppy" is used, they mean all parts
>> of P. smoniferum "except the seeds." It is not a legal statement, it is a
>> term definition.
>
>Legal statements are all about definitions of terms. How terms used
>in the law are officially and legally defined...defines the law.
>
>
>> > http://www.erowid.org/plants/poppy/poppy_law.shtml
>> > Internet sellers of opium poppy seeds are very careful to add legal
>> > disclaimers, since all parts of the plants - except the seeds - are listed
>> > as a controlled substance.
>>
>> Again, you get yourself in trouble relying on secondary sources. The five
>> words this page quotes from the 1996 Act ("opium poppies and opium straw")
>> is from Schedule II of the Controlled Substance Act, is from a list that
>> includes material that have merely a "potential for abuse." Schedule I
>> lists what is actually illegal, & does not include opium poppies.
>
>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.
>
>> Your unfortunate "citation" here follows up their misreading of the Act
>> with an admission of confusion: "There is some confusion in the law,
>> however, because opium-producing poppies are widely grown around the US
>> and Canada and the opium poppy seeds are omnipresent in cooking, breads,
>> and deserts." There is in realitiy no confusion in the law, only in people
>> who misunderstand the law, & your citation's explanation for this
>> non-existant contradiction is that "the law is schizophrenic" -- which is
>> laughable, because the law is coherent even if too complicated for the
>> stoner who wrote this page to remember one paragraph to the next.
>
>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.
>
>
>> Yet the final assessment on the page you liked is this: "If poppies are
>> grown as sources for opiates, there is no question that it violates the
>> CSA." That at least is correct. They are not otherwise illegal.
>
>The laws against them are not generally otherwise enforced. That does
>not mean they are not illegal.
>
>
>> > If you read the Controlled Substance Act, it makes no differentiation as to
>> > the purpose for growing the plants - they are simply illegal to grow in
>> > this country.
>>
>> Yes it does differentiate.
>
>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.
>
>
>> The Controlled Substance Act is THE relevant resource. Here it is for
>> those who want to go right to the source skipping amateur garden
>> web-essays & stoner assertions or even my own understanding of the Act:
>> http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/csa.htm
>
>Important to note that the controlled substance act is amended
>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.
>
>
>> Nowhere in Schedual I is the plant OR the seeds stated to be 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:
>http://www.dea.gov/pubs/scheduling.html
>
>Search 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".
>
>peace,
>fire

[escapee]

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 03:44:28 GMT, > opined:

>
>
>> On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:55:36 GMT, agnatha3141
>> > opined:
>>
>>> does anybody know for certain what kind of poppies are legal and what
>>> kind are not in the us? i read in a past post that poppies are legal to
>>> grow as long as you dont go making heroin from them, but is that
>>> definately true?
>>> i planted some poppy seeds, and it has been about four months. i think
>>> that blooming time is near, and i dont want to get arrested. what is
>>> the deal with poppies?
>>
>> The only one is Oriental, but I grow them and nobody arrests me. Catalogs
>> sell
>> them everywhere
>
>nope. that's wrong.
>
>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.

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.

[Janet Baraclough..]

The message >
from escapee > contains these words:

> 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.

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.

> 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.

Oh yes you do. When someone you like posts immature, spiteful verbal
abuse you give your encouragement and approval.

Janet.

[Zemedelec]

<< I believe we aren't allowed to grow P. somniferum in bulk, even for
culinary use. Seeds in bulk (for spice sellers and bakers) are
imported. >>

Probably some from the Czech Republic, where they are also illegal. On drives
out into the county my Czech friends would point them out. They're a real
staple of Czech pastries--if you ate a poppy-seed kolach then had to produce a
urine specimen, DEA would put you under the jail.


zemedelec

[Janet Baraclough..]

The message >
from (Zemedelec) contains these words:

> << I believe we aren't allowed to grow P. somniferum in bulk, even for
> culinary use. Seeds in bulk (for spice sellers and bakers) are
> imported. >>

> Probably some from the Czech Republic, where they are also illegal. On
> drives
> out into the county my Czech friends would point them out. They're a real
> staple of Czech pastries--if you ate a poppy-seed kolach then had to
> produce a
> urine specimen, DEA would put you under the jail.

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.


Janet

[Salty Thumb]

"tmtresh" > wrote in
:

>> Or could it be that the state doesn't really give a curse about our
>> hurting ourselves
>
> Oh, I don't know. What about all the seat belt laws and helmet laws? I
> think legislators just like to legislate. It doesn't have to make
> sense.

if you are taxpayer and have to pay for enforcement or put up with any of
fallout (e.g. overzealous people looking for their superhero costume in an
okra patch), it should make sense. and when it doesn't, people will
usually just let it slide, because there's really nothing you can do about
it.

[escapee]

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 18:41:13 +0100, Janet Baraclough..
> opined:

>The message >
>from escapee > contains these words:
>
>> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>> 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.
>
> Oh yes you do. When someone you like posts immature, spiteful verbal
>abuse you give your encouragement and approval.
>
> Janet.

Sorry Janet, not everything is about you.

[paghat]

In article <Iejic.10848$cF6.465992@attbi_s04>, "Pam - gardengal"
> wrote:

> "paghat" > wrote in message
> ...
> > In article <jj9ic.8032$0u6.1529055@attbi_s03>, "Pam - gardengal"
> > > wrote:
> >
> > > "escapee" > wrote in message
[clips]
> > >
> > > I am constantly amazed at the amount of misinformation that gets
> > > disseminated through this group.
> >
> > Quite right! Though I trust you're not leaving out your own ability to
> > disseminate misinformation, as you do it as readily as Escapee or any of
> > us! As for example:
> >
> > > Papaver somniferum, aka the breadseed, sleep,
> > > peony-flowered or opium poppy IS illegal, but enforcement is, at the
> best,
> > > sporadic and half-hearted.
> >
> > Papaver somniferum is legal in the majority of countries, including the
> > United States; some of the few countries that ban them do so because they
> > are noxious weeds or could displace native poppies (they're illegal to
> > propogate in Finland & Norway). In the USA, what the purchaser does with
> > the poppies is what defines legality or illegality. As ornamentals,
> > legal. To attempt to extract alkaloids for use as a drug, illegal,
>
> http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/drug_law_timeline.htm
> pay particular attention to 1942

All you really needed to do was apologize to Escapee. But oh well. You can
site 500 baseless website assertions of illegality, or I could cite 500
equally amateurish websites of its legality, but all that really needs to
be cited is the actual Controlled Substances Act which does not make it
illegal to grow opium poppies for ornamental purposes. The 1942 Act you
prefer is not the relevant law; the relevant law is the 1996 Act updated
from 1985, both versions missing from this ridiculous time line you just
cited & put such stock in. Though I doubt the 1942 Act made growing the
species ornamentally either, I've only read the 1996 Act, & it definitely
does not make this plant illegal.

It is a misunderstanding of the 1996 act that has led to the widespread
urban legend that all parts of the plant are illegal EXCEPT the seeds.
This urban legend supposedly explains why if it's so awfully illegal to
have them, they're so easy to buy, especially from domestic seed companies
which sell the seeds willynilly (the urban legend ignores how you can also
get the potted plants from garden shops). But in the Act itself, the
phrase "except the seeds" occurs only in a glossary of the meaning of
terms used in the 1996 Act (and in other drug-related Acts of congress),
stating only that when the term "opium poppy" is used, they mean all parts
of P. smoniferum "except the seeds." It is not a legal statement, it is a
term definition.

> http://www.freep.com/features/living/poppy16_20010316.htm

An amateur reporter's second-hand pop-article with only vague allusions
not to any law but to a DEA request to seed vendors outside the US -- this
is a poor substitute for what the 1996 Act actually states. If we were to
do dueling pop-websites without an iota of credibility, the incorrect
article you've cited itself provides only one source other than a
seed-catalog disclaimer -- & that only other source was www.opium.org --
which in fact states that Papaver somniferum is legal throughout the
United States. But that's not a substitute for the actual 1996 Act either,
so I won't play duelling dumbass-websites with you. I'm sure you had to
skip over a lot of them yourself doing your google search for that amateur
reporter's wildly inaccurate non-resource.

Interestingly the article you relied on contradicts itself in asserting
that all parts of the plant are illegal to own or grow, then in another
paragraph repeats the urban legend that the seeds are legal but growing
them is not. The article was obviously cobbled together very quickly & not
even proofread for coherence.

It is at least true the DEA asked foreign seed importers (but without
legal means of enforcing the request) to no longer import opium poppy
seeds to the US, & British companies complied, & made note of their
voluntary compliance in a catalog, & thereby started a parallel urban
legend to the "only the seeds are legal" legend. The plant & seeds remain
easily available from domestic vendors because while the DEA has all the
time in the world to make polite requests overseas, they have no legal
authority to impose such requests on American citizens to cease legal
activities.

The article obviously never used the primary document to understand the
foreign seed-catalog disclaimer, & it even misrepresented the content of
the disclaimer that inspired the rancid editorial. Almost half the 1996
Act is devoted to import/export law. None of the sections of the Act about
importation & exportation apply to domestic seeds or plants. The amateur
reporter misquoted or misrepresented the British seed catalog disclaimer,
because the disclaimer does not say it is illegal to ship the seeds to
America; it says it is EITHER illegal OR problematical to export them to a
handful of countries, including the United States. Importation into the
US happens to be legal, & the one thing the amateur garden reporter's
article gets right is that UK vendors no longer ship them to America
VOLUNTARILY, rather than in adherance to any law.

> http://www.erowid.org/plants/poppy/poppy_law.shtml
> Internet sellers of opium poppy seeds are very careful to add legal
> disclaimers, since all parts of the plants - except the seeds - are listed
> as a controlled substance.

Again, you get yourself in trouble relying on secondary sources. The five
words this page quotes from the 1996 Act ("opium poppies and opium straw")
is from Schedule II of the Controlled Substance Act, is from a list that
includes material that have merely a "potential for abuse." Schedule I
lists what is actually illegal, & does not include opium poppies.

Your unfortunate "citation" here follows up their misreading of the Act
with an admission of confusion: "There is some confusion in the law,
however, because opium-producing poppies are widely grown around the US
and Canada and the opium poppy seeds are omnipresent in cooking, breads,
and deserts." There is in realitiy no confusion in the law, only in people
who misunderstand the law, & your citation's explanation for this
non-existant contradiction is that "the law is schizophrenic" -- which is
laughable, because the law is coherent even if too complicated for the
stoner who wrote this page to remember one paragraph to the next.

Yet the final assessment on the page you liked is this: "If poppies are
grown as sources for opiates, there is no question that it violates the
CSA." That at least is correct. They are not otherwise illegal.

> If you read the Controlled Substance Act, it makes no differentiation as to
> the purpose for growing the plants - they are simply illegal to grow in this
> country.

Yes it does differentiate. So be careful telling someone who has read the
Act she better read it when you yourself either never bothered, or read it
very carelessly & cited only secondary commentaries about it. I would
never claim a belief in my own infallibility as big as yours, but at least
I did read the Act, & feel I understand the greater part of it. You relied
too much on that pro-drug website erowid.org -- I love that website, but
its members are either too stoned or too paranoid (justifiably given the
nature of the War on Drugs) to understand much of what they read. Soners
are not a reliable substitute for reading the Act itself -- the current
one, not the historical one you cited for 1942, which I also doubt you
read or you wouldn't've cited it on a half-assed drug timeline concocted
by yet another stoner. It's awfully selective of you to NOT include the
other cool stoner website, opium.org, which strongly disagrees with erowid
-- dueling stoner websites are so cool, but not reliable substitutes for
the Act if one wishes to know what the Act actually renders illegal.

The Controlled Substance Act is THE relevant resource. Here it is for
those who want to go right to the source skipping amateur garden
web-essays & stoner assertions or even my own understanding of the Act:
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/csa.htm

Legalese can certainly be difficult at times or attorneys wouldn't be
needed to uncoil the labyrinth, & in understanding such a document I
wouldn't claim the degree of infalibilitiy you seem to feel you possess
even while viewing it through the warped lense of a stoner website. Still,
as Acts go, this one is FAIRLY comprehensible to lay understanding.

Nowhere in it are opium poppies per se rendered illegal to own, sell, or
grow. Opium poppies are mentioned exactly twice, once in the glossary, &
second in a list of material with a "potential" for abuse. The glossary
includes the phrase "except the seeds" which seems to have given rise to
the urban legend that the seeds are legal but planting them is illegal.
And if one is merely skimming the Act instead of reading it, the Section
II list that appends both legal & illegal substances with potential for
abuse could be misread as an extension of the Section I list of what is
actually illegal. What is illegal essentially are the opiates, opium,
esters, ethers, isomers, salts, & all chemical extracts actual or
synthesized from opium poppies -- pointedly missing from the list are not
the poppies themselves, which are legal. Nowhere in Schedual I is the
plant OR the seeds stated to be illegal.

The Act further includes legal specific milligram measurements for the
alkaloids. These have to be reached or exceeded for opium to become
illegal. The plants themselves never possess the alkaloids or compounds in
sufficient concentration to in themselves reach a point of illegality.

None of the Act's complex statements about importation into the United
States really apply to home-grown poppies. But it is interesting in that
even importation is in fact legal, but as the foreign vendors have stated,
"problematical." Because the DEA asked them to VOLUNTARILY cease to do so,
they buckled under to politcal pressure, not legal pressure. Domestic
vendors haven't been pressured because there is no legal basis to ask
Americans to cease legal activity.

There are aspects of the import/export portion of the Act that are VERY
problematical because the Attorney General has almost carte blance
authority to impose random or even nonsensical registration procedures
against any importer/exporter, & to make up new regulations for how to
register as an importer/exporter without congressional oversight. Vis, in
section 957 of chapter 13 of the Act, the Attorney General can impose
unspecified requirements "if he finds it consistent with the public health
and safety" to do so. On that basis, importers of white sugar, which is
unhealthy for people, could be harrassed by demands of special
registration procedures. A restraint on harrassing importers is included
in the Act, in that an importer or exporter of legal substances with
potential for illegal use are expempted if he is "acting in the usual
course of his business" rather than illegally, so presumedly the Attorney
General cannot start making strange registration demands against ordinary
seed vendors overseas. But it's just the sort of thing attorneys argue in
court, by which time a lot of trouble might be caused innocent vendors, so
it's easier to just comply "voluntarily."

Even for domestic growing of any plant with mind-altering potential, there
are problematical parts of the Act, to date only applied to marijuana
growers, that provide for seizure of property even without proof of guilt
of anything. This part of the Act is open to abuse, & was terribly abused
in the past when law enforcement came down hard on harmless potheads who
only grew enough to feed their own addiction, but lost their houses
without ever being found guilty of anything; or landlords lost housing for
not knowing what was going on inside their renters' spaces. This has been
widely criticized as unconstitional & is not presently occurring, but that
part of the Act seems not to have been overturned (though missing from
this web text are footnotes on which parts have in fact been repealed
since 1996; it includes only what was repealed betweem 1985 & 1996).

> Obviously, DEA and other law enforcement agencies have other fish
> to fry rather than SWAT-teaming down on the hobby gardener and as I clearly
> stated previously, someone somewhere is growing them commercially for seed
> production, if for nothing else. Nonetheless, growing the plant is illegal.
> Unless you care to reinterpret the law.

Since "the law" in this case the Act to which I gave a link, & it does not
make it illegal to own, sell, or grow opium poppies for ornamental
purposes, it is hardly necessary to "reinterpret" any of it. If you would
read the Act itself instead of an amateur journalist's editorial based on
information from a British seed-catalog disclaimer, or read the Act itself
without the interpretation you found on a drug-advocacy website written by
stoners with no short-term memories left, you might've known all that was
required was an apology to Escapee for your crabbing about disseminating
falsehoods, in the very breath that you disseminate your own.

However, if you really do believe the Feds are so overworked with such
"bigger fish to fry" as bong vendors & tobacco shops, therefore existing
laws against poppies can't be enforced, you need to rethink how the War on
Drugs has worked to date. You seriously think they're so overworked from
cracking down on bong vendors that nurseries slip under the radar?? Well
then, try selling something ACTUALLY illegal, like one nice little
marijuana plant "for ornamental use only," & see what happens. Disclaimers
up the wazoo won't keep you out of deep caca.

As it stands, opium poppy plants AND seeds are easily available in every
state, every county, every city, in garden centers & Church plant sales &
plant catalogs because they are legal, NOT because cracking down on bongs
is so much more important. The only reason they crack d own on bongs
(despite that they certainly can be used with legal substances) is because
interstate sale of bongs is illegal. The only reason they do not crack
down on opium poppies grown for ornamental purposes is because they are
not illegal.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

[tmtresh]

> Or could it be that the state doesn't really give a curse about
> our hurting ourselves

Oh, I don't know. What about all the seat belt laws and helmet laws? I think
legislators just like to legislate. It doesn't have to make sense.

[Spud Demon]

(paghat) writes in article > dated Sat, 24 Apr 2004 21:23:54 -0800:
>In article >, "Vox Humana"
> wrote:
>
>> "Bill Oliver" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > In article >,
>> > Vox Humana > wrote:
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >Do you have a citation for this? It sounds like an urban legend to me.

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.

>> > I don't know about GW, but when I was in the Army, I was specifically
>> > warned against eating food poppy seeds because it gave a positive
>> > on the random drug tests.
>> >
>> > See: http://www.snopes.com/toxins/poppy.htm
>> >
>>
>> 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.
>
>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."

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.

>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

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.

[Vox Humana]

"paghat" > wrote in message
...
> In article >, "Vox Humana"
> > wrote:
>
> > "Bill Oliver" > wrote in message
> > ...
> > > In article >,
> > > Vox Humana > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >Do you have a citation for this? It sounds like an urban legend to
me.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I don't know about GW, but when I was in the Army, I was specifically
> > > warned against eating food poppy seeds because it gave a positive
> > > on the random drug tests.
> > >
> > > See: http://www.snopes.com/toxins/poppy.htm
> > >
> >
> > 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.
>
> 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"
> <http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2000/6/17/220615>
>
> 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.
>
> -paghat the ratgirl

He's just plane evil.

[Fire Erowid]

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...


(paghat) wrote in message

> But in the Act itself, the
> phrase "except the seeds" occurs only in a glossary of the meaning of
> terms used in the 1996 Act (and in other drug-related Acts of congress),
> stating only that when the term "opium poppy" is used, they mean all parts
> of P. smoniferum "except the seeds." It is not a legal statement, it is a
> term definition.

Legal statements are all about definitions of terms. How terms used
in the law are officially and legally defined...defines the law.


> > http://www.erowid.org/plants/poppy/poppy_law.shtml
> > Internet sellers of opium poppy seeds are very careful to add legal
> > disclaimers, since all parts of the plants - except the seeds - are listed
> > as a controlled substance.
>
> Again, you get yourself in trouble relying on secondary sources. The five
> words this page quotes from the 1996 Act ("opium poppies and opium straw")
> is from Schedule II of the Controlled Substance Act, is from a list that
> includes material that have merely a "potential for abuse." Schedule I
> lists what is actually illegal, & does not include opium poppies.

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.

> Your unfortunate "citation" here follows up their misreading of the Act
> with an admission of confusion: "There is some confusion in the law,
> however, because opium-producing poppies are widely grown around the US
> and Canada and the opium poppy seeds are omnipresent in cooking, breads,
> and deserts." There is in realitiy no confusion in the law, only in people
> who misunderstand the law, & your citation's explanation for this
> non-existant contradiction is that "the law is schizophrenic" -- which is
> laughable, because the law is coherent even if too complicated for the
> stoner who wrote this page to remember one paragraph to the next.

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.


> Yet the final assessment on the page you liked is this: "If poppies are
> grown as sources for opiates, there is no question that it violates the
> CSA." That at least is correct. They are not otherwise illegal.

The laws against them are not generally otherwise enforced. That does
not mean they are not illegal.


> > If you read the Controlled Substance Act, it makes no differentiation as to
> > the purpose for growing the plants - they are simply illegal to grow in
> > this country.
>
> Yes it does differentiate.

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.


> The Controlled Substance Act is THE relevant resource. Here it is for
> those who want to go right to the source skipping amateur garden
> web-essays & stoner assertions or even my own understanding of the Act:
> http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/csa.htm

Important to note that the controlled substance act is amended
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.


> Nowhere in Schedual I is the plant OR the seeds stated to be 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:
http://www.dea.gov/pubs/scheduling.html

Search 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".

peace,
fire

[Bill Oliver]

In article >,
paghat > wrote:
>
>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..


No, it "appears to be" bullshit propaganda by people who get their
jollies out of the politics of personal destruction.



>See text of London Times artical "Bush Dodged Drug Test"
><http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2000/6/17/220615>
>


Quite the spin. There is no evidence whatsoever that he missed
the physical exam because of the drug test, or in fact that
he failed to take any required exam. Having been in the
Army for 8 years, having dodged a couple of such exams
myself and knowing a zillion other people who also did, I know
there are a number of reasons why people avoid these things.
*I* avoided the exam once or twice because I always had trouble
making my height/weight requirement, and managed to get assigned
elsewhere on a couple of time I needed another week or so to
drop those last couple of pounds. I know a number of pilots
who had temporary health issues (such as getting blood pressure
under control) that would have grounded them had they been examined
who avoided the exam until the issues were resolved.

And, of course, the accusation itself is false. Records that
have been released by the Administration include his medical
records, which include the drug tests.

Unlike Kerry, of course, who has refused to release his medical
records. But then, this kind of blatant attack based on innuendo
and lie is only appropriate when attacking Bush, no? It would be
*wrong* to infer anything from Kerry's reticence, right?

billo

[Vox Humana]

"Bill Oliver" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> paghat > wrote:
> >
> >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..
>
>
> No, it "appears to be" bullshit propaganda by people who get their
> jollies out of the politics of personal destruction.
>
>

Had it been anyone else, refusing to take a physical would have been an act
of self destruction. Now we are all paying the price for letting a spoiled
druggy turned born again fanatic lead into the darkness.

[paghat]

In article >, "Vox Humana"
> wrote:

> "Bill Oliver" > wrote in message
> ...
> > In article >,
> > paghat > wrote:
> > >
> > >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..
> >
> >
> > No, it "appears to be" bullshit propaganda by people who get their
> > jollies out of the politics of personal destruction.
> >
> >
>
> Had it been anyone else, refusing to take a physical would have been an act
> of self destruction. Now we are all paying the price for letting a spoiled
> druggy turned born again fanatic lead into the darkness.

Yep. He has admitted that even his father's advice is not wanted -- the
only other president to wage a war in that region isn't expert enough for
the little Shrub -- & the reason is because he claims he has the advice of
his "Higher Father" & does not need to listen to ANYone else. This shows
him to be a complete lunatic who thinks he's Jesus talking back to that
mere mortal Joseph. If God doesn't speak to him, he ain't listening to no
one else!

"Who cares what YOU think."
-Shrubby, 4 July 2001

"They misunderestimated me."
-George Dumbya, 6 november 2000

Here's a lovely page of Shrub facts:
http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm

"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case."
-Queen George II, 30 january 2000

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

[Salty Thumb]

(Bill Oliver) wrote in
:

> In article >,
> paghat > wrote:
>>
>>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..
>
> No, it "appears to be" bullshit propaganda by people who get their
> jollies out of the politics of personal destruction.

Ha that's a good one. Kenneth Starr has faded from memory, so the
"politics of personal destruction" is now taboo.

>>See text of London Times artical "Bush Dodged Drug Test"
>><http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2000/6/17/220615>
>
> Quite the spin. There is no evidence whatsoever that he missed
> the physical exam because of the drug test, or in fact that
> he failed to take any required exam. Having been in the

There IS evidence that he skipped the drug test BECAUSE of the exam.
Unfortunately, it's buried with a bunch of WMDs in the Iraqi desert.

But as far as failing to take ANY required exam, what part of "suspended
from flying for failing to take a required flight physical" or "As he was
not flying, there was no reason for him to take the flight exam" is
unclear? If he knew he wasn't going to be flying, why would he care if
he failed the physical or not? If all he was doing in the Alabama Air
National Guard was yutzing around reading manuals, you'd think he'd find
the time to show up for a physical so that the government would know if
he were ready in the unlikely event that he'd be called upon to serve.
Why didn't he fulfill his duty, take the required physical and be done
with it? Not a very good soldier, huh? Makes for an even better
Commander-in-Chief. Supposedly he managed to show up for the dentist at
least, which is good when your only duties are smiling for photo-ops
which are strangely missing.

As you are clearly looking for some "spin" to discredit, here is the TRUE
interpretation of the facts:
Instead fulfilling his commitments to protect the nation, Bush choose to
skip his physical because he knew full well the only thing he'd ever be
guarding was a box of paper clips. As a bonus, he would not have worry
about having his coke habit exposed by the new drug tests that his
buddies slyly warned him about.

> Army for 8 years, having dodged a couple of such exams
> myself and knowing a zillion other people who also did, I know
> there are a number of reasons why people avoid these things.
> *I* avoided the exam once or twice because I always had trouble
> making my height/weight requirement, and managed to get assigned
> elsewhere on a couple of time I needed another week or so to
> drop those last couple of pounds. I know a number of pilots
> who had temporary health issues (such as getting blood pressure
> under control) that would have grounded them had they been examined
> who avoided the exam until the issues were resolved.

It's so good to know that military is operating such a tight ship.
Luckily, you guys are not actually in the business of defending anything
(except for war industry profit margins), in spite of the good intentions
of honest soldiers, otherwise we might be worried. Nevertheless, it
shouldn't be a problem. I know some airline pilots who skip their
mandatory vision tests, and ship captains who skip their sobriety tests
until they can clear things up. The important thing is to have a clean
record, (especially in case daddy is in position to buy a presidency for
you some day).

> And, of course, the accusation itself is false. Records that
> have been released by the Administration include his medical

Yeah, selected records from a selected time frame, not to be removed from
a specific room in a specific building.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/13/elec04.prez.bush.texas.records/

> records, which include the drug tests.

Obviously not the ones he skipped or shredded.

> Unlike Kerry, of course, who has refused to release his medical
> records. But then, this kind of blatant attack based on innuendo
> and lie is only appropriate when attacking Bush, no? It would be
> *wrong* to infer anything from Kerry's reticence, right?

And what exactly would releasing Kerry's personal medical files prove?
Does his family have a history of drug abuse, too?

But anyway:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2004/04/21/k
erry_to_release_records?pg=2

Enjoy looking for jollies.

[paghat]

In article >, Ann
> wrote:

> "Pam - gardengal" > expounded:
>
> >If you read the Controlled Substance Act, it makes no differentiation as to
> >the purpose for growing the plants - they are simply illegal to grow in this
> >country. Obviously, DEA and other law enforcement agencies have other fish
> >to fry rather than SWAT-teaming down on the hobby gardener and as I clearly
> >stated previously, someone somewhere is growing them commercially for seed
> >production, if for nothing else. Nonetheless, growing the plant is illegal.
> >Unless you care to reinterpret the law.
>
> Yes, they are illegal to grow around here, a few years back there was
> quite a story in the local paper about the police raiding peoples'
> gardens (one woman over in Scituate was actually arrested, at 86 years
> old, and I have her plants growing in my yard). I think it was an
> overzealous sherriff or something who decided to come down hard on all
> us opium-growing gardeners ;->. Didn't get anywhere, the courts threw
> out the cases, and they've left us alone since then. But rest
> assured, it is illegal to grow opium poppies, they posted the
> applicable laws and I have the clippings around here, somewhere.

Please find the clipping quick! And where exactly is "around here"? If you
live on Malta, yep, they're illegal even as garden ornmentals!

US FEDERAL law makes it legal to rip up gardens in this manner on the
mere suspicion of illegal intent, but without proof of illegal intent,
there are no actual cases that can ever come to court; & local police
wasting enforcement time & money harrassing people for legal plants would
probably cause a few heads to roll, & it wouldn't be any gardener's head.

What you describe is perfectly plausible by the existing federal law.
Over-enthusiastic law enforcement is backed up by a law that permits such
enthusiasiam on the basis of suspicions alone, & suspicion is a hard thing
to quantify since it's in the mind of the enforcer. But no actual cases
can result for the courtroom in the absence of misuse, for no law is
broken. If it were just generally illegal to grow them, rest assured, it
wouldn've gotten somewhere.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

[Vox Humana]

"paghat" > wrote in message
...
> In article >, "Vox Humana"
> > wrote:
>
> > "Bill Oliver" > wrote in message
> > ...
> > > In article >,
> > > paghat > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >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..
> > >
> > >
> > > No, it "appears to be" bullshit propaganda by people who get their
> > > jollies out of the politics of personal destruction.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Had it been anyone else, refusing to take a physical would have been an
act
> > of self destruction. Now we are all paying the price for letting a
spoiled
> > druggy turned born again fanatic lead into the darkness.
>
> Yep. He has admitted that even his father's advice is not wanted -- the
> only other president to wage a war in that region isn't expert enough for
> the little Shrub -- & the reason is because he claims he has the advice of
> his "Higher Father" & does not need to listen to ANYone else. This shows
> him to be a complete lunatic who thinks he's Jesus talking back to that
> mere mortal Joseph. If God doesn't speak to him, he ain't listening to no
> one else!

I find it disturbing that George Bush's god and Dick Cheney are virtually
indistinguishable.