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?

agnatha3141 writes in article m 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.

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

"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

"Spud Demon" wrote in message
...
agnatha3141 writes in article
m 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.

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

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

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.

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/

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/

"paghat" wrote in message
news
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/...w_timeline.htm
pay particular attention to 1942

http://www.freep.com/features/living...6_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.

"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
********************************

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?




BRBR

zemedelec

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.

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