One of the more interesting things we saw in Tasmania that we weren't expecting to see were the wonderful fields full of opium poppies.
Now, I know they're not fundraising for Al Qiada, and that they not making opium or heroin, but it is pretty fun to pretend.
The world's supply of morphine and other opiates has to come from somewhere, but I would never have said, "I think that pharmacutical companies get the raw materials for morphine from North West Tasmania."
It just doesn't sound right. That and the fact that the only things that seem to guard them is a barbed wire fence and this sign. It did prevent us from making any illegal use of the crop, so who am I to judge.
I always imagined them to be more red and have more pins.
-Gary Milner
2 comments:
The poppies I saw in Israel were red like the poppy pins we get for Remembrance day. Apparently poppies vary in colour from pure white to reddish purple.
The red poppies (papava) found in Tasmania are considered a weed, and only the white are grown for commercial reasons. Within this there are two varieties morphine poppies and thebaine poppies, and both are used strictly for medicinal purposes only
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