Gov being utterly stupid (2nd go)

[barnstaple]

Times headline re poppy growers. They are asking farmers in the UK to grow poppies so that hospital demands for diamorphine can be met. Meanwhile, we have troops in Aghanistan with instructions to stop the farmers there from growing poppies...

Yes, but the difference is that the poppies grown in Afghanistan are used by terrorist groups in the production of heroin.

Why is that stupid, Barnstaple? Or am I being dense!?

oh, good!

I LOVE poppies1 I'd be delighted to see fields full of them in the UK.

That sounds really sensible. Encourage a legitimate source of this drug that does not risk being controlled by or fuelling terrorists.

What am I missing?

Phew glad it's not just me!

Why can't we buy our morphine from Afghanistan, to give the growers there a legitimate source of income? Not much else grows in Afghanistan, by all accounts.

I think it's stupid because we could very easily buy the stuff from the Afghans. Growing it here is fine if our farmer weren't having enough trouble growing food; and of course it also means we'll be bringing production of heroin from there to here etc.

x-post with Barnstaple. I'm also thinking that the climate here is wrong for opium - you need a lot more sunshine for the flowers to produce the active ingredient.

Does anyone know why poppies give you a headache? - Or do they not give anyone else a headache? Maybe it's just me!

I think homegrown poppies are a great idea.

Don't know much about growing morphine - if it's exactly the same as growing heroin. But I would have thought it pretty difficult to do business with these farmers who are completely controlled by terrorists.

I can see the sense in having the legitimate trade in the UK where you can control it, not in a failed state where you have been fighting a losing war for 6 years.

Bluestocking - the resident druggie at my college grew it successfully in a window box

that was opium that my friend grew - is diamorphine a different sort?

All comes from the same plant. The problem with buying it from Afghanistan is that it is uncontrollable and generally used to fund terrorism and drug industry as well as legitimate industry from what I understand.

What with immigration in the state it's in, there's probably enough Afghan asylum seekers already over here to find a poppy farmer amongst. Lease him a bit of land and the government are sorted.

Diamorphine is an opiate.

People in the southern US and Mexico used to make laudanum from poppies. You use the flower head and prick the black bits and soak it in corn syrup and then sweat it out in a crock pot.

My Mayan grandmother used to do this.

She also used to grow pot/cannabis. She couldn't believe people abused it. To her, it was a medicine like paracetemol - could make teas with lots of lemon for a sore tummy. When her daughter had an asthma attack, she would go into the bathroom with her and puff it in a pipe and have her inhale the smoke.

Stuff like that.

Expat - your G'ma sounds amazing - we'd have got on very well, totally agree with the cannabis - such a shame it's real use has been abused to the degree it's illegal these days

She gave me some 'tea' once when I had cramps. Lots of sugar cane in it.

Did the trick.

I had no idea it was friggin' pot tea till my dad told me!

She would say, in English, 'This strong plant. Doesn't get worms or weeds.'

Should've seen the size of her mortar and pestle!