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Lawbreaking Poppies

© Keith Muraoka

For those of you who don't know me, let me say right now that I'm a law-abiding sort. I don't try to sneak into the 10-item or fewer line at the supermarket if I have 11 items. I don't litter or spit on the sidewalk. Heck, I even try to drive 65 on the freeway.

So you can imagine my surprise when a gardener friend -- while stolling through my garden -- gave me a little wink when he came upon some pink poppies in bloom. "I didn't know you were into these," he said, chuckling and pointing.

It seems I'd been unknowingly growing opium poppies. These beautiful pink poppies actually are Papaver somniferum, also known as peony poppy, also known as opium poppy. The species is a source of morphine, heroin and codeine. Of course, it is also the same flower that produces the poppy seeds we eat on breads, cakes and bagels.

Who knows where my plants came from? I vaguely remember someone giving me the seeds, but as to who or whether those were the particular seeds, I don't know. Whatever the case, my sharp-eyed gardener friend told me he's heard of instances where police have come to the home gardener's garden and ripped out a planting of opium, confiscating them because it's illegal to grow them.

That sounded a little far-fetched, so I decided to do some investigating. This eventually led me to Bill Deac, a public information officer for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C. Deac said that according to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, it is not illegal to have seeds of opium poppy, but it is illegal to grow the plants. In fact, it's punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $25,000 fine! All the poppy seed we consume is imported from countries that have been designated to grow the plants by international agreements.

At the same time, Deac was quick to point out that the DEA is "realistic" about the law. "It would be a preposterous idea for the DEA to go out and pursue poppy growing in individual backyards," he said. "It would be a great waste of taxpayers' dollars. This type of thing is best left to common sense."

Deac said the occasional raids that occur are conducted by local law enforcement officials, who have decided that the opium poppy plants in someone else's garden pose a threat to the public. Generally, all that is done is that the plants are confiscated.