Destructive Chaos

Opium anyone?

On July 27th, Calgary police raid the backyard of a 62 year old man. Under a clear tarp in his backyard, was $40,000CAD worth of 1,000 opium poppy plants. “It’s something very unusual for this part of the country,” said Calgary police Insp. Luch Berti. “I’ve never seen anything remotely similar to this.” The 62 year old man is facing charges of possesion and trafficking.

Police even called in a specialist from the University of Calgary to make sure that these poppies were in fact the opium kind. It was confirmed.

Opium from the the poppy plant can be used to extract drugs such as codeine and morphine, and can also be converted to heroin.

Duty Insp. Kevan Stuart said that since this is the first bust of its kind, it’s too soon to draw any links to international dealers or organized crime.

Others want Canada to grow?

Glen Metzler, head of Metzler Trading Company Ltd. in Lethbridge says he has writen to the Alberta government about allowing farmers to grow opium for pharmaceutical use. He has also writen to Alberta Health about growing for commercial purposes could be lucrative for Alberta farmers, who could turn to Australia as a model.

“Australia’s been growing poppies for 40 years now and very successfully,” he said. “They’ve had up to 22,000 hectares into production. For their farmers, it does exceptionally well.”

Facchini says, Canada is the world’s no. 1 consumer of codeine, importing an estimated $100 million worth of opium-related painkillers every year. (are we all really that sick?)

My question is, what stops people from just going on to a farmers field and getting themself some Opuim poppies for illegal drug use - the farmers themselves could do the same.