I have the feeling this was one of the last questions Cecil answered:
Someone had asked it before, of course. Might just revive this thread, let’s see what’s happened in the meantime, after 16 years.
Opium poppies grow every where from the Afghanistan to the cold wet climate of Tasmania where there are large legal plantations. Offshoring their production originally gave the US some leverage in forcing other countries to accept US style drug scheduling. The potency of plants is extremely variable and yor may end up with anything from a slight buzz to overdose which is problematical if you want to grow your own.
I posted on this 4 years ago:
Original link is dead, but someone has posted the article here:
https://www.wesjones.com/pollan1.htm
Pollan does go on.
I don’t grow poppies, but a seed catalog I get lists 9 varieties of P. somniferum. They won’t ship to WV and Canada unless you order P. paeoniflorum or P. laciniatum, which are still varieties of P. somniferum. The likelihood of getting significant narcotic content from such plants is low.
This discussion reminds me of the fact that, a few decades ago, the Drug Enforcement Agency forced Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, to remove the poppy plants growing in their historically accurate garden. They may have been fine for a founding father, but the rest of us are just junkies and are not to be trusted.
What’s the diff between poppy seeds on a bagel and the bad kind?
The amount of cream cheese.
I think this is more of a social issue rather than a botanical or chemical one.
You could grow and process cocaine in the United States. But it would involve setting up a fairly good-sized center for manufacturing illegal drugs.
There are places in the world where you can do that and make arrangements so law enforcement isn’t going to interfere with you. But it would be difficult to operate a cocaine manufacturing operation in the United States without some law enforcement agency investigating.
Nothing.
In the older discussions on this thread it was mentioned that you need a laboratory to actually extract the cocaine. But if you have ever seen a documentary on cocaine you realize the definition of a “laboratory” gets strained quite a bit.
The workers dig a shallow pit and line it with a typical blue tarp from Home Depot (deposito de casa?). The leaves are dumped in and covered with gasoline or kerosene. Workers tramp around and smush everything like an old fashioned wine festival. That’s the first stage of the “laboratory”. What - you expected food grade ethanol in glass carboys? These guys are creative.
Home Depot: ¿Almacén para el hogar?
I guess you can use the blue tarp more than once, until it is no longer blue. And the feet are clean afterwards. Just don’t smoke at work!