# Why are poppy seeds legal but not marijuana seeds? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 28, 2020, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193 "2020-08-28T01:29:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/1 "2020-08-28T01:29:45Z")
I am hoping there is a factual answer, if not please move. Also I understand that marijuana seeds are legal in some states. This is about the broader picture / Federal level. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/2 "2020-08-28T03:45:14Z")
They are illegal in some countries. The big reason they’re not illegal here is that, even though this country may have a heroin (and other drugs that are made from opium) problem, we, in general, don’t grow it here. We grow a lot of marijuana, but really no poppies. A quick search online suggests that the two big reasons for that are that it’s simply too easy and too cheap to import it and it takes an acre+ of brightly colored, fairly tall, distinctive looking flowers to make a kilo of heroin. [That’s going to get noticed](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/opium-poppy-field-purple-blooming-plants-spring-149796952.jpg) a lot faster than someone with a [grow room in a warehouse](https://subcooled.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/cannabis_groweroom.jpg). Also, keep in mind that the average teen/college kid can take a few seeds, plant them and, if they’re really lucky, end up with a little bit of weed. The average teen/college kid with some poppy seeds isn’t likely going to have enough to end up with much of anything and probably doesn’t know how to process the flower into a usable drug. Maybe they can get some opium out of it, but they don’t likely know how to turn it into heroin. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/3 "2020-08-28T04:51:10Z")
Poppy plants aren’t illegal, either and it takes a LOT of that sap to get a usable amount of opium. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/4 "2020-08-28T08:45:10Z")
There are centuries of a tradition using poppy seeds in cooking in the West. There is not a similar tradition of using marijuana seeds in cooking. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/5 "2020-08-28T11:45:23Z")
Poppy seeds sold for cooking are required to be inactivated. Not there aren’t places in the world where they are still actually illegal, and poppy seed bread on your sandwiches can get you into trouble. It isn’t unheard of for people to grow a few poppies and get a useful amount of opium from them. Just enough to self medicate for pain relief mostly. It isn’t all that long ago that patent medicines were basically tincture of laudanum. When the old couple in the run down house next door to my parents finally passed on, and after the house was demolished and the block cleared, a couple of opium poppies sprung up. We always suspected that they had been cultivating them for personal use. Here in Oz, in Tasmania, we have one of the very few legal opium poppy growing regions. Seriously regulated. It supplies opium for much of the worlds drug manufacturing. They also sell poppy seeds for baking. Hemp seed oil is certainly a thing. How much involves marijuana is another matter. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/6 "2020-08-28T12:03:50Z")
Drug laws are weird. Most places in the US it’s illegal to possess psilocybe mushrooms. It is perfectly legal, however, to purchase psilocybe mushroom _spores_, for “study”. [Cite: Sporeworks, spores for microscopy.](http://sporeworks.com/) ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/7 "2020-08-28T18:54:34Z")
Does opium come from a specific variety of poppy, or can it be made from pretty much any kind of poppy? I mean, poppies grow wild all over California. I kind of figured if California poppies could be processed into opium, someone would be. But perhaps people collecting seeds from California poppy fields might attract too much attention. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/8 "2020-08-28T22:35:46Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Does opium come from a specific variety of poppy, or can it be made from pretty much any kind of poppy? It comes specifically from _ **Papaver somniferum** _, the opium poppy, which is also the exact poppy the seeds used for cooking come from (that is why some very sensitive drugs tests will register a positive for opiates if you’ve recently eaten something with a lot of poppy seeds). There are different sub-species bred specifically for targeted purposes, be that opiate production or seed for cooking production. According to [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaver_somniferum) there is even a cultivar that produces no latex - which means although it’s technically an “opium poppy” you can’t produce opium from it. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/9 "2020-08-29T00:32:54Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Does opium come from a specific variety of poppy, or can it be made from pretty much any kind of poppy? I mean, poppies grow wild all over California. I kind of figured if California poppies could be processed into opium, someone would be. But perhaps people collecting seeds from California poppy fields might attract too much attention. The California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) does not contain opium. It DOES contain benzodiazepine type tranquilizer, actually called californidine, after the plant it was isolated from. People sometimes use the California poppy medicinally. As a sleep aid, among other things: > **[CALIFORNIA POPPY: Overview, Uses, Side Effects, Precautions, Interactions,...](https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-104/california-poppy)** > > Learn more about CALIFORNIA POPPY uses, effectiveness, possible side effects, interactions, dosage, user ratings and products that contain CALIFORNIA POPPY. Perfectly legal, AFAIK. You just can’t pick them in parks, legally. But, yeah they grow all over the place. Hard to mistake a bright orange poppy for anything else. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/10 "2020-08-29T01:26:47Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Drug laws are weird. Most places in the US it’s illegal to possess psilocybe mushrooms. It is perfectly legal, however, to purchase psilocybe mushroom _spores_ , for “study”. Not everywhere. Spores are illegal in California. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/11 "2020-08-29T01:47:54Z")
Hemp seeds are sold at Walmarts in Georgia. They are hulled, however. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/12 "2020-08-29T14:29:44Z")
Of course, “same species” doesn’t mean as much as one might think, for plants. Two plants can be the same species and still be wildly different. The famous example is that cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and kale (plus several other vegetables) are all the same species, just bred for different purposes. By the same token, a poppy bred for opium, one bred for pretty flowers, and one bred for culinary seeds might be very different. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/13 "2020-08-29T18:01:54Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Not everywhere. Spores are illegal in California. To be fair, the extension cord I was just using is illegal in Cali. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2020, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/14 "2020-09-01T22:53:33Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > Perfectly legal, AFAIK. You just can’t pick them in parks, legally. [The law](https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Plants/California-Poppy) is a bit broader than that. You can’t pick California poppies anywhere in California except your own land (unless you get permission from the landowner). ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/15 "2020-09-02T01:58:49Z")
Some states have made it illegal to sell (or ship in) seed of ornamental poppies (P. somniferum varieties). I’d like to see a reliable cite that confirms growing a small number of these plants can yield any significant amount of opium. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/16 "2020-09-02T08:42:39Z")
It all depends on what cultivar they are. Some produce virtually none at all. Some produce the latex that contains opium. What do you call “significant”? It wouldn’t take a lot of plants that do produce latex for the use of one person. It would take acres for a commercial operation. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/17 "2020-09-02T12:42:32Z")
> [@Gary\_Robson](#): > > You can’t pick California poppies anywhere in California except your own land (unless you get permission from the landowner). That’s because it’s the state flower & has nothing to do with restricting drug use. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/18 "2020-09-02T20:59:38Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > It all depends on what cultivar they are. Some produce virtually none at all. Some produce the latex that contains opium. What do you call “significant”? “Significant” would be “enough to get high on” for someone taking the trouble to try and process the pods. I doubt any varieties available in the usual seed catalogues would yield sufficient opiates for even short-term use, even if one had a lot of space devoted to growing them and a relatively sophisticated harvest/processing plan. Which is why a relevant cite would be useful. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2020, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/19 "2020-09-02T21:07:25Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I doubt any varieties available in the usual seed catalogues would yield sufficient opiates for even short-term use There’s a guy who was busted for buying (decorative) poppy seed pods from florists, making tea from them, and writing about it. The police warned his landlord that he was a druggy criminal, she threw him out, he went on the lam and didn’t turn up for his court date. There was a short book about it, and some stuff is probably still on the internet somewhere. One of the effects was that florists stopped using poppy seed pods for contrast in bouquets. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2020, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193/20 "2020-09-03T08:04:21Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > One of the effects was that florists stopped using poppy seed pods for contrast in bouquets. Cops were probably in the pay of Big Lotus…you do _not_ want to step to the kingpins of dried floral seedheads. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-poppy-seeds-legal-but-not-marijuana-seeds/919193.md?page=2)