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get you in trouble with the law? I spotted these precious beauties in the garden at People's Park in Berkeley. To show the size, I cradled one in my hand and snapped a photo. This is the first time I have ever seen and actually touched one of them. (I have seen photos of them.)
These poppies are absolutely gorgeous, but I am not sure whether you can legally grow or possess them. The seeds are widely sold for use in cooking.
I determined them to be papaver somniferum which is one of the largest of all poppy species.
Scott
Why am I not surprised to see these growing in a park in
Berkeley, and equally surprised that no one has milked them yet.
ROLF
Kevin
I am surprised too. I found no slashes in them at all. I will check back in a week or so to see what happens.
Scott
i found one like that in a dudes yard in woodstock lol
Nevermind the law. That stuff is trouble enough on its own. As flowers though, they're pretty. Wiki, FWIW, says it's illegal but not enforced unless it's being used for illegal drug production. Morphine (far more dangerous than marijuana) is legal with a prescription. Go figure.
These are among the largest and most beautiful of poppies. I guess the reason they were allowed to grow in People's Park was because it was a single plant with just a few flowers on it. That is certainly not enough to process into illicit drugs. As to why marijuana is still illegal, I have no answer to that. For every death caused by marijuana, at least one thousand deaths are caused by alcohol.
Scott
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Has marijuana ever caused a death? I'm no pot head, btw. I have only smoked part of one joint in my entire life. Even alcohol has limited appeal to me, my "drug" of choice being dark, semi-sweet chocolate. ;) I just think it is ludicrous to make a plant illegal.
Figures that the government would bypass its own laws on growing a narcotic-producing plant, but they are quite pretty. Just adds to the irony that they're in Berkeley. Nice pics, Bill! =)
-James
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There was only one plant with a few flowers on it, not enough to process into illicit drugs.
That flower was gorgeous. That is why I just had to get a photo of it.
Scott
Hey Scott
Some of my earliest memories are of my grandfathers rock garden w/pond in New England where he had all kinds of gorgeous Poppies that to this day I still remember. He had species collected from all over the world! Then the law came in and as I remember destroyed all of his plants which he was hardly growing for drugs.......no way. The ones that are legal just don't come up to the spectacular beauties of the banned ones. Alas, why couldn't it have been Poison Ivy instead?
Justin~
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Man that is sad. Your grandfather was growing these for their beauty, not for drugs.
It is also sad that the most beautiful poppies are of the opium producing kind.
It would have been sweet indeed if all those poppies that the feds confiscated from your grandfather were first smeared with urishiol which is the rash producing chemical in poison ivy. It would have served them right to be itching from head to toe for a week.
Scott
There has been a sterile variety of poppies allowed to be grown in this country for quite a while. I'd be that these are some of those. They would only be illegal if they are the regular poppies that opium is made from.
Bob
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I looked at images and I am almost certain they are papaver somniferum which produces opium. There was just a single plant which is not enough to produce a usable amount of illegal drugs.
Scott
Old Oregon law said you could have a dozen of the opium producing variety. Bleeding them however was a felony. Hard to say what the DEA is doing now days. Aside from kicking in the doors of cancer patients and such,
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I know it is a real paradox. You can legally possess a pound of seeds, which is literally thousands of them, but if you plant one hundred of those seeds and grow poppies from them you can get busted.
Our government is run by control freaks that don't care about the will of the people at all. You can have a winning vote to change the law and they won't honour it.
Scott
The solution is easy. You can look at the flowers, but don't pick them. I would not touch them if I were you.
Regardless
My MySpace - feel free to add me as a friend
I would not pick them. That thought never crossed my mind. I just wanted a good photo of them.
Scott
I'm pretty sure that when I was a child in England, which I grant you was a long time ago, that we had opium poppies in our back garden and that they weren't uncommon. I think you could get the seeds the same way as any other seeds and grow them from seed. I might have misremembered it, but I don't think so. They are quite pretty when in flower, as I recall.
I vaguely remember that with the English climate you wouldn't be able to get much yield of opium out of them, which could be why no-one worried about it. I wonder if anyone knows about that? Ken, perhaps? It's OK, Urban Cowboy, I just mean you're an expert gardener, not an opium fiend, LOL!
Of course, in America in the 21st century, with the ludicrous so-called "War On Drugs" you would probably be invaded by a SWAT team ... sigh.
(Exits stage left, humming "How many pretty flowers can you find in an English country garden")