China busts 35 restaurants using opium poppies as seasoning

Associated Press ^ | Jan 22, 2016 1:04 AM EST

[Olog-hai]

Thirty-five restaurants across China, including a popular Beijing hot pot chain, have been found illegally using opium poppies as seasoning, one of the more unusual practices bedeviling the country's food regulators.

Five restaurants are being prosecuted while 30 others, ranging from Shanghai dumpling joints to noodle shops in southwestern Chongqing, are under investigation, said the China Food and Drug Administration.

Cases of cooks sprinkling ground poppy powder, which contains low amounts of opiates like morphine and codeine, in soup and seafood are not new in China, though it is unclear whether they can effectively hook a customer or deliver a noticeable buzz. ...

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

The problem with Chinese drugs is that you lose the high just 30 minutes later.

[DesertRhino]

Naughty vegetables.

[Hoosier-Daddy]

The Secret Ingredient revealed!

[Aliska]

Any bread poppy seeds can make you fail a drug test. With the opium poppy, I'd have to look it up, but the seeds should be safe to eat. The opium is in the milky sap they slit the pod while green and catch the drips. Then I don't know how heroin is processed after that.

Such a beautiful flower. Such a horrid addictive drug.

[Mr Apple]

...have been found illegally using opium poppies as seasoning

No wonder their communist eyeballs are all slanted sideways and crossways.

[DesertRhino]

Big bowl of noodles will put me to sleep anyway. So lets add morphine, see you at breakfast.

[DesertRhino]

Ok, stupid question here. Is it legal to grow an opium poppy like as a garden plant? Or is it like a pot plant that you cant have at all? Is an opium poppy something a gardener would ever want to grow just because its a poppy? Like a Flanders fields thing?

[PLMerite]

That’s one way to keep ‘em coming back.

“Man, I be JONESIN’ for that chow mein!”

[ponygirl]

I don’t think so. They sell the seeds everywhere. Not sure I’d ever want to try it though.

[ponygirl]

Sorry, I misread your post I do not think it is illegal to possess/grow plants or seeds. Just the opium. Maybe some LEO on here can tell us. They really are beautiful flowers.

[Pelham]

“Is it legal to grow an opium poppy like as a garden plant? “

Sure, the seeds are sold by most of the major garden seed companies. Just look for papaver somniferum in the name.

[TigersEye]

I have heard that they are legal to grow but if you start slitting the pods with a razor blade and bleeding sap out of them you might have a problem.

[DesertRhino]

Well, and I wouldn’t wanna get crossways with the Taliban or the Mexicans either if they heard I had one in my garden. They might thing I was trying to horn in on their action.

[uncitizen]

Ruh roh

[Bobalu]

You can buy the seeds by the pound on ebay... I just checked to see.

I think dried flower arranger types use the plants in arrangements.

Papaver somniferum

[clearcarbon]

"And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye, and soothing to the smell. Poppies... Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep. Sleeeeep. Now they'll sleeeeeeeep!"

- nancy pelosi regarding democrat campaign promises

[wardaddy]

It’s also Gods gift to those in horrible pain

[Opinionated Blowhard]

[Daffynition]

FA ra ra