Farmer busted for growing opium poppies to ‘make his food taste better’

A police officer handling the opium poppy plants taken from the elderly man's farm in Shaoxing. Photo: Handout

BEIJING: Having a green thumb can get you into trouble with the law – if you grow the wrong plants – as an elderly Chinese man found out.

The 62-year-old man, surnamed Tu, was arrested after he planted some 800 opium poppies in his farm in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, news portal ThePaper.cn reported.