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.

Local police investigated the matter after being tipped off last Friday about a field of poppies in bloom.

After locating the farm, police apprehended Tu, who said he had meant to use the seeds from the poppies to season his food.

He said he discovered wild poppy seeds last November and sprinkled them across his plot of land. Using the poppy seeds in his cooking "made the food taste better" compared to MSG (monosodium glutamate), he told police.

It is illegal in China to cultivate more than 500 poppy plants, as they can be used to produce illegal drugs such as opium, morphine and heroin. Violators face up to five years' jail.

Tu had been granted bail, with his case pending trial, the report said.

In a similar case last June, an elderly couple in Liaoning province grew more than 800 opium poppies because their flowers "looked beautiful".

Chinese internet users expressed sympathy for the predicament the elderly people found themselves in over their plants.

"[They] probably didn't know what these flowers are used for," one internet user wrote.

Another shared his own experience: "My relatives also planted these before. At the time, it was used purely for medicinal purposes, drinking it with water when you were sick. It was only when I was older that I realised maybe I had long been a drug addict." - South China Morning Post