Man admits cultivating opium poppies

Press, 2 June 1984, Page 4

Man admits cultivating opium poppies

A man who admitted cultivating opium poppies was yesterday committed to the High Court for sentence. In the District Court Judge Fraser declined jurisdiction and remanded the defendant, Stephen John Isherwood, aged 25, unemployed, in custody to a date to be fixed, for sentence in the High Court. The defendant had pleaded guilty recently, after the hearing of depositions of evidence in the District Court, of a charge that between November 1 and December 12 last year he cultivated a prohibited plant, of the genus Papaver Somniferum L. Evidence at the deposi-

tions hearing had been that the police searched premises in Bealey Avenue occupied by the defendant, last December 12. A quantity of poppy seeds were found in his bedroom and he said that he had been “into” poppies for years and that the seeds were to grow more poppies the next year. In an adjoining room the police found a large pile of poppy plants, which had been cut. The defendant said that he and his flatmate had collected them. He denied having stolen the plants and said that he had grown them in various plots around Christchurch.

He declined to say where these plots were. The defendant told a detective that he had grown the plants to extract a codeine-like substance from them. Five spoons were also found, containing a dark substance, and the defendant said the substance was an extract from the poppies and was the result of his previous night’s work. He said the extract was for his and his flatmate’s use.

The s defendant’s arms showed bruising along the veins on each wrist, and the defendant said he had “banged some of the stuff up” (injected it). Other evidence at the depositions hearing was that the plants were found to be opium poppies and the substance, when analysed, contained morphine and other constituents of opium. Mr K. J. Grave appeared for the defendant and Mr D. J. L. Saunders for the Crown, yesterday.