Police ready for expected poppy thefts

Press, 10 October 1984, Page 9

Police ready for expected poppy thefts

Garden poppies are expected to be the target of opium users again this summer, the Christchurch police drugs squad has warned. Poppy plants grown “on public display” in gardens •were likely to be stolen, said the head of the drugs squad, Detective SeniorSergeant Jim Dwight. “We are aware that a group of people are stealing them to obtain small quantities of narcotics from poppy heads,” he said.

The drugs squad plans to mount “special operations” against poppy stealers. The addicts usually steal the big red and white poppies, Papaver somniferum, but sometimes take other varieties which they boil to obtain quantities of alkaloid. A number of users of opiates derived from poppies have been seen at the Christchurch Alcohol and Drug Dependence Centre. Detective Senior-Sergeant Dwight said that the theft of poppies became a noticeable problem for the first time last year. The narcotic derived from the poppies was a

highly dangerous substance because of its addictive quality and the unhygienic conditions in which it was usually derived, he said. It was not an offence to grow the poppies, unless this was done to produce a narcotic.

Detective Senior-Sergeant Dwight said that the police laid charges against about six persons last summer in conection with the illegal use of the poppies. The drugs squad is also continuing its clampdown on home laboratories used to make morphine. Detective Senior-Sergeant Dwight said that the police had found nine such laboratories in Christchurch since May. He believes that the setting up of such laboratories is connected with the shortage of supplies of hard drugs, such as heroin, in Christchurch.

“The techniques that we have developed in locating these home laboratories will be used in clamping down on people trying to manufacture narcotics from poppies,” he said.