OPIUM POPPY IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Star, Issue 25422, 1 March 1945, Page 7

OPIUM POPPY IN AUSTRALIA

DANGER OF ILLICIT GROWING SYDNEY Feb. 27. The swift expansion in the growth of the opium poppy plant in New South Wales has enabled Australia to supply her own demands for morphine, but it has also brought about dangers which are causing some State officials sharp ! concern. The' Police and Agricultural ' Departments are strictly supervising the production of the poppy, but there are fears of an opium traffic after the j war which, might prove difficult to ■■ stamp out. These fears have been i heightened by the readiness with which ■ the poppy is being grown in certain ; districts, by the ease with which the drug can be extracted, and by the quickness a now firmly-established " black market " has shown in finding and exploiting profitable sources of illicit revenue. The main danger lies in illicit growiug. Before the war the opium poppy was declared a noxious weed in every in Australia, but when the war iame Australia had to find her own morphine, and the industry, which became an important part of Australia's war effort, was developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Farmers are now growing the i uiant under contract at £45 a ton, and i more farmers have been invited 'to be--1 "ome growers. Prominent Stato officials read into this an invitation to '•ontinue the industry after the war. and they do not think the present controls go' far enough.