Health Organization estimates that at least 9.2 million people use heroin worldwide. Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the world’s opium, but users in the United States primarily get their fix from Colombia and Mexico.
Opium creates a feeling of euphoria but also depresses the respiratory system and can lead to coma and death. It interferes with endorphin receptors in the brain, making it difficult for addicts to make use of the brain’s natural painkillers. This is one of the reasons why withdrawal from heroin is so difficult. Addicts who are thrown into jail and forced to go cold turkey will sometimes throw themselves against the bars of their cell for a distraction from the intense muscle pain. Even tea made from the seeds and seed heads can be dangerous because the level of morphine varies widely from plant to plant: in 2003 a seventeen-year-old Californian died from an overdose of “natural” poppy tea.
It would take an annual harvest of at least ten thousand poppy plants to supply the typical heroin user for a year, but there are no exceptions under the law for gardeners who want to grow the flowers. In the mid-1990s, the DEA asked seed companies to stop selling the seed in their catalogs voluntarily, fearing that the availability of the seeds could contribute to domestic heroin production. Most seed companies ignored the request, and the flower continues to be popular among gardeners. The seeds used in baked goods are harmless in small quantities, but eating a couple of poppy seed muffins could cause a positive result on a drug test.
Meet the Relatives Other poppies include the Oriental poppy,
Papaver orientale;
the Shirley poppy or Flanders field poppy,
P. rhoeas;
and the Iceland poppy,
P. nudicaule.
The orange California poppy is not related; this native wildflower is
Eschscholzia californica.
DANGEROUS
DREADFUL BOUQUET
On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot President James Garfield. His aim was not quite good enough to kill the president; Garfield lived for eleven weeks as doctors probed his internal organs with unsterilized instruments, searching for the bullet that was actually lodged near his spine. Guiteau tried to use this bit of medical malpractice in his bizarre, theatrical trial, claiming, “The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him.” Nonetheless, he was sentenced to die by hanging.
On the morning of his execution, his sister brought him a bouquet of flowers. Prison officials intercepted the bouquet and later discovered that there was enough arsenic tucked between the petals to kill several men. Although the sister. denied having poisonedher brother’s bouquet, it was well known that Guiteau feared the hangman’s noose and would have preferred to die some other way.
Was the arsenic necessary? With a little planning, Guiteau’s sister could have put together a bouquet of flowers that would do quite a bit of damage all by themselves.
LARKSPUR AND DELPHINIUM
Consolida ajacis, Delphinium
spp.
Favored by flower lovers for their tall spires of pink, blue, lavender, or white blossoms and their fine, lacy foliage. The plants contain a poison similar to that found in a relative, aconite. The amount of toxins vary according to the species and the age of the plant, but a lethal dose would not be out of the question if someone ate enough of it.
LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY
Convallaria majalis
A spring-flowering plant with a heavenly fragrance, it contains a few different cardiac glycosides and can cause headache, nausea, cardiac symptoms, and even heart failure at high doses. The red berries the plant produces after it blooms are also toxic.
BLEEDING HEART
Dicentra
spp.
A lovely, old-fashioned flower named for the shape of its blossoms, which resemble a heart with a drop of blood suspended from it. Bleeding hearts contain toxic alkaloids that could cause nausea, seizures, and respiratory problems.
SWEET PEA
Lathyrus odoratus
Resembles a normal pea vine, except that its flowers are
Opium creates a feeling of euphoria but also depresses the respiratory system and can lead to coma and death. It interferes with endorphin receptors in the brain, making it difficult for addicts to make use of the brain’s natural painkillers. This is one of the reasons why withdrawal from heroin is so difficult. Addicts who are thrown into jail and forced to go cold turkey will sometimes throw themselves against the bars of their cell for a distraction from the intense muscle pain. Even tea made from the seeds and seed heads can be dangerous because the level of morphine varies widely from plant to plant: in 2003 a seventeen-year-old Californian died from an overdose of “natural” poppy tea.
It would take an annual harvest of at least ten thousand poppy plants to supply the typical heroin user for a year, but there are no exceptions under the law for gardeners who want to grow the flowers. In the mid-1990s, the DEA asked seed companies to stop selling the seed in their catalogs voluntarily, fearing that the availability of the seeds could contribute to domestic heroin production. Most seed companies ignored the request, and the flower continues to be popular among gardeners. The seeds used in baked goods are harmless in small quantities, but eating a couple of poppy seed muffins could cause a positive result on a drug test.
Meet the Relatives Other poppies include the Oriental poppy,
Papaver orientale;
the Shirley poppy or Flanders field poppy,
P. rhoeas;
and the Iceland poppy,
P. nudicaule.
The orange California poppy is not related; this native wildflower is
Eschscholzia californica.
DANGEROUS
DREADFUL BOUQUET
On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot President James Garfield. His aim was not quite good enough to kill the president; Garfield lived for eleven weeks as doctors probed his internal organs with unsterilized instruments, searching for the bullet that was actually lodged near his spine. Guiteau tried to use this bit of medical malpractice in his bizarre, theatrical trial, claiming, “The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him.” Nonetheless, he was sentenced to die by hanging.
On the morning of his execution, his sister brought him a bouquet of flowers. Prison officials intercepted the bouquet and later discovered that there was enough arsenic tucked between the petals to kill several men. Although the sister. denied having poisonedher brother’s bouquet, it was well known that Guiteau feared the hangman’s noose and would have preferred to die some other way.
Was the arsenic necessary? With a little planning, Guiteau’s sister could have put together a bouquet of flowers that would do quite a bit of damage all by themselves.
LARKSPUR AND DELPHINIUM
Consolida ajacis, Delphinium
spp.
Favored by flower lovers for their tall spires of pink, blue, lavender, or white blossoms and their fine, lacy foliage. The plants contain a poison similar to that found in a relative, aconite. The amount of toxins vary according to the species and the age of the plant, but a lethal dose would not be out of the question if someone ate enough of it.
LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY
Convallaria majalis
A spring-flowering plant with a heavenly fragrance, it contains a few different cardiac glycosides and can cause headache, nausea, cardiac symptoms, and even heart failure at high doses. The red berries the plant produces after it blooms are also toxic.
BLEEDING HEART
Dicentra
spp.
A lovely, old-fashioned flower named for the shape of its blossoms, which resemble a heart with a drop of blood suspended from it. Bleeding hearts contain toxic alkaloids that could cause nausea, seizures, and respiratory problems.
SWEET PEA
Lathyrus odoratus
Resembles a normal pea vine, except that its flowers are
Similar Books
