Is it legal to plant poppies in your garden?

[MLO]

Hello,

I know it's illegal to harvest poppies. But is it legal to just plant them in your yard/garden for simple ornamental purposes?

[Heretic.Ape.]

As long as you call them by the right name. Poppies grow all over the US, many for decorative purposes. Rather than risk letting citizens know what was all over the place and risk massive abuse we have renamed the type of poppy that grows here to sever cognitive ties to the drug. Be warned that this is from memory reading about such things several years ago: double check.
h.a.

[MLO]

Hunh? I'm sorry but I don't really understand what you mean... what should I call them?

[Heretic.Ape.]

Nevermind, I think I'm just thinking of some misinformation I came across some years ago regarding california poppies (these are legal and extract has been smoked for recreational effects but alkaloids are different than those you're probably thinking of). Here are some quotes from thread on this subject on a gardening forum, I hope they help:

After getting douched in the thread linked above I quit posting links. I found another site that reported that the most serious problem one has with poppies is that they may give law enforcement broader search and seizure rights than they might otherwise have. So, if you have illegal DVDs or guns (legal or otherwise) or whatever and your neighbor calls the local cops and says TreeDazzled is growing poppies in a pot on his deck then they come and go through you house and seize you DVD player. Statistics show the most serious risk in growing poppies is getting you guns confenscated, should you have any, even if they are legal.


Chances are that your extension agent won't know either. All poppies have alkaloids of varying forms and strengths. Illegal varieties are all those that are specifically P. somniferum according to the law. Don't worry about it. The poppy police are few and far between and most don't have a clue what they look like anyway. Besides, intent to distribute an illegal drug is far different than having a few 'breadseed' poppies in the yard with other garden flowers.


The bottom line is that it is legal to own/buy the seeds. It's the plant that's illegal. Like rosa said, the poppy police are few and far between. Because most of the neighborhood children where I live are turning into teenagers now, I only grow my poppies and other plants that might be interesting to them in my backyard.


Unless it appears that you're growing opie poppies for pharmaceutical purposes, the police could care less about what you grow for flowers.


I did a study of this and I thought I had reported somewhere here that the legal people say the legality of poppies per se is not particularly interesting. The legal people say that the use of the drug laws to dilute your search and seizure protections makes growing poppies a problem if you irritate your neighbors or the sheriffs depute. The case that is working its way up through the courts has to do with someone in Washington who had a few poppies and a gun collection but he had a quarrel with his neighbor. So the neighbor called the sheriff and the sheriff confiscated his antique guns.

[Emmajs]

It depends on your local law enforcement. I'm sure they would not like it if you were seen harvesting the opium from them. Make it look like frower beds or in pots and you should be fine.

[vile_audio]

yes i beelieve you are safe............

'til ya go scorin' them pods heh

[waltz#2]

Let's ask a different question.

"Is it legal to jaywalk."

Never. Not under any circumstances. Crossing the street without the right of way is an offense punishable by fine, possibly jail time for chronic offenders.

But people do it every day and never get caught. People do it in front of local law enforcement every day and never get caught (SWIM does!). Most people look both ways, or if they do it, it's not intentional. Most SWIMmers don't throw up the middle finger in a F you, hold up traffic, road crossing.

SIWY will get different answers from who SWIY ask. The DEA will say no, never. SWIY's grandma will say "how could it not be legal?". SWIY's local law enforcement might laugh, or might side with the DEA. It's a real roll of the dice. SWIM has read that knowledge of what's inside the pods is what turns growing them into intent to use them. It's a fine line, and a roll of the dice. Can the government outlaw all poppy seed bagels, all poppy plants in every grandma's garden, and every pod in every floral store? Do you double dog dare them? The lower key SWIMMERs keep it, it's probably for the best.

All that is a long way of saying, yes and no.

SWIM knows for sure that scoring a pod is like raising SWIYour hand in class and saying that SWIY did in fact throw the paper airplane.
http://www.wesjones.com/pollan1.htm

Make up SWIY's own mind.

[samuraigecko]

Well in most parts of the world the answer is both yes and no.


Here is an example:

in one particular western country it is legal to grow them as long as you DO NOT know what they are. The police can come and ask you to remove the plants as they are a "noxious weed" if they are viewed as such and if the pods are scored you are f**ked. When you go to court for it, if you KNOW that is it Papaver somniferum then it is obvious that since you know the botanical term for it you would also know the common name for it, "opium poppy".

A fair amount of western countries have exactly the same type of policy in place, this is to stop grandma going to jail because of her garden.

Technically it is illegal under certain sections of law (prohibition of narcotics) but the authorities in most western countries can choose not to prosecute if they deem it to be in the publics best interest.

Basically, in quite a number of places, the more you APPEAR to know about the plant or the more they can prove you know about the plant, the more illegal it becomes.

Hope this has been of help

[0utrider]

i germany it is illegal. completley.