Other - Poppy Field

[buzzman]

SWIMs friend has a poppy field near him, he says he is going to steal some poppy's from it. Surely this cant be right can it, otherwise everyone would be stealing the poppys from it. SWIM says his friend is stupid because they are probably not the kind to get you high. I assume these poppys are grown for medical purposes.

[honourableone]

Morality of stealing (this field probably belongs to a farmer who needs to make a living as much as everyone else, and thefts from his field could be all it would take to get whatever license he has for poppy growing revoked), and chances of getting caught aside, no one here is going to know for sure if those are the right poppies or not without more information, but if this is a proper large scale farmer's field then in all likelyhood the poppies will be Papaver Somniforum (the one's that "get you high", which are the same as the ones used for medical purposes). I see you are from England, where there are poppy fields.

Not knowing anything about the security of these fields, I would assume that the reason people don't regularly steal from them is because the farmer's are secretive, and because poppies aren't that well known in this country. Many people grow them in their gardens without realising what the poppies could be used for.

I don't know what your friends past experiences are, but if he really is going to try this have him read up on what he is getting into on here (if he has seen these poppies it would be relatively easy to identify them as the correct species from a picture). There was a news article posted recently about someone who died as a result of drinking poppy tea, and in with more research on his part that death could have been avoided.


I'm giving this advice to try and ensure that your friend stays safe, but I do disapprove of theft, and if caught there are all sorts of nasty charges he could be faced with. There is a thread on geurrilla poppy farming that your friend may find interesting - http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80224; that would be safer and more reliable for your friend, and the farmer would not lose out.

[Potter]

What size field is being discussed? Are you looking to try a few out, or become the next heroin king pin?

If there's tens of thousands of plants growing, and you go and pluck a few pods, it's hardly going to matter. On the other hand is you plan on bringing a sickle and a box of garbage bags, you're a prick who deserves to get caught.

Nobody has been bugging their friends to pull over and go pluck a few ears of corn from one of the monstrous corn fields along the roads where we travel when exploring, these are corporate farms and frankly a bit of a snack isn't going to be anything compared to the amount of corn that the machine misses when it's harvested. In nobody's mind, this is not a crime. The road is miles away from the buildings on the property and no one is going to catch us.

Do consider, that if you do end up getting high from pods from there, that it's going to be hard to not go back, over and over and over. You could be looking at a serious addiction. PST and the related methods discussed here are not tylenol, but Hard Drugs, and need to be respected as such. If there's nothing stopping you from getting more, do you have the self control to stop your self?

You could always go and knock on their door and tell them you'd like some pods for an art project, offer them some cash. Of course there's the chance they are growing said poppies for cut flowers and won't have pods, but it is an option.

If you do go and swipe some pods, save the seeds and plant them your self. A single pod has a LOT of seeds enough to make a good sized plot of your own.

[samuraigecko]

There are legal fields in the world and a lot of them are poorly guarded if at all. An example would be the Tasmanian Fields. A person can just jump a small electric fence there and take whatever they wanted to.

Peace

[Potter]

For those who have never encountered an electric fence, do NOT touch it with the palm sides of your hands! EVAR!!! The electricity will make your muscles contract, the fingers to curl around the wire, and the elbows to pull in, bringing the wire to lay across your chest where your heart will stop. You will die.

Always touch an electric fence with the back of your hands so the contraction pulls you away from the wire.

Electric fences aren't always on (like at night), or sometimes they cycle (minute on, minute off), depending on what they are keeping in or out. Keep this in mind as you are crossing a "dead" fence

I'm not sure if it's true, but it wouldn't be surprising if the fences know when they are cut, so if you're dumb enough to attempt to break the fence, there's a good chance a man with a shot gun loaded with rocksalt will be on his way to shoot your ass.

[honourableone]

I think that all electric fences used now are non-lethal, apart from at places like high security prisons. Of course they could be unpleasant, and in some situations any form of electric shock could be lethal (i.e. for people with heart conditions). Electric fences are mostly used as deterrants, and would easily be touched accidentally (I've done it a few times), so I'm sure there are rules in place preventing high powered fences being used (even if there wasn't I doubt many people would risk the trouble that would occur if the fence killed someone, and high powered fences would probably cost a lot more to run). Your advice is good, and would reduce pain (and risk of death in the certain people that would be susceptible) but my point is that electric fences are nothing to get overly paranoid about, and are unlikely to do serious damage. But being an idiot and pissing on one or something like that is a bad idea though.

Originally Posted by Potter

Always touch an electric fence with the back of your hands so the contraction pulls you away from the wire.

Another way of telling if a fence is electric or not is by touching it with a blade of grass. That usually conducts well enough to tell (you feel a little repeating, throbbing shock and hear a concurrent clicking noise).

[Benniboi]

Originally Posted by honourableone

I think that all electric fences used now are non-lethal, apart from at places like high security prisons. Of course they could be unpleasant, and in some situations any form of electric shock could be lethal (i.e. for people with heart conditions). Electric fences are mostly used as deterrants, and would easily be touched accidentally (I've done it a few times), so I'm sure there are rules in place preventing high powered fences being used (even if there wasn't I doubt many people would risk the trouble that would occur if the fence killed someone, and high powered fences would probably cost a lot more to run). Your advice is good, and would reduce pain (and risk of death in the certain people that would be susceptible) but my point is that electric fences are nothing to get overly paranoid about, and are unlikely to do serious damage. But being an idiot and pissing on one or something like that is a bad idea though.

Unfortunately I can attest to that being a 'bad idea' indeed through laughable personable experience! at the time my mates thought it was hilarious though!! so yeah- the moral of this story is- if you think a fence is electric, don't piss on it! it really hurts man, like fucking stings for hours afterwards!

[davestate]

Originally Posted by Potter

For those who have never encountered an electric fence, do NOT touch it with the palm sides of your hands! EVAR!!! The electricity will make your muscles contract, the fingers to curl around the wire, and the elbows to pull in, bringing the wire to lay across your chest where your heart will stop. You will die.

Quite honestly, I've never heard someone talk such crap, even If he thinks it's true...
I've grabbed and worked with plenty of electric fences, and unless they're designed to kill, you'll be fine. The ground wire is most commonly woven into the tape parallel, but separate from the live wire, the charge rarely passes through your body.

Anyway, on topic...

If it were SWIM, he'd be there at night with a box and a pair of pruning shears

[Potter]

aye non-lethal, when bumped into, but laid across the heart can be a different story, the fact that there's a chance you can't let go which means continuous application of the power to the cardiac muscles. Even if you bumped into it with your chest, you'd be fine as you'll pull away, the only danger would be if you touched it with the palms of both hands.

[samuraigecko]

One has to agree. In most places lethal electric fences are illegal except for certain max security prisons throughout the world.

In most western countries the fence which someone will find works on "pulse" regulation. This means that a very short burst of electricity at high voltage but low amperage will be sent through the fence at intervals. The duration of the pulse is extremely short (less than a second) and the interval can usually be set by the control box (usually anywhere from 5 seconds to 30 seconds.

Yes when electrocuted the muscles will contact and if the duration was constant someone would not be able to let go of the fence. However because electric fences work in a pulse even the 5 second interval leaves pleanty of time to retract ones hand. Even if the chest is placed against the fence it will NOT kill a person. The high voltage will mean that it WILL hurt A LOT but it is amperage that kills a human.

One also has to understand that these fences are mostly used for horses and cattle. For these beasts the fences areusually at chest height. If it was the case that they could kill then SWIwe would have a lot of dead cattle and horses on our hands.

SWIM has a lot of funny stories about electric fences. One of which involves a drunken biker rally to a farm out in the middle of no-where where bands were playing, strippers were stripping and bikers were drinking. He rode his '68 Ironhead up there with friends and partied. One of his drunk friends took a piss against a fence . . . . Heh . . . amusing.

One of SWIMs family members owns a farm and he has been stung by electric fences a fair number of times. Never died.

House hold circuits in countries where DC power is used is a different story, AC power can also still be lethal but is safer.

Remember, it is amperage that kills a human and not voltage. A human can be hit with tens of thousands of volts and be in no real danger if the amperage is low enough.

Peace

[Lady Codone]

I've never heard of a lethal electric fence. In the country where people use them to keep in cows (where I'm from), they're really common. I've shocked myself on them at least twice: once while "testing it out" by grabbing it between two fingers with a leaf, and once by accidentally brushing it with my leg while stepping over it.

Electric fences aside, getting caught stealing drugs could get you killed. In the U.S., people have been shot dead for ACCIDENTALLY stepping onto marijuana fields, so be careful. You'd also need to know when is the right time to "harvest" them for opium content, as they're worthless before or long after flowering. Another thing to consider is, even if you don't get caught, you or your friend could develop nasty addictions from this seemingly limitless free supply, not to mention stealing is bad karma.

If you decide to go for it, please do the proper research before using the poppies to get high. Know the effects, safe doses, what not to mix it with, and the potential for addiction beforehand. If you're not good with moderation, poppy tea/opium aren't good drug choices. Also be sure they're Papaver Somniferum, as some poppies are grown for thebaine content, and thebaine is toxic. Many poppy strains aren't psychoactive, so know how to ID them. Scope out the area for a few weeks to see just how secure it is and whether you can get away with the "heist" lol.

[Potter]

I grew up in boy scouts and had a bunch of old folks telling lies to us all the time. Maybe back in the day this was an issue. Maybe this is what they had learned in the military where they would encounter lethal electric fences. Maybe they just wanted to fuck with us, maybe they mentioned the cycling part and that's slipped my mind. What you guys have here makes a lot more sense.

After so many years, it gets difficult to sort through the garbage and what not, it always seems better to err on the side of caution.

Still probably not a good idea to grab them with both hands....

Thanks for the update.