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The painkilling fields: England's opium poppies that tackle the NHS morphine crisis
Last updated at 21:52pm on 14.07.07In Afghanistan, British troops are fighting a ferocious and often lethal war to eradicate the country's opium poppy crop.
Yet, as our soldiers risk their lives daily, large swathes of the English countryside are being turned over to the very same crop - with the full backing of the Government.
Farmers are cultivating the poppies to combat a critical shortage of morphine in NHS hospitals, and are finding it a lucrative crop.
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A growing business: An opium poppy field near Didcot power station in Oxfordshire
Should Britain be growing poppies for morphine? Have your say at Reader Comments below
Extracts from the plants can either be turned into the much-needed painkiller - or deadly heroin.
Most of the heroin that reaches Britain originates in the poppy fields of Afghanistan, and the trade funds Taliban-backed terrorism.
But in the UK, the Home Office has granted pharmaceutical company Macfarlan Smith a licence to harvest the poppies, and now they are being grown in tens of farms across Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.
The move aims to ease the severe lack of diamorphine that has hit the NHS, and the rest of the world, for several years.
Guy Hildred has dedicated more than 100 acres of his farm near Ipsden, Oxfordshire, to poppies. He said: "It is worthwhile from a farmer's point of view and it's an expanding market."
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Lethal crop: An Afghan poppy farmer
His neighbour, Tom Allen, has a 15-acre poppy field and said: "We simply had to prepare the land, drill it and watch the crop grow. Macfarlan Smith takes care of the harvesting and transport of the poppy heads. I think we'll do it again next year."
A spokesman for Macfarlan Smith's parent company, Johnson Matthey, said: "We have a number of farmers under contract to grow poppies, which we then harvest. You can extract morphine and codeine from the poppies' capsules.
"We are the only company processing poppies in this way in the UK. The same crop is grown in Afghanistan, India and Turkey for illegitimate reasons."
The opiate from which both morphine and heroin are derived is found in the milky white sap contained in the poppy's capsules. It hardens into a sticky brown resin.
Despite the efforts of British troops, Afghanistan still generates 90 per cent of the world's heroin output.
Cultivation of the crop for legal means has expanded rapidly in Britain since trials began six years ago - but the global morphine shortage is so severe that Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown has raised the possibility of legalising opium growing in Afghanistan.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "The poppies in question, Papaver somniferum, can be grown without a licence. The extraction of the drugs is a complex industrial process and the people who work to produce the drugs have to be licensed.
"In addition, the Home Office receives information about where the poppy farmers are and how much they are growing from the pharmaceutical companies. We then send growers a letter that they are encour-aged to show to local police to make them aware of their activities."
Reader views (7)
I suffer from hip and spine osteoarthritis, my doc wont prescribe me morphine as he says at 43 i will more and more and more... as i get older to keep up with the pain, which pees me off, as some days i cant move and im very allergic to a lot of tablets, yet morphine i have no reaction to.. and only take it as and when i need it, its not all the time i have to use it.
I was taken off distalgesic, and was put onto another drug when it lost the license, i spent over a year throwing up, been drowsy and out of it on this drug until i asked the doc to go back to original one or to morphine,
I am back on distalgesics again, but this time its causing me problems, but am sick to death of going back and to to hospital and doctors and am now looking to buy morphine tablets abroad.. if i can get them shipped to the uk from website pharmacies.
- Kharpin, Cheshire UK
Its criminal that opium is not brought from Afghanistan..People should know that dia-morphine is one of the better isolated alkaloids..It is prohibition that is deadly..If you have any pain,grow the right kind of poppy,it grows almost anywhere as long as the roots aren't waterlogged..When crown is pointing up cut at stem next to first leaf.More heads will come.When done growing cut at ground level,dry till its like straw.Cut with scissors,put in a coffee grinder,add water and lemon juice.Boil for five seconds,steep and use a metal tea strainer.One spoon honey.I guarantee you ,no more pain.Natures gift to you.
- Stef, canada
"The move aims to ease the severe lack of diamorphine that has hit the NHS, and the rest of the world, for several years. "
diamorphine or diacetylmorphine is heroin. Don't you mean morphine not diamorphine?
- Dylan Wilson, Santa Cruz, USA
ok so fully legalizing opium is not a good idea, but could it be that bad? What if it was legalized and regulated... Taxation could furnish the government with more income to combat ACTUAL crimes and addiction education and treatment, domestic drug manufacture would leave less profits for drug sale financed terrorists, drug addicts register and now there is tracking of whos on what and how much, so there would be a better chance of figuring out WHO is out of control and commiting REAL crimes to support their habbit, and there is now money for resources to investigate and incarcerate the hooligans that deserve the harsh punishments because they are operating outside of acceptable parameters.
Nah, lets keep funding terrorists and while were at it, terrorize our own people with outrageous penalties for pursuing their natural desire to life and liberty. Oh yeah, and make sure that large masses of people pay because marginal percentages of them abuse their liberties.
- Anonymous, USA
It is time we faced up to the fact that our policy of using the criminal law to attempt to control the supply & possession of certain drugs causes far more problems than it can ever hope to solve. We need to be brave & determined; no longer recycling old failed "crackdown" policies, which only serve to push the problem elsewhere for it to return later, but to allow the supply of currently illegal drugs to those addicted to them; starting first with heroin by prescription.
Only then will we see an end to the constant rise in crime & imprisonment, & no longer will our taxes be used to prop up an unworkable law which more & more looks like nothing so much as a subsidy to organised crime.
- Adam Wallace, London UK
It is just profiteering. Shameless and naked.
Macfarlan Smith used to buy from India and about 6 years ago it had protested when India had increased the price of its opium by 10% saying that it was becoming uneconomical for them to buy Indian poppy. Uneconomical! HA!
They were selling morphine at an immense profit to Latin America. That is the reason. Most of this will be sold aborad. In India 10 mg morphine costs just 25 US cents. Theirs sells for US $ 15!
That is why Afghanistan will never be allowed to legalise opium cultivation as Senlis has suggested. All the big US and UK pharma companies will lose. Reduced profits.
Sympathies of Ms Marilyn and people like her are wasted as its only those few companies who make the biggest profits run the governments in the US and UK. They do not bother how the children of the unprivileged classes get addicted. They only want them as cannon fodder.
Sad but true.
- Romesh Bhattacharji, New Delhi, India
Why cant this government do something for the country of Afghanistan and actually make the growing of the poppies that are grown there legitimate and use their poppies for the shortage of morphine. The government spouts on about helping to rebuild this nation but fails to help in a way that could be constructive to that nation bringing it out of poverty and hopefully stop the rising up again of the taliban.Thwarting the drug dealers, but no our economy has to take priority even when our soldiers are getting blown up and our kids are being fed the resulting heroin.
- Marilyn, halesowen UK
