UK legal poppy production grows as Afghanis farmers feed worldwide illicit demand

We have long been a supporter of the Senlis Council (Friday, April 18, 2008 Senlis Council produce yet another despairing report on poppy cultivation, heroin production and trafficking in Afghanistan and here )who promote the idea of legitimising the growing of Afghanistan poppies for the commercial production of morphine - for which world demand is growing.

This picture illustrated a story in the Daily Mail and was wryly brought to our attention by the headline "The painkilling fields: England’s opium poppies that tackle the NHS morphine crisis" at Aftermath News . last June.

One wonders however how the crop this year has fared with the summer and wet autumn.

Apparently pharmaceutical company Macfarlan Smith ( a subsidiary of Johnson Matthey plc (JMAT:L) -"world leader in the production of alkaloid opiates and other controlled drugs."), one one of the world's oldest pharmaceutical companies, have a licence from the Home Office to harvest the poppies, which now bedeck fields across Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. Who knows they may be feeding it directly into our prisons to maintain the obedience of inmates ?

Evidently they are doing a fine job and on 1st September 2008, Macfarlan Smith was officially granted ISO 14001 certification. Johnson Matthey plc shares had a nasty turn today closing down 8.5% (134p) at 1,441p.