Opium poppies to be legalised in Victoria as demand for painkillers soars
Bill to decriminalise the narcotic crop passes parliament, potentially bringing $100m in annual revenue to the state
Opium poppies will soon be grown commercially in Victoria after a bill decriminalising the narcotic crop passed Victoria’s parliament last week.
Approved farmers will begin growing poppies under strict regulations as early as this year, creating an industry that Victoria’s agriculture minister, Peter Walsh, said could contribute $100m a year to the state’s economy.
“This would be a totally new addition to Victoria’s cropping sector and it is a very exciting opportunity for our farmers,” he said.
Under the Victorian poppy regime, growers and processors will have to register their contracts, keep extensive records and grow and dispose of their crops under tight security, subject to regular inspection by police and government inspectors.
Only a handful of countries, including Australia, Spain, France and India, are permitted by the UN to grow poppies, which are rich in morphine, thebaine and codeine, the primary ingredients of a host of pain-relieving medicines – as well as heroin.
Cultivation in Australia has for half a century been restricted to Tasmania, generating $120m a year for the island state, which produces 49% of the world’s legal supply.
But worldwide demand for painkillers tripled between 1993 and 2012, according to UN figures, prompting large pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson and TPI Enterprises to increase and diversify their supplies.
“The global demand for opiates has increased dramatically in the last three to five years and uncertainty in the climate in Tasmania makes it hard to meet those demands. It’s a tough crop to grow and can be badly affected by fluctuations in the weather,” a spokeswoman for GSK said. “It’s important to spread risk by finding new places to grow.”
GSK’s submission to a Tasmanian parliamentary inquiry puts it more starkly: “Customers are demanding a more secure and reliable supply – if GSK and other Australian producers cannot demonstrate higher supply security, customers will source more from non-Australian competitors.”
Victoria offers a similar climate and GSK already runs a poppy alkaloid processing plant in Port Fairy. Thirteen trial sites established in the state last year yielded promising results, paving the way for last week’s decision to legalise the crop.
Similar trials also took place in the Northern Territory, where TPI Enterprises is seeking permission to grow up to 500 hectares of the crop on a remote cattle station.
Poppy farming has not been without human cost in Tasmania, claiming three lives in the past three years, all people who stole poppies and brewed them into a highly toxic tea. The industry has set up a website warning that Tasmania’s strain is engineered for industrial purposes and “Not Your Average Poppy”. More than 1,000 heads were stolen from a farm near Hobart in January.
But in Victoria, industry and government have played down the prospect of poppy farms being plundered or channeling their crops into the black market. Agricultural consultant Tom Loveless helped run the Victorian trials, which he said were conducted on a “need-to-know” basis.
“We had confidentiality agreements in place with growers, on sites that are fairly well off the beaten track, secured with locked gates and barbed wire fences,” he said.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")