The opium fields of England... heroin-producing poppies grown to make NHS pain-relief drugs / Daily Mail, 23 June 2008
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1028504/The-opium-field-England--heroin-producing-poppies-grown-make-NHS-pain-relief-drugs.html
Tamara Cohen
“Covering more than 6,400 acres on around a dozen farms in Hampshire, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire, the flowers are harvested in the late summer. The heads are dried and the seeds – up to 10,000 in a single flower – removed from the capsules for use in the food industry. But it is in the seed pods that the important chemicals are found, and the pods are chopped, dried and turned into pellets in order to be transported. The pellets are then sent to a processing plant in Scotland. This year’s crop will be made into more than 100 tons of morphine and codeine.”