Peter A Smith: How a decades-long boom in licit opioid production was fueled by Tasmanian-grown poppies
Heading into the highlands of Tasmania, some 250 miles south of the Australian mainland, narrow black-topped roads meander through a wide river valley bounded by distant mountain bluffs. Two-track paths splinter off into grassy pastures, past skeletal trees bleached by sun and drought. All along the way, small signs dangle from wire fence lines: Danger Prohibited Area Poison. Little else would suggest that these fields represent the nucleus of the global opioid supply chain - the starting point for one of the world's largest drug markets.
In Bothwell, a village
where trucks packed with sheep idle outside a gas station, I met a farmer named
Will Bignell. Bignell, a boyish guy in his thirties, with tousled hair and
bright green eyes, was something of a reluctant seventh-generation farmer. He'd
left his family's farm in the midst of a prolonged drought, moved to Hobart,
Tasmania's capital city, and started a family. Then, in 2009, Bignell began
making the hour-long commute up to the farm. Instead of raising livestock,
Bignell plowed up pasture land and planted his first crop of opium poppies—a
particular varietal, in fact, custom-tailored for pharmaceutical drug
manufacturers….
https://psmag.com/ideas/opioids-limiting-the-legal-supply-wont-stop-the-overdose-crisis
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