A man was arrested after deputies found nearly an acre of opium poppy in a Catawba County field Tuesday morning.
The Catawba County Sheriff's Office says the plants were discovered off Poultry Lane near Claremont. Deputies got a tip last week and were able to obtain a search warrant.
Tuesday, Cody Xiong was arrested and charged with manufacture and trafficking by possession.
The sheriff estimates the plants could be valued at $500 million or more. He says samples were sent to a state lab to confirm the plants are in fact opium poppy, but added that little doubt remained that they were.
Only one other opium poppy plant field has been in the United States this year, which was in California, according to the sheriff.
"This is unbelievable. The DEA agent we talked to this morning while we were trying to get all of our facts together told us he only knew of one other poppy field that's been reported here in the nation," said Sheriff Coy Reid.
Deputies spent the day pulling plants and loading them into their trailers.
Officials do not believe the plants were being made into opium on the property.
Yeah that's almost every breed of poppies on the planet you dumb fucks.
>Officials do not believe the plants were being made into opium on the property
>Be American >Get throw in jail for growing a legal plant
Land of the free.
Thomas Sanchez
Why is it illegal to be a gardener? It's a natural plant of the Earth unlike GMO bullshit.
Zachary King
>Why are you not growing your own poppy farm shit soil
Colton Thomas
>Officials do not believe the plants were being made into opium on the property. "Made into opium". To "make" opium you cut open a live poppy plant and it leaks out. If he wasn't making them into opium what was he doing with that many? They just arrested him before he was able to milk them for opium
Christopher Robinson
Cody Xiong, a redneck asian from North Carolina, growing opium. I fucking love America.
Brody Bennett
Irrelevant. You can't just arrest people and destroy their property without actual proof of wrongdoing. Obviously he was probably producing opium, but this kind of shit just keeps setting precedents for police to fuck you in the ass and ignore your rights.
Nathaniel Baker
Piss off we both know it's Papaver somniferum that's illegal
Joseph Johnson
It's illegal to grow opium poppies, papaver somniferum, for anything besides ornamental use in the US. An acre of poppies obviously does not fall under ornamental use.
Angel Johnson
They actually are legal, make beautiful flowers. You can buy the bulbs legally and grow them, legally. You're not breaking the law until you scratch them and harvest opium.
Sometimes NEET addicts buy the bulbs and make tea out of them. Its not that good though.j
Colton Martin
>An acre of poppies obviously does not fall under ornamental use.
Why not?
What proof is there that he was trying to harvest opium?
Landon White
asians love opium its like crack to them, nearly brought china to its knees
Cooper Lee
But the article said he didn't process them on site for opium so I'm not sure if that meant they were scratched or what.
Charles King
Can you prove he was making opium out of them? Just because you don't think they were ornamental doesn't make it fucking illegal. You need evidence before you go and destroy people's property.
Oliver Rogers
usually the little scratches on it to obtain the latex
Evan Lewis
Whites represent a disproportionate number of opiate deaths now in the U.S. though.
Evan Ward
Sounds like he wasn't harvesting opium. They found no scratches on the bulbs, no sap being collected, no gear for collection/processing. Zero fucking evidence. If they don't have a secondary site in the bag then they are just fucking over this poor guy.
Logan Walker
>"One of our narcotics investigators came to the house looking for something else. When he knocked on the door, the guy said, 'I guess you're here about the opium,'" the sheriff said.
Did you even read the article?
Hudson Gray
>Yfw the field is probably still there, but under government control.
Take a look on Google Earth and go out to northern Africa and the middle east. Out in the middle of the deserts, there are circular crop fields. They're opium fields that the US controls.
James Turner
Fuck no I didn't read the article, this isn't fucking reddit faggot.
Cooper Thompson
>tfw you never got in on the dope game
Mason Long
Link or shut the fuck up.
Noah Ramirez
WHY DOESNT OP SPOONFEED ME THE IMPORTANT PARTS, FUCK.
Jack Richardson
>the guy said, 'I guess you're here about the opium,'" What a retard.
Jace Cruz
ive grown small poppys before but never harvested off them, it is super easy to do
i plan on growing a garden full and using the opium for medical purposes eventually, doctors these days refuse to give narcotics and theres no way im going to suffer with pain when theres something i can do about it
Jaxson Peterson
Growing papaver somniferum, even excess amounts is allowed, however, extracting the latex is illegal, nigger.
Ryan Clark
i don't want to piss in your cornflakes put producing opiates in quantity and then using them to self medicate is a one way road to shitsville. please reconsider.
t. someone who has administered naloxone to junkies in a professional setting
Jonathan Murphy
kek
Bentley Jackson
Yeah, takes a fuck ton of poppys to make much heroin. Better to sell opium probably. They aren't researching like dirty dopers would and they're overestimating.
Blake Nguyen
Most doctors in my city aren't even allowed to proscribe opiates anymore. Instead they say 'here have this dicloroformazipan' or whatever the fuck.
We have been using opiates successfully and well for fucking centuries but nope. Fuck you.
Jacob White
>The sheriff estimates the plants could be valued at $500 million or more. 1. He's not a pharmacologist and needs to shut the fuck up. 2. These idiots weigh the entire plant and any soil attached when making these stupid claims in order to boost the bust value for the court.
Cops are dumbasses. Never trust one's opinion of drugs. If they knew about chemistry and pharma, they wouldn't be cops in the first place.
Isaac Hughes
i understand, but i was in a ton of pain after a wisdom tooth operation and my doctor just handed me Tylenol, thank god i had a friend who gave me a couple Vicodin to help me through
sad to see a bunch of junkies ruin it for everyone
Jonathan Barnes
you sound like a bitch I once had a terrible tooth ache after having been stranded on an island in isolation for years. This was after my plane wrecked. I was the only surviver... anyways, I had to used a washed up ice skate as a chisle while I punched that bitch out one night in a thunderstorm. It had to go otherwise the infection was going to kill me. Thank goodness I had a volleyball to make me feel better afterwards.
Colton Edwards
> Why are you not growing your own poppy farm?
Because I have a job that matters and pays better
Carter Foster
...
Nolan Phillips
What the fuck is wrong with making your own drugs and only you using them, and if they are safe, giving them out?
Camden Green
damn nice ID
Hunter Morgan
Because
>Hurr Durr its degenerate
Although to be fair, home grown opiates are a surefire way to become an addict. You need really strong self control to have the stuff on demand and not just smash it during any available time.
Ryder Cruz
Just buy Heroin or suboxone/subutex at that point. Same legal issues better reward. Learn how to keep the use under control. Easy to maintain with suboxone. Cheap on the streets, powerful, long lasting.
Asher Richardson
>Cody Xiong
Jack Ortiz
Dude i once was addicted to heroin. It got bad. my gf was hooked, I was stealing from my mother who was slowly losing her mind from weight loss pills aka speed... tough times. peddled the shit for a minute, but that didnt work out. ended up whoring our my once beautiful girlfriend, her having to do double sided didloing with a friend for strangers enjoyment. it was like a bad dream
Nolan Diaz
>Deputies spent the day pulling plants and loading them into their trailer Obviously :P
Ryder Perez
Holy shit i live in that country!!!
Anthony Morgan
*Finds ~320ug of LSD on 4 blotters* *Weighs blotter paper on a scale* "We've found 4 grams of LSD!!"
Zachary Hernandez
Was it like a requiem for a bad dream?
Isaiah Lopez
Did you lose your hand too?
Jackson Hall
i dont understand what you are referring to... serious shit though my best buddy ended up in a jail and Ive lost my arm due to infection.
Benjamin Kelly
ya i drank poppy bulb tea before; got the bulbs from a local flower shop
it was one of the most wretched tasting things I've ever drank. but morphine is morphine desu
Christopher Bailey
yeah I lost my arm up to my elbow, my hand was attached to that lol
dont do drugs kids
Leo Bell
The fuck do you need heroin for?
Don't you have plenty of not so shitty drugs?
Aiden Reed
Incredible.
Camden Allen
News articles in this country are equally ridiculous.
"Police find 30 grams of cannabis, with an estimated Street value of 3000 pounds"
Noah Cook
And I bet your mom ended up in the padded room
Angel Cruz
Requirm for a dream.
Nathan Martin
mom jokes are so old user but yeah she did I really dont want to talk about it
Grayson Phillips
Kek, great references
Christian Cox
What brand of ball was it?
Lincoln Myers
That's some fucking dank bud tho.
Levi Jenkins
volley; I called it Wilson this was obviously before my heroin woes, the addiction brought on from ptsd from the plane crash and the time i was shot down when flying over bosnia during my stint in the navy.
Nicholas Anderson
How would companies sell their plant based products if everyone was just planting them everywhere?
Jackson Sanders
>A man was arrested after deputies found nearly an acre of opium >Cody Xiong >Xiong
Adam Davis
Can't tell if serious or satire.
Chinese fucking love opium man.
Jason Bennett
bit of both
Jayden Taylor
of course he's serious man arent we all serious here I always am
Mason Harris
Wtf. Is it legal to grow there?
Daniel Ward
Pigs make up numbers to make it seem like a serious bust, while in reality they waste taxpayer money on bullshit
Sebastian Watson
They wouldn't need to. How did we get by before these companies,we grew our own.
Leo Baker
Australia is a major of producer of poppy straw that's used to make pharmaceuticals.
John Sullivan
Protip, papavarus somniferum aka your standard garden poppy, which produces plenty of opiates, is perfectly legal to grow in most countries.
Parker Brown
>They actually are legal Nope, seeds are the only permitted part of the plant. It's illegal to possess any other part of the plant. It's also illegal to grow them. The DEA doesn't enforce the laws most of the time because they'd have to drive around rounding up grandmas for planting flowers and making wreaths and that would be some real fucking bad publicity. But if you look like a druggy, like the chang in the OP presumably did, you're screwed.
Andrew Collins
>live in a country where you can't even grow opium poppies >claim to be free United states of Americucks, everyone
Eli Thomas
Meanwhile, in Sweden, they just prefer to grow terrorists.
Luis Reed
you ever driven through tasmania? there are opium fields that stretch to the horizon on both sides, and you drive through them for fucken miles. they're all over, and are only protected by a knee high wire fence. surprised tasmania isnt full of junkies.
Jordan Peterson
Aren't they having massive ice problems currently?
Grayson Jones
why would they take that shitshow of a drug when they have free opium growing next door
Isaac Fisher
Holy crap that's crazy. How do those fields not get demolished by locals? I was watching that documentary about some eastern European shithole where they camp out in these huge poppy fields for weeks at a time and are just constantly stoned.
Camden Rivera
What the fuck? I've been all over Tasmania and not once did I see a poppy field. Oh wait, I was there in the "winter".
Cameron Ramirez
Yeah I have, in my Pursuit Special after my wife and son were murdered by a gang and I was seeking them out for vengeance.
Jordan Thomas
Czech republic. That was a vice documentary and it's explained in that documentary too that the stoners consume such a tiny fraction of all the plants that it's completely negligible. That's why the farmers don't do anything about it. And Tasmania has a pretty small population and no big cities. No stoners would live on Tasmania the rest of the year just to be able to steal poppies when the poppy season comes. They could take a flight from Melbourne I guess but that would probably cost more than it's worth.
Psa: if you do this, make sure the plants aren't coated in polyurethane, to be sold as "decorational".
Ayden Walker
dude just let nature sort itself out... we dont need anymore opiate addicts
Isaiah Thompson
Is there a place to order the bulbs online? I want to try this tea and maybe grow a single plant, I think it'd be interesting to see the plant that fucked over so many chinks.
What poppy farm? OOOOOh... THAT Poppy farm. I knew she was a clone. I fucking knew it!
Michael Johnson
Ops, maybe I should have read your whole post
James Parker
Lol there's a giant field right down the road from me, some kid died trying to make the tea a few years ago. Also Tasmania is full of addicts but mostly ice
Jose Thomas
Just buy some seeds off amazon they are like $5 for a few hundred.
Jack Bailey
>mfw it's legal to grow opium poppies in the UK. >don't even need a license
