For more than 400 years, some of the world's best opium poppies have been grown in Turkey. The Turks use the seed for cooking oil and food seasoning, the stalk for fuel and animal fodder. From the pod they extract raw opium for the making of medicinal morphine. Currently, the poppy provides the main source of income for 80,000 farmers and earns Turkey about $5,000,000 per year in foreign exchange.
Out of a crop of 150 tons of poppies produced per year, however, only about 60 tons reach legal collection stations. Practically none of the crop is used for domestic...
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