Growing 900 opium poppies on the apartment rooftop as spices for hot pot

Using drones during routine inspections, police in Guizhou Province (China) discovered hundreds of flowers resembling opium poppies grown on the rooftop of an apartment building.

A woman in Guizhou province, China, has just been sentenced to 6 months in prison, suspended, for growing opium poppies on her roof with the excuse of using them as a spice for hot pot.

Police in Taijiang district said they discovered hundreds of flowers suspected to be poppies on the roof of an apartment building during a routine drone patrol.

After conducting an on-site search, police discovered more than 900 opium plants grown by a woman surnamed Truong.

More than 900 opium plants were found growing on the roof of an apartment building.

Officials took samples and confirmed that they were all opium poppies, whose content is used in drugs such as codeine and morphine.

Truong said that after her father passed away, he gave her these seeds. She planted them because she often used poppy flowers as a spice for hot pot, a favorite dish she cooked at home.

For this act, Ms. Truong was charged with illegal drug cultivation.

At the end of April, the Taijiang District Court sentenced Ms. Zhang to six months in prison, suspended, and fined her 3,000 yuan (over 10 million VND). This was a lenient sentence because the defendant showed sincerity and cooperated fully with the investigation agency.

Under China's Criminal Law, anyone who cultivates between 500 and 3,000 opium poppies can be sentenced to five years in prison. Cultivation of more than 3,000 plants carries a minimum sentence of five years.

Ms. Truong confessed to growing poppies to use as a spice for hot pot dishes cooked at home.

All 900 opium poppy plants on the rooftop of the apartment building where Ms. Truong lives have been uprooted.

Earlier in 2023, a 70-year-old man was sentenced to two months in prison and two months suspended by a Shanghai court for growing 500 poppy plants in a field.

At the investigation agency, the man confessed to growing poppies because he found them "unusually beautiful" and had no intention of making drugs from this material.

In the past, some chefs used to sprinkle ground opium powder into hot pot dishes to enhance the flavor of the dishes, but this has been banned.

In 2016, 35 stores across China, including a famous hotpot restaurant chain in Beijing, were investigated for using poppy flowers as a cooking spice.

Viet Son (According to Dan Tri)

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