"We Shall Not Sleep..."

This is more a Memorial Day post, in honor of those who never returned to make it home as veterans.

Imagine: your bury your buddies in a muddy field, and later amongst their graves, thousands of beautiful flowers have appeared...

Most of us in school learned the John McCrae poem:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.



But do you know much about the biology of the poppy plant, and why we associate Mr. McCrae's poem with the fresh gravesites of the Great War?

Poppy seeds may lie dormant in soil for years and germinate when the soil is disturbed, as by a plow. Flanders poppy is the single, red flower that carpeted fields in Flanders in western Europe, noticed especially during World War I.

So when the ravages of that war scarred the land, when young men dug trenches and graves for their fellow fighters, imagine their suprise later upon seeing the plentiful poppies emerge from dormant seeds to decorate their dead. As if nature, or the hand of God, had honored them for their sacrifices in her own unique and beautiful way...

Here's more:

Poppies plant or plants are very easy to grow, just one thing, be careful, they do not like to be transplanted. Papaver grows in disturbed soil. Its seeds may lay dormant for years, till the soil is disturbed. Then they bloom in great numbers under cool growing conditions. Poppy plant’s seeds are long lived; they can last from 3 up to 20 years.

...

Thanks in part to the American DEA, there is much misinformation being spread about this beautiful plant. In typical knee-jerk fashion, the DEA has declared war on all things Papaver. Many nurseries and seed suppliers in the states no longer carry somniferum seeds because of DEA threats.

Because the sap from the poppy's seed pods can be illicitly processed into heroin, the American government has decided that if the "poppy scourge" isn't wiped out, then every junkie with a green-thumb will start manufacturing his or her own high-grade smack.

However, this is simply not the case. Processing hard drugs such as heroin from the poppy is a complex and time consuming task. Your average addict would have to grow thousands of poppies in order to manufacture enough heroin to maintain even a small habit. Not to mention the expense and hassle of harvesting the sap and chemically processing it. It would literally take acres upon acres worth of crops to produce enough for trafficking, never mind the amount of manpower you would need to help with the processing. This is why unlike marijuana and many other entheogens, there are virtually no large-scale domestic opium growing operations in North America. It's simply not feasible, especially with the relatively short growing season. Some things are just best left to the Burmese.