July 8, 2004

It’s a bit weird to have travelled throughout Asia, constantly aware that most of the world's opium is produced around there, but to never see evidence of the growing and trading of drugs. But then, hey presto, we visit France and realise that we're slap bang in the middle of Europe's Golden Triangle. In every direction from where we're staying there are fields of commercial poppies, being grown for drug-manufacture.

But instead of being the illegal-type, these will be used to produce ingredients like codeine and morphine, which end up in things you buy at the chemist, like cough sweets. A quick bit of research on the web also showed that poppy oil is also used to make paint and varnishes (might explain that light-headed feeling you get after painting in an enclosed space. Don't try this at home!).
It does feel a bit bizarre though, to see something that you'd associate with the underworld, but instead is supported by healthy EU subsidies (French farmers, like some others, don't get out of bed unless there's a subsidy for it!).