Pod people perils.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Briefly Noted - 'Opium for the Masses' - Brief article - Book review

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If you were wondering how to transform your homegrown opium into heroin, the new, expanded edition of Jim Hogshire's Opium for the Masses (Feral House) can help. But the most interesting aspect of the book, first published in 1994, is still its demonstration of how the war on drugs has become a war on knowledge.

People who grow or distribute fresh flowers or dried pods of the opium-producing Papaver somniferum are committing a federal felony if they know the secret Hogshire enthusiastically reveals: Contrary to government misinformation, decorative poppies and opium poppies are frequently one and...