Drugs

I came across these plants in the Medicinal garden of the Royal College of Physicians, besides Regent’s Park.

This is an ephedra plant, a source of ephedrine alkaloids, including ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. Natural speed.

A tobacco plant. The leaves are huge.

Opium poppies.

One datura plant.

And another datura plant. These trumpet-like flowers are enormous – about a foot long.

I don’t use any drugs, but it has occurred to me how relatively easy it would be to grow one’s own. Obviously, marijuana can be grown simply enough, but also coca leaves. With the latter it would be impractical for industrial purposes to grow in the UK. This because of the huge amount of coca leaves needed for a tiny yield of cocaine, the expense of land, and large plantations’ subsequent visibility to law enforcement agencies. But climate-wise, it wouldn’t be a problem. With a greenhouse, you might be able to grow enough coca for your own personal use. You could even just chew the leaves like the South Americans do.

I came across a modern book on Amazon once of some home-counties apothecarist quietly growing his own opium poppies – plant and man getting “heavy” together.