WHERE THE POPPIES GROW?

Southern Alberta will soon become the first place in North America to
grow a medicinal poppy crop, adding greatly to diversification
opportunities for area farmers.

The new crop has been yielding between $3,000 and $6,000 a hectare,
compared with $800 for wheat, and large-scale farming could possibly
even create more than 200 jobs, at a processing plant eyed for
development in a couple of years.

Glen Metzler, of Metzler Trading Co. and API Labs, has been waiting
for two years to get federal approval to sow the first test crop, and
believes regulatory hurdles have all been cleared and a licence will
be forthcoming.

"We've supplied the Office of Controlled Substances with all the
information they've requested. We've met with Minister Ritz, we've
had meetings with health - as far as we know, everything is a go.

There isn't anything negative that's come back out of government,
we're just waiting for them to finish the bureaucratic process and
actually get us our licence.

"We've got research-backed trials ready to go next spring, and we've
had our licence in front of them now for two and a half years," Metzler said.

"So we're hoping we have everything approved and our licence in place
by January or February so that we can get our trials on the ground
and actually get this thing going."

The first licence allows for a small test crop - one or two hectares
- - to be planted next spring and tested after fall harvest for the
alkaloid content, amount of seed (seed is a potential biodiesel
crop), fatty acid profiles and other advantages that may come from
growing in southern Alberta's climate.

"Taber has the sweetest corn in North America, and it's because of
our hot days and cold nights. Well there are scientists who believe
that because of that we could end up with higher alkaloid content
here in southern Alberta than they're getting in Australia or France
or the U.K."

Guarding the plants won't be necessary, since even if the flowers
were to be stolen, turning them into narcotics would be too Herculean a task.

"We've done threat assessments on the plants and there's nothing we
can see that would be a problem," Metzler said. "It's a thebaine
poppy. Thebaine is a non-narcotic alkaloid and it can't be converted
to street drugs. Even if you were to convert it to a pain medication,
it's not economically feasible. You'd need a $40-million facility and
we say three PhDs - that kind of expertise - so there's no way you'd
be able to do it."

Metzler's had discussions with the Tasmanian police in Australia,
where poppies have been grown for 40 years, both the thebaine and
morphine varieties, and have never had diversion issues. Other
countries, including the U.K. and France, have reported the same experience.

"It's no different than hemp," he said. "It's the perception that
somehow you can get high from smoking hemp, and you can't. And there
will still be some people who are going to go and try it, and they're
going to find out that there's nothing there, and then that will be
the end of it. There's nothing you can do about that, and I don't
think the government's too worried about that."

Financial support has been received from area farmers and industrial
partners as well.

"We're poised to go," he said. "We're excited about it.
"(Agriculture)MinisterGary Ritz is behind it, Rick Casson has done a
ton of work for us. I don't think there are any problems, it's just
that every time you go to the government with something new, it takes
them some time to figure out what to do. So we're being patient and
optimistic."

Canada imports approximately $1.2 billion a year in products derived
from poppies. The thebaine poppy can be used in the making of
percocet, buprenophine, oxycodone, naloxone and others. Growing the
flowers locally could generate more than $100 million a year.