HUGE OPIUM BUST IN SAN MARTIN

SAN MARTIN - Federal drug enforcement agents raided a flower farm on
Santa Teresa Boulevard Thursday, seizing 19,000 opium poppy plants.

It marked the second bust of illegal poppies in California history,
according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Richard
Meyer.

The bulbs of these flowers contain the raw ingredient for heroin,
morphine and opium.

Farmer Daniel Campos of Watsonville, who was not arrested Thursday,
said he was growing the poppies as fresh-cut and dried flowers, not
for drug production, and had no idea they were illegal until the
federal agents showed up that morning.

"They said the levels of these chemicals is a little too high, and
it's illegal to grow this poppy," Campos said Thursday afternoon. "If
it's illegal, I don't have any problem to destroy it."

An anonymous tip to a sheriff's deputy led the DEA to the farm on
Santa Teresa Boulevard, just south of Highland Avenue. Five poppy
plots, totaling less than an acre, were interspersed amid rows of
other flowering plants in the 40-acre field, which Campos rents.

About 10 DEA agents and a few sheriff's deputies harvested the illegal
flowers as evidence, loading them into two rented trucks.

More than 100 poppy varieties exist, but only three are used for drugs
- - and are therefore illegal to grow in the U.S. without a DEA permit.

The ones in San Martin were the illegal kind, DEA agents determined in
a test last week. They immediately sought a federal search warrant,
which they served between 7 and 8 a.m. Thursday. They served a second
search warrant at Campos' home in Watsonville, where he grows a
smaller amount of poppies.

It is up to a federal district attorney in San Jose whether to file
charges, Meyer said.

Meyer said it is possible Campos intended to plant legal poppies. He
said none of the San Martin poppy bulbs showed signs of having been
cut with a knife to extract the opium sap, which can then be processed
into narcotics.

Nevertheless, Meyer said Campos didn't have a permit for the illegal
poppies, so the DEA had no choice but to seize them.

"The law is the law," Meyer said. "Ignorance of the law is not a
defense."

Campos cooperated with the agents, according to both him and
Meyer.

"I believe they were expecting to see something else," he said. "They
were nice with us. They were doing their job. I am not
complaining."

At the DEA's request, he said, he destroyed his cut poppies in
Watsonville, which had been harvested but not yet sold, and he will
soon destroy the unharvested ones at his Watsonville farm.

Campos began farming the San Martin field this winter, and this would
have been his first poppy crop. He could have sold it for about
$10,000 to flower retailers, he said. The unharvested Watsonville crop
is worth another $5,000, he added, and the harvested flowers are worth
$1,000.

As of press time, the DEA had not yet calculated how much heroin could
have been made from Campos' crop or its street value.

Campos said he hates the social decay caused by drug
use.

He added the DEA has a lot of work to do if this poppy strain is
illegal. Flower farmers all over California are growing the exact same
kind of poppy with no knowledge they are breaking the law, he said.

"Since I came to United States 20 years ago, they were growing these
poppies everywhere," Campos said. "If you go to just about any
warehouse in California, you will find these poppy pods - the same
poppy pods."

He suggested the DEA send a letter to flower growers informing them
what poppy varieties to avoid and how to spot them.

"We don't want to mess with the government or anybody," he said. "We
like to do things right."

Told of this suggestion, Meyer said, "That's definitely something we
will have to consider."

Campos said he has been getting his poppy seeds from his own flowers
since he began farming poppies three years ago. He bought the original
bulbs from another farmer, he said.

Sheriff's Deputy Dan Almquist happened to be the one who answered the
phone when the anonymous tip came in early last week. The male caller
said the opium poppies growing along Santa Teresa Boulevard matched
the ones he had seen on a recent trip to the Middle East.

"He said, `I know what I'm talking about. They're just coming into
bloom,' " Almquist said.

"I asked his name, and he said he wanted to call himself `curious
passerby.' "

Almquist is a 20-year veteran of the sheriff's office, but opium
poppies were new to him. After checking out the field, he asked the
DEA to test the poppies. After the lab test, the sheriff's office
turned the case over to the DEA.

The first opium poppy plant bust was last summer near Yosemite
National Park, on public land.

Poppy facts

More than 100 poppy varieties exist, but only three are illegal to
grow in the U.S. without a license from the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

Illegal drug makers extract milky opium gum from mature poppy
bulbs by scoring the bulb with a knife.

Morphine is derived by boiling this gum and adding ingredients
such as lime, charcoal and hydrochloric acid.

Heroin is derived by further processing the morphine with other
chemicals.

World's top opium poppy

producing areas:

"Golden Triangle": Burma, Laos, Thailand

"Golden Crescent": Pakistan,

Afghanistan, Iran

South America, Mexico

Typical opium poppy farm: 25,000-50,000 plants, (about two bulbs per
plant)

Source: DEA literature