‘This isn’t something we normally see’: Police seize 60,000 plants after rare opium-field raid

Opium poppies aren’t native to Canada. It takes special soil and fertilizer to grow them in the Canadian climate.

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That’s why an early summer discovery of a farmer’s field in northeast Edmonton, filled with 60,000 growing poppy plants, was very surprising. Police estimated the value of the plants to be between $160,000 and $500,000.

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The Edmonton Drug and Gang Enforcement (EDGE) section executed a search warrant on July 4 on a property near 34 Street and 195 Avenue NW, and also found doda powder, which is commonly used to make a narcotic tea. 

Four men were charged.

Insp. Darrin Gordon of the Edmonton Police Service’s organized crime branch said poppies like this are “not typically seen in our country,” and that the last time authorities found an opium crop like this was in 2010 in Chilliwack, B.C.

He said the seeds can be used to make analgesic drugs such as heroin and morphine. He said no heroin-producing facilities were found on the site.

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EDGE Staff Sgt. Marco Antonio said smaller-scale opium crops have been found in Calgary, “but nothing on this scale” since that B.C. bust a decade and a half ago.

He said the police received a tip, assessed the site as a potential grow-op and got a search warrant. A farmhouse and plywood fencing obscured the contents of the field.

“This isn’t something we normally see and, obviously, the Edmonton Drug and Gang Enforcement section focuses on the synthetic opioids that are doing the majority of the overdoses,” said Antonio. “But this was something very unique, and it wasn’t a large time investment. It was a very quick turnaround on the investigation.”

But, if there was a quick turnaround on the investigation, why did it take police until mid-October to publicly release the details of a raid that occurred in early July?

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“There were a bunch of things that occurred,” said Antonio. “Obviously with the samples, because they are live plants, we had to dry them, send them to Health Canada to get the information back and then lay the charges.”

He said that there are a “bunch” of other investigations that are underway as a result of this find.

Richelle Booker, a forensic pharmacologist with Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT), said the powder or ground-up poppy straw is used to make tea or combined with alcohol.

“It contains opium alkaloids, including morphine and codeine, which can pose a risk for toxicity, and there have been cases of overdose and death arising from consumption of coffee, poppy pod tea or poppy seed tea,” said Booker. “Obviously, it’s not as immediately toxic or acutely toxic as some of these synthetic opioids that we see, but it still poses a risk to the people who are using it.”

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Antonio said he thinks this was a one-of-a-kind bust, and that this is not the harbinger of more opium crops to come in Alberta. It is a schedule one substance, up there with the likes of meth and cocaine.

Sukhdeep Dhanoa, 42, Sandeep Dandiwal, 33, Gurpreet Singh, 30, and Kulwinder Singh, 40, are each charged with production of a controlled substance. No court date was announced.

ssandor@postmedia.com

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