Kate Dixon runs a flower farm in Tasmania, Australia, supplying beautiful and vibrant blooms to local florists year-round.
Her Instagram page, Clifton Blooms, is a riot of colours as she frequently posts about new yield on it. So when she shared a photo of some frilly pink poppies she had grown, she didn't think it was anything unusual.
But soon, the authorities reached out to her with questions, ABC reported. This week, an official came to her farm to check the flowers and send them for tests.
What they discovered came as a shock to her. Dixon had mistakenly planted opium poppies at her farm.
Opium derived from poppies has many medicinal uses. It has been known since ancient times to help induce sleep and relieve pain. Morphine, heroin, codeine and oxycodone are some of its derivatives.
But it is illegal to grow those plants without a license.
At Dixon's property, officials ripped out 50 poppy plants from
"I was growing them purely for weddings," Dixon told ABC News. "I had absolutely no idea."
She said she was stumped because she had bought seeds to grow them from a registered supplier.
But Dixon took responsibility for not spotting the flowers sooner, The Guardian reported.
After the incident, flower growers in Tasmania have been asked to stay extra careful.
“The government factsheets are very clear on what you cannot grow," Keith Rice, the chief executive of Poppy Growers Tasmania, told The Guardian. "It’s a very well-known crop in Tasmania and does not look very alike to the legal kind."
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