{"id":413052,"date":"2026-01-14T20:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/413052\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T20:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:29:13","slug":"significant-theft-of-toxic-poppies-could-cause-death-tasmanian-authorities-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/413052\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Significant’ theft of toxic poppies could cause death, Tasmanian authorities warn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tasmania’s Health Department is warning of the danger of consuming “life-threatening” poppy capsules, as police respond to the theft of a “significant quantity”.<\/p>\n

Tasmania Police said the poppy capsules had been taken from a regulated crop between Tunbridge and Campbell Town in the Northern Midlands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Poppies have been grown in Tasmania for decades and are refined into medicinal opioids such as morphine and codeine.<\/p>\n

But the highly toxic crop is strictly controlled, and ingestion can cause convulsions, asphyxiation, and death<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Poppy material \u2026 if consumed can be fatal, and thefts of poppy heads are treated seriously by us, by Tasmania Police,” Sergeant Marco Cosentino said.Can you help?Call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000Report anonymously via the\u00a0Crime Stoppers website<\/a><\/p>\n

The Health Department said anyone who had consumed poppy matter should consider it a medical emergency and call Triple Zero (000) immediately.<\/p>\n

The pale pink flower has been linked to several deaths that occurred in Tasmania about a decade ago, including that of a Danish tourist who drank a tea made from poppies in 2014.<\/p>\n

Police believe the theft occurred between January 9 and 12, and are calling on anyone with information to contact them.<\/p>\n

They are particularly interested in hearing from anyone who spotted a black Volkswagen Golf parked on the side of the Midland Highway near the crops, or anyone with dash cam footage.<\/p>\n

“Any theft of poppy capsules is a serious offence and can result in charges under the Misuse of Drugs Act, as well as additional offences of trespass and stealing,” Sergeant Consentino said.<\/p>\n

Newer crops ‘more powerful, more potent’<\/p>\n

Poppy Growers Tasmania chief executive Wayne Johnston said, these days, people were possibly less aware of the dangers, particularly newer generations, and overseas workers.<\/p>\n

“And there’s no doubt the breeding of poppies has increased in the last 10 years, so therefore they’re becoming more powerful or more potent,” he said.\"Field<\/p>\n

Fields of poppies are popular with sightseers, but people should stay out, an industry figure says. (Libby Price)<\/p>\n

This year, the industry has expanded significantly, and the crop is one of the first to be harvested.<\/p>\n

“We’re up to about 10,000 hectares this year from about four or five last year,” Mr Johnston said.<\/p>\n

He said it meant people needed to be even more vigilant.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a great industry here in Tasmania, it’s the largest in the world and we want to continue to make it safe and prosper from it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“When the poppy crops are fully in flower, people pull up and take photos of the beautiful flowers; that’s great.<\/p>\n

“But if anybody sees somebody in the poppy crop, they should be reporting it to the police straight off, because we just can’t have this sort of incursion.<\/p>\n

“We certainly don’t want to see anybody hurt by the product that comes out of it \u2026 when it’s used the wrong way.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tasmania’s Health Department is warning of the danger of consuming “life-threatening” poppy capsules, as police respond to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,218232,37797,44,218230,218233,195556,119149,30729,218231],"class_list":["post-413052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-codeine","tag-morphine","tag-news","tag-opium","tag-oxy","tag-oxycontin","tag-poppies","tag-poppy","tag-thebaine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}