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Plant-based in this context means traditional heroin (which is harvested from Poppies) not Weed.

Heroin isn't harvested from poppies, opium is. A lot of the problems of the heroin trade could be solved by letting people grow and smoke their own poppies, like they did for thousands of years before prohibition. A similar thing could be said for cocaine and the coca leaf.

> A lot of the problems of the heroin trade could be solved by letting people grow and smoke their own poppies, like they did for thousands of years before prohibition

Yeah no.

Poppy growing used to be endemic in the part of South Asia I'm from and we're still reeling from the impact of opioid abuse along with how it undermined local political institutions.

There's a reason villages are now dealing with it via vigilante justice [0][1]

[0] - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBTcOmQMvee/?igsh=MWcxNGlyY2l...

[1] - https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuZCHhcp_dF/?igsh=MXh0dTB6Nnd...

Heroin is derived from poppies. It is simply the product of acetylating the morphine isolated from the poppy plant. Also, the person you replied to was right, the DEA is referring to heroin and cocaine, not cannabis. This is spelled out in the second paragraph of the executive summary in the pdf: "traditional plant-based drugs like cocaine and heroin".

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