One restaurant owner really wanted repeat customers so he sprinkled
powdered poppy plants on the noodles served at his Shaanxi province restaurant.
by John
Tyburski
Copyright © Daily
Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
A Chinese
restaurant owner wanted customers to return to eat his noodles so badly that he
tried to hook them by secretly sprinkling in some opium. The man, only known as
Zhang, admitted to adding the opium powder to the noodles in his Yan’an
restaurant in the Shaanxi province of China and was detained ten days.
Zhang said
that last month, he bought two kilograms of poppy buds for 600 yuan, which is
equivalent to about $98. He crushed the buds into a fine powder and added them
to the noodles he served in an attempt to compel his customers to return.
Authorities
said that the opium seeds contained enough opiate drugs to accumulate in the
customers’ bodies to a point to cause dependence and produce positive drug
tests. Police discovered the additive after stopping 26-year-old Liu Juyou for
drug testing at a routine traffic stop. He tested positive and had eaten the
noodles shortly beforehand.
The main
was detained for 15 days before his family members consumed the noodles and
submitted drug test results showing the presence of opiates. The police then
linked the positive tests to the noodles.
Opium is a
dried latex derived from opium poppy. Opium contains morphine that can be
converted to heroin. Opium also contains other opiates that together make the
plant derivative highly addictive.
Food in
China has been laced with drugs in the past, as indicated by similar cases in
2010 and 2012. Poppy seeds were common in Chinese hot pot sauce until they were
banned.
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