Correspondents' CorrespondencePoppies of the Field
ROBERTS, COKIE
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Poppies of the Field ISCHEHISAR-To reach this town in...
...The Turkish government, of course, appreciates the sensitivity of international opinion on the opium issue...
...In 1966, the Parliament agreed to a United Nations accord calling for the control of poppy cultivation, but the controls didn't work and in 1971 the Nixon Administration persuaded a temporary military regime to impose a total ban on growing poppies...
...Underneath the peasants' dissatisfaction lies the question of America's right to tell Turkey what to do...
...They are unable to understand the reasons for restricting a crop that has sustained them for generations...
...Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Poppies of the Field ISCHEHISAR-To reach this town in the middle of Turkey's poppy-growing area, you drive about two-and-a-half hours and two-and-a-half centuries away from Ankara...
...and UN fears that the increased acreage will be harder to supervise...
...They want to plant more poppies...
...What do these people know about Americans half a globe away...
...This year the poppies blossomed again in the fields of seven Turkish provinces, but with stern controls imposed on planting and harvesting...
...The poppy-seed-oil pressers were forced out of business without compensation...
...Thus, during Parliamentary elections not long ago Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel promised farmers they could grow more poppies this coming year, despite U.S...
...During the ban, people in Ische-hisar and the rest of the Afyon district (the name means opium in Turkish) were obliged to change their life styles as well as their crop...
...and UN observers on the scene agree that the controls are working, one American cautions that officials won't know for sure until they see whether the price of heroin goes down...
...This nation is going through an intense nationalistic phase at the moment, and as one young woman put it, "When the United States has a problem with alcoholism does it go to Scotland and close down the whiskey factories...
...They would never allow their children to use drugs...
...The poppies grown in the region became heroin for Western addicts in the past, but as you sit talking to farmers in the dirt road in front of the local cafe (and I'm probably the only woman who ever sat there...
...Since the plant also served as fuel, it became necessary to buy heating oil or coal...
...The political pressure they are generating would be difficult for even the strongest government to withstand, and the conservative coalition now in Ankara is not strong...
...COOKIE ROBERTS...
...As one official told me, "We see this as a humanitarian matter...
...Although few U.S...
...It was a step no elected government would have dared take...
...The farmers of Ischehisar, however, remain unhappy...
...The U.S...
...Dairymen, whose cows had grazed on poppy stalks and produced a thick, sweet cream famous throughout the country, had trouble finding new fodder, and "Afyon cream'' virtually disappeared...
...While U.S...
...Here animals still huddle with humans in mud huts, providing warmth through a cold winter...
...authorities were aware of these problems, every Turkish politician was, and in 1974 then Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit removed the hated ban...
...every male from this rigidly traditional place came to gawk) drugs on the streets of Manhattan or Detroit seem inconceivably remote...
...They have no heroin problem-partly because they believe chewing the opium gum heroin is made from reduces virility-and their ancestors were planting and harvesting poppies for hundreds of years before the United States became a nation...
...compensated farmers for not planting poppies yet the system was fraught with corruption, and never took into account the flower's by-products...
...Peasants accustomed to cooking and seasoning their food with poppyseed oil couldn't get used to the more expensive vegetable oil...
...Babies, who chewed on part of the poppy as a pacifier, cried all the time according to the men of Ischehisar...
Vol. 59 • January 1976 • No. 1
