‘There’s no more poppy seeds in any bakery in Singapore because the police will investigate… you know? You know what poppy is used for?’
So the fella behind the counter at the Orchard Towers’ Jason’s Supermarket’s Hiestand Swiss Bakery’s (hooray for Apostrophy Man!) kiosk told me when I asked for buns with poppy seeds on them.
Is that true? How many poppy seeds do you need to eat to get stoned?
Apparently the poppy seed ban has been around for ages, and I just didn’t realise it because I seldom have a strong craving for poppy seeds on baked goods.
So there you have it, poppy seeds are contraband, and to think I actually asked for them over the counter!
Singapore Customs’ (yay, apostrophe!) tradenet website, a.k.a. ‘the banned wagon’, has poppy seeds at number 41 on their list of controlled items (‘Toy walkie talkie’ is at number 53). The population of our fair country is banned from importing or purchasing poppy seeds from places like supermarkets, as one expatriate pundit puts it:
“as they may be inclined (being illiterates as they are and mindlessly bowing to mindless rules) to abuse poppy seeds and cultivate a cash crop of opium and revert to days of yore when opium dens proliferated and the mindless populace wasted away on their backs in a drug induced coma….”
These ain’t poppies (pictures of poppies are banned too, I reckon), but we used to consume the sweet nectar from these ixoras
