Large scale opium production in US Appalachia?

Could illegal opium cultivation and grow become widespread in US Appalachia. Could opium grow there like it does Afghanistan? Opium base drugs are already common issue currently in otl there. I am actually curious why opium production never became as big in the Americas as the old world. Is it the climate, government, lack of access to seeds, or it just never got widespread here? Could it become widespread there and how?
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
You would need some kind of Ameri-screw scenario in which the American government(s?) is either unable or unwilling to prevent opium growth. There's plenty you could choose from with a post-1900 PoD, from civil war in the Great Depression to nuclear war to a Rumsfeldia-style scenario.
 
Not to mention all the people who will be wrongly accused and imprisoned because DEA agents aren't botanists, and LOTS of people grow poppies, just not opium poppies.
 
A field of poppies is a hard thing to hide from a government with satellites photographing everything.
Wouldn’t that not be big until the 70s or 80s at least? Maybe even later? Also by that point couldn’t growers hide in the most rural and isolated parts of Appalachia mountains and have ingrained themselves so much into these small local communities they become hard to find or catch? Appalachia has higher levels of local corruption, poverty, and often isn’t the top federal concern on their list. They don’t need to have massive opium farms. It could just be a bunch of small scale ones scattered across rural Appalachia and in every other holler. It would probably be less noticeable then meth house which can blow up giving away its location.
 
Wouldn’t that not be big until the 70s or 80s at least? Maybe even later? Also by that point couldn’t growers hide in the most rural and isolated parts of Appalachia mountains and have ingrained themselves so much into these small local communities they become hard to find or catch? Appalachia has higher levels of local corruption, poverty, and often isn’t the top federal concern on their list. They don’t need to have massive opium farms. It could just be a bunch of small scale ones scattered across rural Appalachia and in every other holler. It would probably be less noticeable then meth house which can blow up giving away its location.


Appalachia is no more corrupt than anywhere else. Poverty is bad, always has been but not universal throughout the region, and before tobacco and coal were closed down life was pretty normal.
 
Pretty sure they need a much warmer climate than West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, and the Blue Ridge Country of North Carolina, and the area isn't rich enough to make greenhouse cultivation world in worthwhile ammounts, not to mention processing and refining opium gum into heroin and codeine would be even more complex than cooking methamphetamine.

It could probably be done in the Imperial Valley of California, but not Appalachia.
 
Pretty sure they need a much warmer climate than West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, and the Blue Ridge Country of North Carolina, and the area isn't rich enough to make greenhouse cultivation world in worthwhile ammounts, not to mention processing and refining opium gum into heroin and codeine would be even more complex than cooking methamphetamine.

It could probably be done in the Imperial Valley of California, but not Appalachia.
How is Appalachia not warm enough but Afghanistan is? I won’t claim to be expert on this but doesn’t Afghanistan have much higher mountains, often colder weather, and drier climate then Appalachia but grow a lot of this? Isn’t opium and weed too very adaptable crops that grow in variety of climates?
 
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