A Chinese noodle vendor was detained for ten days after he admitted to adding powdered poppy plants, which are made from the addictive opium, to his noodles.
In an attempt to lure customers to get their next food fix at his noodle shop, the owner of the Yan'an restaurant in the province Shaanxi admitted to buying 2kg of poppy buds for 600 yuan ($98) back in August. After crushing the buds into powder, the owner, known only by his first name Zhang, added it into the noodle dishes.
Zhang said that adding opium into the list of noodle ingredients was a way get customers hooked on the tasty noodles to improve business. Police said that the seeds contained enough opiates to slowly build up the substance in the body to trigger its effects, "produce dependence" and cause positive drug tests results.
Police discovered the opium-laced noodles after they stopped 26-year-old Liu Juyou at a routine traffic stop and drug tested him shortly after he ate the noodles. The man was detained for 15 days for drug abuse charges, even though he says he never took drugs before. To prove himself, he asked his family to eat from the noodle shop and get tested. All their urine tests came out positive. Juyou was not released until police linked the restaurant to the drugs.
Similar cases in 2010 and 2012 prove that this isn't the first time someone got caught lacing food with drugs in China. Poppy seeds were popularly used as an ingredient in Chinese hot pot sauce until it was banned.
