Out of a dozen transgenic plants in Philip Larkin's greenhouse at Black Mountain Laboratory in Canberra, only two show any signs of life. These bulbous, green flower buds are all that remain of a productive line of research. The other plants are withered and yellow like corn stalks, crackling to the touch. "They look pretty cruddy, don't they?" Larkin says, during an overcast November day. "I'm obviously disappointed." Larkin, a plant geneticist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, hasn't called it quits yet. If these poppies don't end up in your drug store, they may well end up in your gas tank.
It's a little known fact that since the 1950s, the island of Tasmania has supplied as much as 40% of the world's medicinal morphine. A handful of Tasmanian companies are licensed to grow the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum; Tasmanian Alkaloids, a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson ...
