https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...id-crisis-johnson-and-johnson-tasmania-poppy/ Tasmania’s ‘super poppy’ Though poppy plants have been cultivated in Tasmania since the 1960s, it wasn’t until the emergence of Johnson & Johnson’s innovative poppy that it became a boom crop on the island, one that would provide the world with the raw material to make a wave of painkilling drugs. Oxycodone and hydrocodone had been synthesized by scientists as far back as 1920, but manufacturing them in commercial quantities had proven costly. Then, in the mid-90s, an invention by Tasmanian Alkaloids, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, helped reduce the costs: Scientists created a new poppy. By treating thousands of seeds with chemicals to randomly change their genetic information, the scientists made a poppy that had two special properties. First, the new poppy had ample amounts of an opiate known as thebaine — a substance from which oxycodone and hydrocodone could be readily manufactured. Second, unlike traditional opium poppies, this poppy had no morphine, meaning that the purification process was simpler. “It was a ‘super poppy’ from the point of view that it produces a heck of a lot more thebaine,” said Peter Facchini, a biochemistry professor at the University of Calgary whose lab specializes in studying the poppies. “The cost of thebaine — and the cost of all pharmaceutical ingredients that come from it — dropped. These prescription medicines became much more accessible, and then you had a series of cascading effects, including addiction.” The man credited with the discovery, Anthony J. Fist, an agricultural scientist, was given Johnson & Johnson’s highest award for scientific research and innovation, the Johnson Medal, in 2000.
