Greater concentrations of carbon dioxide in a warming world may have a drastic effect on the potency of opium poppies, according to a new study.
While this increase might mean more morphine available for legal pharmaceutical uses, the painkiller is also the main ingredient in heroin.
The speed of the biological changes affecting plants’ alkaloid levels suggests that the climate may have a greater impact on plant life than computer models had generally predicted, Ziska says Lewis Ziska of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory.
The net result, according to Ziska, is that climate change’s impacts on plants are likely to be chaotic and difficult to predict. For example, he says, “wheat may make more seeds, but we may have stronger poison ivy and poppies.”
