Facts: Poaching, Poppy, and Penalties
Facts from Wild Justice: Killing for Cash
Photo: On a marijuana grow raid (View larger version)
- It is illegal to sell any deer meat in the state of California, whether it was taken legally under a recreational hunting license or killed illegally.
- CalTIP (Californians Turn in Poachers & Polluters) is a confidential secret witness program that encourages the public to provide the California Fish & Game Department with factual information to find and arrest poachers and polluters.
- The poaching of all wildlife species has increased greatly over the last decade.
- In the 1990's, it was estimated that approximately $100 million worth of California's native wildlife was being poached annually for profit, making poaching second only to the illegal drug trade in black market profitability.
- Most of California's fish and wildlife is poached from remote areas and then transported to major cities to be sold and exported.
- The penalty for poaching deer in California is a maximum of six months in county jail and a $1,000 fine.
- Opium is a narcotic, made from the white liquid in the poppy plant.
- Opium production occurs in three source regions: Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, and Latin America.
- The opium poppy was first cultivated in lower Mesopotamia in 3400 B.C. and was referred to as the "joy plant" by the Sumerians.
- Opium contains up to 12 percent morphine, an opiate alkaloid most frequently processed chemically to produce heroin.
- In 1907, the California Pharmacy and Poison Act made it a crime to sell opiates without a prescription and banned the possession of opium or opium pipes in 1909.
- The California poppy is the state flower of California and does not contain opium.
- California's "indecent exposure" law has remained virtually unchanged since its enactment in 1872, and prohibits publicly exposing your naked body or genitals with lewd intent.
- Conviction of indecent exposure in the state of California subjects an offender to a lifetime duty to register as a California sex offender.
- As of 1/1/11, possession of less than 1 oz of marijuana is an infraction, but not a criminal offense.
