LAHORE, Sept 26: Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court issued notices to the Deputy Attorney-General and the Punjab Advocate-General on Thursday on a writ petition challenging the inclusion of poppy straw (choora post) in the list of narcotics and ban on its possession.

Petitioner-lawyer M.D. Tahir submitted that the government had declared poppy a narcotics plant. The possession of poppy straw has been made an offence under the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, without consulting the drug experts and hakims.

A number of shopkeepers from Kasur, Kanganpur, Basirpur, Haveli Lakha and Okara had complaints that the police were harassing them and raiding their shops for keeping poppy straw for sale.

He submitted that he was not a medical expert but he knew that the poppy straw had been in use for preparation of medicines for the treatment of cold and influence for generations. Poppy seeds known as khashkash were also sprinkled on top of breads and rolls. Poppy was also planted in gardens as an ornamental plant because its flowers were similar to the gul-i-lalla mentioned in the poetry of Iqbal and Ghalib.

He contended that there was no justification for inclusion of the poppy straw in the list of narcotics and ban on its cultivation and possession because its powder was not valued at more than Rs50 per kilogramme when imported from Afghanistan for use in medicine called the post phakki, which was used for treatment of colds and was not a toxic substance.

The khashkash husk procured after extraction of oil was used as a raw material for preparation of poultry feed. No narcotic substance could be prepared from choora post either.

He prayed for striking down the legal provision declaring the poppy straw as a narcotic substance and the people languishing in jails for its possession or sale should be set at liberty.

The police should also be restrained from harassing the shopkeepers for selling the poppy straw.