Natural High: Animals that Use Drugs in the Wild

Wallabies on Opium

Opium poppies, the source of heroin, morphine, and other opioids, is a hugely profitable crop in Australia. Australia produces almost half the world’s supply of legally grown opium poppies. With this amount of narcotics hanging around it is no surprise that some become addicted. What might be surprising is that the addicts are not people—they are wallabies.In Tasmania, Bennett’s wallabies have been found in the state-run opium fields getting heavily intoxicated. The wallabies crash into the fields and eat the poppies until they can no longer hop straight. Farmers come to their crops and find mysterious circles of bent over plants. These crop circles are not signs from aliens but the result of strung out wallabies looking for a place to crash.