by Mahmut Atanur
BEIJING
Two managers of a central China restaurant have been arrested on the suspicion of adding opium to dishes.
State news agency Xinhua quoted a police investigation as saying Friday that a major motivation for the Hubei Province establishment was "keeping customers coming back for more."
In routine tests, the local food and drug administration said they had detected main ingredients of poppy seeds - including papaverine and narcotine - in the restaurant's dishes in March.
Poppy seeds contain the analgesic alkaloid morphine, a narcotic used to treat severe pain that is processed chemically to produce heroin.
Morphine was famously used by Victorian literary figure Sherlock Holmes to escape from “the dull routine of existence.”
Doctors say long-term consumption can lead to addiction, damage to the nervous system and induce chronic intoxication.
Police said that the two managers had said that they added the poppy seeds to dressings for the purpose of improving the taste of their dishes while keeping customers coming back for more.
