"Pleospora papaveracea is a fungal pathogen that attacks opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). Candidate strains for use in crop eradication were isolated in the 1980s by the Institute of Genetics in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. At the time, the facility was part of the Soviet Union's offensive biological weapons program."
Source
The Sunshine Project, "Risks of Using Biological Agents in Drug Eradication: A briefing paper with emphasis on human health," Hintergrundpapier No. 4 (Austin, TX, and Hamburg, Germany: February, 2001), p. 2.
http://www.mamacoca.org/docs_…
