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Comment by knd775 | Hacker News Reader

Wait, let me make sure I am understanding this. So Tramadol was given to cattle in such large amounts that it made it into the soil and enough got soaked up by trees that it was thought that Tramadol came from those trees.

That is just incredible.

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Once enough is coming up through grassblades then farmers can cease giving it to the cattle directly. The holy grail of Unlimited Tramadol!

Drugs company hates him!

now seriously, where do one find such abundance of opiates to feed cows of?!

I'm not sure if you're joking, but opiates are grown from opium poppy plants, so that would be a good place to start if you actually wanted an abundance to feed to animals. Tramadol, however, is an opioid, which is a term that encompasses both opiates and synthetic opiate-like drugs -- of which Tramadol falls in the latter.

that's the point. synthetic opiates are not cheap. and those farmers are feeding herd with it.

Tramadol seems to be relatively cheap to produce, and has all sorts of uses beyond just pain medication.

Exacerbated by the animals seeking shade near the trees and then relieving themselves in the shade.

This may also be a tribute to the sensitivity of modern chemistry's tests.

Can't help but be reminded of the Wikipedia circular citation phenomenon - http://xkcd.com/978/

I didn't even know that Frankie Boyle had taken up farming.

It's the circle of life!

I only wish we could get a wikipedia-news-citation cycle in on this story.

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