Talk:Poppy tea

So many problems
This article is not only way too long, but is mainly based on original research. Poppy tea is not a new or different family of drug, so much of the information is already covered by the Opium, Morphine, and Codeine pages. This page has been out of control for too long, and I will be making a bold edit, soon. Brandoid (talk) 23:48, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

accuracy
There is very little alkaloid content in the seeds. It would be much more accurate to move this to "poppy tea" and describe the tea made from various parts of the poppy there. ... aa:talk 00:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

In the United States it is legal to purchase poppy seeds, dried pods, and to grow Papaver sominiferum variety of poppies as long as you don't intend on extracting or consuming the opiate alkaloids contained within.

A Reported Death from Poppy Seed Tea Ingestion
Poppy seed tea can potentially contain significant amounts of opiates when a large enough amount of seeds is used in its preparation. The Web site http://www.poppyseedtea.com objectively describes the death of a teenager from morphine overdose resulting from ingesting a large amount of poppy seed tea. It includes the coroner's report and the lab analysis of urine, blood and a sample solution prepared with the same recipe the the boy used. ...  22:29, 19 June 2006

This is a valuable website, but to call it "objective" is ridiculous. A site created and maintained by the parents of a child who overdosed on the substance in question can hardly be without bias, especially since his case is both unusual and complicated by other factors.


 * Please note, all seeds contain cyanide to some degree, and 3.5lbs of poppy seed tea will contain a significant amount of cyanide. I wouldn't be surprised if he was killed by cyanide before the morphine. Never the less, I have sympathy for the parents, but I would also like them to understand death resulting from an opioid overdose is nothing unique or special to them, and has happened to many families, likewise with alcohol and other potentially fatal drugs when the correct dosages are not followed. There are thousands who have died from opioid overdoses/benzodiazpine cocktails, lsd, or alcohol and strong alcoholic drinks such as absinthe. An encyclopedia is not a place to point out the deaths related to the inappropriate use of psychoactive substances, it is very insignificant that someone has died due to an opioid overdose. As with all opioids, a large dose will cause respiratory failure and death. This is nothing new, and has been documented for decades. If anything should be mentioned, is that death from respiratory depression can result from an overdose. An individual death sadly or an isolated case is not warranted on Wikipedia, as it creates double standards, and sadly, for the sake of fairness, we would have to include all other cases were families might have lost loved ones due to drug / alcohol use. I understand the parents might have assumed poppy tea is safe, which is the reason they are fighting to mention their sons death everywhere, but also understand emotions can sometimes make something seem different when it warrants nothing new. We might aswell mention a case where a young teenager drank a bottle of absynth mis labeled as 10%proof and died. Blame the government for not ensuring dosage consistencies with illicit opioid use. Many heroin addicts die each year because they have no way of telling whether their heroin is as strong as what they are used too. Your sons case in perspective, is no different. Out of all drugs, chronically used, opioids are infact the safest drug with addiction being it's main deterrent. Opium Tea/Poppy Tea unlike morphine or individual alkaloids is a medicine which has strong anti-cancer, anti-pain, anti-depression, anti-fungal, anti-viral properties. A saying in Iran is, whilst an Opium addict might bring suffering about because of the addiction itself, they are always the last ones to die (in short, die-hard). Research individual opium alkaloids for their different properties. Once again, sad to see a loss, but in reality, overdosage of most things kill, even paracetamol. --78.86.159.199 (talk) 22:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Poppy Seed Tea vs. Poppy Tea
Poppy seeds are inert and contain no alkaloids. It is likely that any narcotic effect from poppy seed tea is obtained from minor sap leakage from defects on the inside of the seed-pod that coated some of the seeds. In general, no-one will make "poppy tea" using the seeds. I think poppy seed tea should be differentiated under a separate subheading now that the two have been merged. -- Papaver 02:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I agree that the seeds of the Papaver Somniferum do not 'contain' active alkaloids, they most certainly have active alkaloids deposited on their surface in the form of opium latex. The average amount of morphine cited being in the range of 60 micrograms per gram of seed. Also your statement that "In general, no-one will make "poppy tea" using the seeds" is incorrect, a quick usenet search will turn up MANY reports of people using the seeds to make tea and reporting positive results. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.scoobs (talk • contribs)


 * Do you mean to propose that commercially available seeds are "washed" of latex -- and further, that seeds from poppies which are directly extracted may be washed, and then the wash reduced to yield morphine? That, I hadn't heard. At 60ug/seed, I can imagine a gallon of seeds (by no means hard nor illegal to obtain or own) would yield a substantial quantity of morphine. Can you cite a reference or link to an article on http://groups.google.com/ ? I'll be quite happy to update the article if you can cite a source. Certainly the "latex" idea sounds plausible. ... aa:talk 19:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Visit the middle-east any time. Find yourself a funeral.  Is the poppy tea there yellowish or brown?  Yellowish means seeds were used as (at least one) ingredient.  Brown means only dried seed pods, carefully prepared by having tops and bottoms removed, then being drained of seeds, cracked open, and having the 'ribs' which held the seeds likewise removed.  The potency at a reasonable concentration (above 3% by weight) is in the skin of the pod.  To safely use such a substance for whatever reason, the user must be certain to AVOID evaporative or any other sort of condensation method.  It should be prepared from near-boiling, purified water (do not acidify; the plants enjoy slightly acidic soil and still yield slightly alkaline compounds which are better absorbed without pH alteration) poured onto a very fine powder produced from the pods prepared as described.  This will produce maximum yield.  It can steep for quite a while as long as the water is not quite boiling.  There are other processes for strengthening it than mentioned here, but I would not suggest them to anyone; the teenager who passed away was following a recipe that used weight in seeds, not volume in powdered pods.  If a user bulks up poppy pod tea with the amount of water typically used to create it in the first place and drinks it while it's still warm, the user will at worst get sick and spend a day in between bed and the bathroom vomiting.  Concentrating substances that are not controlled in production is dangerous territory; stick with volume in tablespoons from powdered pods and you'll find the action is substantially longer than the claimed eight hours on this article.  DrMorelos 09:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

evaporative processes
I am skeptical of the text stating that tea can be evaporated leaving a "powder" which can be snorted, injected, etc. As with all alkaloid-from-plant-with-water extractions (see DMT/MeO-DMT extraction from Acacia sp. for example), what is left behind is more likely to be a tar than a powder. Further, the only efficient way to do this evaporation process would be with a still, which would necessarily destroy (or severely degrade) the alkaloid content of the extraction.


 * This should be cited, indeed.--Rotten 18:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have tried the "evaporation" method many times, gently simmering the tea down with a crockpot into a gummy brown substance, and never got any results from ingesting (or smoking) it. I think it's bogus. On the other hand, I read that raw opium is first processed or "cooked" by dissolving it in boiling water and straining to remove impurities, followed by evaporating the remaining water...

My guess is an acetone extraction of the poppy extract would yield a much more highly concentrated version which could then be converted to a salt (which could subsequently be used in various nefarious ways).

The one part I do agree with is the mention of dosing. If, for example, one decides "each poppy head contains X mg of desired alkaloids", and then uses ten pods per half-litre, one can extrapolate that each quarter-litre contains five pods' worth of alkaloids. That's convenient. However, further reducing that volume to a salt would require a chemical (not evaporative) extraction.

Boy, kitchen chemistry. What's next? PCP from peanut skins? ... aa:talk 19:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No, up next kitchen surgery. --Joe Montana

This article is almost without merit and dangerous: delete it!
I am well acquainted with poppy tea and its use, as well as its history. This article is a rambling mess and liable to get the reader who uses it as a guide into trouble. The info on poppy seeds is entirely out of place except as a link and a very short decriptive tag. As the warnings on the header state, the how to info belongs elsewhere (like Erodwid or Lyceum, from which much of the text is cribbed anyway), and is particularly inappropriate for this entry. The article goes on to say nothing more than a recipe and advice on use. No references, even to Jim Hogshire's Opium for the Masses (the book that all but started the modern English speaking world back using poppy tea), much less to the dozens of academic journal articles, DEA monographs, newspaper and magazine articles, et al. No, I am not going to do the work, I've got too much else to do. Someone needs to write an informative, historical, sourced article that isn't a crib from other, drug-oriented (mostly recklessly pro-drug, in tone and often in content as well) website--posted anonymously for what ought to be obvious reasons

I completely agree, this article encourages the illicit consumption of the poppy tea. It in no way, shape, or form belongs in such a mainstream site as wikipedia. When I get enough time I will do my best to fix this mess up (if it doesn't get deleted first) —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThemBones20 (talk • contribs) 09:45, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Not once has this article suggested or encouraged poppy tea usage other than to describe what 10000's of people do to create various types of poppy tea. It is out there, it is happening, it is undocumented professionaly hence anecdotal citations and evidence, and is a great source of information. --94.193.135.142 (talk) 16:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

first of all it is documented, maybe they dont talk about the best way to get high, but poppy tea is documented. second of all telling people how to create something 3x more powerful than morphine IS encouraging illicit use. wikipedia is supposed to be a source of SCHOLARLY info, not anecdotal stuff, even if the info is true. you have to back stuff up. also ive read that some of the dried poppies are treated (ill look for a citation) and are not to be ingested, there is no mention of this. poppy tea historically is preperared from fresh pods, this article is just a source of info for people who want an easily accessible high. there is nothing historical in the article (other than the part talking about historical figures who have used poppy tea, for which there is no citation) even though there are plenty of sources pertaining to it. i think that the entire article should be stripped down and rebuilt with scholarly info.does anybody object? and if they do can they actually back up what they have to say with scholarly info? 69.206.78.252 (talk) 00:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm just going to say this one time for anyone who thinks this article needs deletion because it is dangerous or inappropriate... Wikipedia is an academic source, the only judgement that is made when deciding what articles to keep is on the notability of the subject.  Poppy tea is, unfortunately, quite notable at the moment.  Now the material does need to be written in as scholarly a manner as possible, but there has been a relative lack of published scientific journals on poppy seed/pod tea. --    Alyas Grey   : talk 06:20, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Cannabinoids
The article mentions the presence of cannabinoids in the tea. I'm curious about the source for that information, and I'm also curious to see a cogent explanation of how cannabinoids appear in opium. I'm genuinely curious. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 07:11, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I have never heard of such a thing until this article. Cannabinoids in the poppy seeds themselves? Unless a reference is provided, this shouldn't even be mentioned in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xeokym (talk • contribs) 09:34, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Possible copyright violations or plagiarism
The question has been raised at Media_copyright_questions regarding whether this article contains material from or copies "Confessions of an eBay opium addict" by Porter Bartlett. User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:47, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Broken Link?
The link to an external site: "Poppy seed contents include oleamide, a hypnotic amide agent" appears to be broken. Tony P. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.12.236 (talk) 05:14, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Aaaargh, So much misinformation...
I came to this article while googling for anything new on p. setigerum, a poppy I know well and grow. I have never heard it called the names used in the article, only "Poppy of Troy" or (rarely) "Dwarf Breadseed Poppy," but the stuff which follows seems entirely out of line with papers I've seen published on the subject. For example, there have been three tests of alkaloids, one found (toxic) thebaine to be the dominant alkaloid, another found primarily noscapine, and a third found only negligible traces of any medically active alkaloid. I can find no source for the claim that it's been used in the production of pharmaceuticals, as the article asserts, but have read that it has never been used that way, and is not considered a feasible source for alkaloids. See, for example, http://www.justice.gov/dea/programs/forensicsci/microgram/journal_v5_num14/pg2.html as a stark contrast to the contents of this article.

I don't remember how to edit well enough to do a proper job of citing a more accurate summary of p. setigerum, but I'm about to do a bold edit and can some uncited statements which I know to contradict peer-reviewed papers. 50.0.101.103 (talk) 01:10, 27 April 2012 (UTC)