Poppies will make them sleepy.

March 14, 2012 6:27 PM

Is it possible to get high from tea made out of poppies ordered off of ebay (the kind used for floral arrangements)?

OK, first off, this is not a "can I do this" question - I have a friend who claimed this could be done and I remain incredulous but completely uneducated on the idea. I am curious as to whether it is *possible,* NOT the logistics of how one would do it.

Said friend said you order poppy pods off ebay from sellers who list them for making floral arrangements, so I checked and I at least know this part is possible (mind mildly blown). Said friend then described a process of smashing, dumping out seeds, grinding the rest in a coffee grinder, steeping, straining, then mixing with some other concoctions to ease the flavor.

I am curious whether this could actually produce the intended effect (getting high), and also whether this could be particularly dangerous for a person, i.e. could it cause an overdose, complications with other medications, etc..

posted by anonymous to grab bag (21 answers total)

Confessions of an eBay opium addict.
posted by sid at 6:29 PM on March 14, 2012 [16 favorites]

Yes. More info here.
posted by mikeand1 at 6:36 PM on March 14, 2012

It's not a Great way - poppy tea has long been a pretty mild painkiller in many cultures, but yes. Those are the same poppies. There was a great Harper's Magazine piece many years ago about the history of poppies and hemp and cider apples in the US, and he claimed that the government had done its best to obfuscate the fact that garden poppies are opium poppies.
posted by ldthomps at 6:37 PM on March 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

More specifically.
posted by mikeand1 at 6:37 PM on March 14, 2012

Yes, it is possible. At the time this article was written, it was only legal to own the poppies if you didn't know how to use them to get high.
posted by procrastination at 6:38 PM on March 14, 2012

These may well have been treated with weedkillers/preservatives not meant for human consumption.

I know someone who became addicted to this and it nearly destroyed his marriage.
posted by brujita at 6:40 PM on March 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Similarly, you can buy morning glory seeds (like, to grow the flowers) which are also an opiate, and eat them and get high.
posted by Emms at 6:44 PM on March 14, 2012

Emms, morning glory seeds are not opiates, they contain substances that are analagous to LSD.
posted by sid at 6:49 PM on March 14, 2012 [5 favorites]

I don't think morning glory seeds are an opiate. They contain lysergic acid, a psychedelic similar to LSD.
posted by mikeand1 at 6:49 PM on March 14, 2012

You can get mildly high from eating normal poppy seeds (if you grind them). 200g is enough for noticeable effect.

There has been at least one overdose death from poppy seed tea (ordinary grocery store poppy seeds). The tea was made with 2 to 2.5 pounds of seeds.
posted by lastobelus at 6:59 PM on March 14, 2012

Hmm. It would be much safer, much cheaper, and much less labor-intensive to buy poppy seeds at a large grocery store or baking supplies site. Flowers meant for arrangements are treated with seriously toxic chemicals so they'll last longer and should not be eaten even if they're otherwise edible flowers.
posted by kalapierson at 7:07 PM on March 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

You could, but to the best of my knowledge eBay no longer allows poppy pods to be sold.
posted by vanitas at 7:20 PM on March 14, 2012

What Lastobelus said. I've also heard that buying large quantities of the plants from garden centers can attract unwanted federal scrutiny. But I couldn't cite a source more reliable than rumor-mill. They have gorgeous orange & red flowers.
posted by Ys at 9:00 PM on March 14, 2012

Aside from morning glory seeds and poppies, you can get high from nutmeg and over the counter cough syrup. Salvia is also legal. There are lots of legal highs out there, but most of them are legal because they're a pain in the ass, or not that great of an experience.
posted by empath at 10:31 PM on March 14, 2012

It would be easier to go and spread poppies in a field and then harvest the opium from them by picking the seedpods and draining the gummy insides. If you leave 5% of the pods there to reseed the field after a year or two you'll have a field full of poppies (nice to look at in the summer) and a metric cackload of opium if you wanted.
posted by koolkat at 2:20 AM on March 15, 2012

nthing yes. But be careful. empath mentioned salvia as being legal, that is only the case is certain U.S. states, for example it is now illegal in Illinois. It is, however, legal in most countries.
posted by IvoShandor at 4:11 AM on March 15, 2012

One caveat: You don't know how much of the active ingredients you're getting when you do this. You could experience nothing. You could be on the nod for three straight days. So, if you're thinking of doing it beware.
posted by dortmunder at 5:49 AM on March 15, 2012

Opiate addiction is hell on earth. Don't do this.

Sid's link was all over the place for awhile. Clearly, those dried poppies for arrangements have opium and have enough to get you hooked.
posted by caddis at 6:35 AM on March 15, 2012

It sure is. An old friend ordered in bulk, from Canada. He became a drugged-out zombie, who made "poppy tea" every day. It was really terrible! And it ended even worse!
posted by RJ Reynolds at 6:59 AM on March 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

I know someone who's done this with good results. The cautions should be heeded as opiate addiction/withdrawl, even a mild case is no fun.

Also there are ways to extract the active alkaloids in different ways other than tea. I have only smoked opium, never had the tea, and would put it close to a dose of vicodin, only better and very tasty.
posted by handbanana at 7:56 AM on March 15, 2012

There was a great Harper's Magazine piece many years ago about the history of poppies and hemp and cider apples in the US, and he claimed that the government had done its best to obfuscate the fact that garden poppies are opium poppies.

I remember that article, ldthomps. The kicker was his claim that anyone who read his article was technically legally forbidden to raise poppies - because they now knew that they could derive opium from it!

Also, he claimed a famous opium grower (hippy type, not drug lord) showed up on his doorstep weeks after interviewing him, begging crash space while on the lam. Good reading.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:00 AM on March 15, 2012