Where to find poppy pods

In this survey, respondents said poppy seed tea had an onset of action of about 15 min and effects could last 24 h; its main reported drawback was that it did not taste good [ 2 ]. In the United States and many other parts of the world, unwashed poppy seeds are available freely with no legal restrictions. The case study reported here conforms to ethical standards and was conducted by scientifically qualified investigators with the informed consent of the subject.

The case studies mentioned in our review of the literature on poppy seed tea were not conducted by these investigators. Poppy seeds contain negligible alkaloid content and have long been considered safe for use in baking, although they may cause a false positive on certain drug tests. The highest content of phenanthrene alkaloids in the poppy plant are found in the seed pods; the seeds themselves have much lower concentrations [ 4 ].

The opioid concentration of poppy seed tea varies widely, as it is based on the amount of alkaloid residue on the seeds, the quantity of seeds used, how the tea is prepared, and how much tea an individual consumes.

Recipes for poppy seed tea call for soaking a large quantity of seeds for up to 12 h; soaking may be done in water or in lemon juice. This suggests that high, potentially lethal doses of morphine can be found in poppy seed tea [ 5 ].

There is a paucity of literature on poppy seed tea but the approximately dozen articles on the topic relate mainly to case studies of poppy seed tea dependence.

An year-old widow in India presented to a clinic with a year history of opium use, starting with an opium candy used to relieve pain after the birth of her fourth child. Over the years, she learned to make a tea from dried poppy pods; she consumed 1 to 2 l of this beverage daily and her family brought her for treatment when poppy pods were no longer available to her and she underwent withdrawal symptoms, rated 26 on the Clinical Opioid Withdrawal Scale COWS.

She underwent detoxification under medical supervision and was then started on opioid maintenance therapy with 0. She was followed for 1 year and had experienced no relapse [ 6 ]. In another case report in the literature, a year-old woman in Australia presented at a drug treatment center; she had been an intravenous IV heroin user who migrated to poppy seed tea about 10 years earlier to manage her addiction.

Over the decade, she had increased her consumption to the point where she was using 5 or 6 kg of poppy seeds per week to make her tea, which she only took orally. She had tried to stop using poppy seed tea on her own, with counseling, and in residential treatments but had never been successful. Each time she discontinued poppy seed tea she experienced withdrawal symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting, sweating, anxiety, and rhinorrhea.

The patient was started on buprenorphine maintenance and has been successful in maintaining this regimen [ 7 ]. A year-old man presented at a drug treatment center with an extensive substance use disorder history. He also suffered depression and anxiety. He was drinking the solution from about 1 kg of poppy seeds per day, which he was able to purchase at a local supermarket.

Over time, his use escalated to three times that amount, which he sometimes supplemented with opportunistic use of heroin, benzodiazepine, and alcohol. His agitation and anxiety increased when poppy seed tea was discontinued, but this was managed with venlafaxine XR mg and psychological therapy [ 7 ].

A year-old baker suffered a tonic—clonic seizure, which appeared to physicians to be the result of a toxic encephalopathy [ 8 ]. The baker denied using drugs, but his employer noted the bakery was ordering an unusually large amount of poppy seeds.

After a urine drug screen revealed the presence of morphine, the baker admitted that he drank poppy seed tea every night at the bakery, something he had learned from the other bakers when he was still an apprentice. He admitted that he had used IV heroin for several years, which he had been able to stop with poppy seed tea.

He entered a methadone maintenance treatment program, which he quit after several months and resumed poppy seed tea. His poppy seed tea consumption escalated rapidly, and he stated that if he skipped poppy seed tea for 1 day, he developed withdrawal symptoms. A sample of the tea he prepared regularly for himself tested to have a morphine concentration of 0.

He was drinking up to 2 l of this tea every day, which required about 4 kg of poppy seed per day. This amount was not trivial, as it translates to daily consumption of about mg of morphine a day. He requested detoxification and rehabilitation. He started on extended-release morphine 60 mg twice daily to manage withdrawal and eventually tapered to 20 mg twice daily.

His blood tests show a morphine concentration of 0. In the United States, poppy plants are considered a Schedule II controlled substance with the exception of the seeds, which are legal to purchase and have been popular for many decades in baking.

Poppy seeds are also available for legal purchase in Australia, Canada, and many other countries. In New Zealand, large bags of poppy seeds can be obtained from the supermarket and are relatively inexpensive [ 2 ]. Amazon, eBay, and Etsy, major online stores serving customers within and outside of the US, offer poppy seeds for sale. A popular large health and wellness site Mercola. The website FoodtoLive. The website PoppySeedTeaRecipe. The website thenoddingturtle.

Poppy seeds are also sold on this site as an exfoliant. Less fatty emulsion was also formed during the extraction method, when liquid nitrogen was employed. A comparative study was carried out to establish if there was a difference between alkaloid levels resulting from poppy seeds incorporated into the matrix of the muffin to those resulting from poppy seeds coated onto a bread roll.

The dough was then split into 4 equal portions and each one was pressed into poppy seeds. The rolls were left to cool to room temperature and the poppy seeds were scraped from the surface using a metal spatula and homogenized in a spice blender prior to extraction and analysis by LC-MS. It was found that at the extremes of the polarity scale diethyl ether, dichloromethane, and water , the chromatograms produced were complex and with poor peak shape for the alkaloids; these observations were independent of pH.

In contrast, the optimum result, in terms of alkaloid presence and peak shape, was obtained using the solvent mixture i. For this reason, this extraction solvent mixture was used for all subsequent extraction's. For each source, the mean weight of each of the alkaloids in poppy seeds was calculated. When the levels of morphine in poppy seeds from each of the different sources was compared Table 7 , it was found that there was much variation within batch but also between sources of poppy seeds.

There is much variation in the extracted opiate compounds, which is primarily due to the environmental differences of the seeds Katrine et al. The country of origin for both of these poppy seed sources is unknown. When the same comparison was carried out for codeine Table 7 it was also found that there was much variation within different portions of the same batch and between sources of poppy seeds as was the case with morphine.

Source 2, which was found to have a level of morphine much higher than the other sources, was also found to have a higher level of codeine. No other similarities can be drawn from the data. It was also found that the same source with the highest levels of morphine and codeine also exhibited the highest levels of thebaine. Noscapine was identified in only two of the eight sources of poppy seeds Table 7. It was found that the seeds from source 7 contained the highest levels of noscapine of the two sources where noscapine was identified.

Papaverine was detected in some of the analyzed seeds but peaks were so small that it was not possible to quantify them. It has been identified that sub-varieties of Papaver somniferum L. However, this taxonomic information was not available from the suppliers of the seeds. It has been known since Annett, that factors, such as the season in which the plants are grown, weather conditions, and quality and type of fertilizer used can greatly affect the levels of alkaloids biosynthesised by Papaver somniferum L.

In turn, the levels of alkaloids found in opium latex will also be affected. No data currently exist that compares levels of alkaloids in opium latex and alkaloids from the same plant but it is assumed that the levels would correlate. On this basis, the country of origin, where the plant was grown in the field e. This means that if a batch of poppy seeds is harvested from one field, naturally there will be variation in the levels of alkaloids from each of the plants.

It has also been shown that the alkaloids present in the opium latex may contaminate the poppy seeds as part of the growing process and that a batch of poppy seeds is the combination of multiple fields in one country: all of these factors may explain why there is such variation within batch and between sources of poppy seeds.

However, the muffin matrix greatly interfered with the extraction process. During the extraction process, a fatty emulsion was formed which affected further sample preparation techniques Figure 3. These aliquots were filtered twice prior to being transferred into HPLC vials however when the chromatograms were analyzed for these muffin extractions, no alkaloids were identified. For this reason, it was not possible to include the poppy seed muffins extract results in the comparison between harvested poppy seeds, thermally processed seeds on their own and poppy seeds on the top of bread buns.

In addition, seed portions from three randomly selected sources were extracted and analyzed with the results shown in Table 8. Again, as was established with extractions of harvested poppy seeds there was much variation in the alkaloids identified and in the levels of those alkaloids present, Deuterated morphine was added prior to extraction of the alkaloids from the seeds and percentage extractions were incorporated into the calculations.

Figure 3. Sample tubes containing poppy seed muffin and extraction solvent, post agitation, and centrifugation. Table 8. Comparison of levels of alkaloids identified in harvested poppy seeds, seeds from the surface of bread rolls and seeds heated with no matrix. What was identified from this data was that whether the seeds were heated on the surface of the bread roll or were heated with no bread matrix, the levels of alkaloids if detected were considerably lower than in the harvested seeds.

Koleva et al. When comparing the results from the current work to levels published in the literature Table 9 it can be seen that these findings are in-keeping with those published by Sproll et al.

The work published by Grove et al. However, this could have been due to the sensitivity of the GC-MS instrument employed, the lack of information regarding the presence of other alkaloids present in poppy seeds at this time as the work reported by Grove et al. The levels of alkaloids identified in the current work are generally lower than those found by Sproll et al. This research has shown that alkaloid variation exists depends on the specific alkaloids, their source and thermal processing.

It was clear from the data obtained in this current work, and from other studies published in the literature, that there is much variation in the levels of alkaloids identified in poppy seeds. This variation can be attributed to a variety of natural parameters, such as weather and soil conditions, but also in the way that the seeds are harvested Lachenmeier et al. Processing methods prior to packaging and even the baking process has been shown to greatly affect the level of alkaloids Sproll et al.

The findings of this study correlate with the studies published in the literature. When poppy seeds are consumed on a bun or roll, it has been estimated that each roll contains 1—4 g of poppy seeds Lachenmeier et al. Assuming that the average salad contains 3—6 g 1—2 teaspoons of poppy seeds and the average bread bun has between 1.

This value cannot be used when relating to young children, the elderly or individuals of poor health Sproll et al. With respect to the values of morphine obtained in this work for harvested seeds, seeds on top of a bread roll and seeds heated with no matrix Table 10 and taking into account the weights of poppy seeds used in a variety of food products mentioned above, the morphine ingested will not exceed the ARfD determined by the EFSA.

Table Comparison of alkaloids identified on harvested and thermally processed poppy seeds. This update related to the detection of morphine, codeine, oripavine, noscapine, and papaverine in poppy seed samples whereas, the previous report related only to the levels of morphine entering the food chain.

Codeine values were given in relation to morphine equivalents, using a conversion factor of 0. Noscapine and papaverine were considered in the most recent publication however, the data that was available to the EFSA did not allow for a hazard characterization but they did conclude that the presence of these compounds would not present a health concern. In relation to the presence of thebaine and oripavine not included in the work of this paper , it was concluded that there was insufficient data to make any assessment.

Based on these updated EFSA findings, the presence of the morphine and codeine in the poppy seeds analyzed in this work, would still would still fall below the recommendations outlined.

There is also little or no information on packaging of poppy seeds regarding what, if any, treatment has taken place prior to packaging. Since the ingestion of poppy seeds has been used as reasons for failure of workplace drug testing and roadside drug testing, more should be done to ensure as much information as is possible is available on the preparation methods of the seeds.

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author. This work was approved by the Northumbria University Ethics committee. The university holds a UK Home Office Drug License for the storage and use of controlled drug standards and for the extraction of alkaloids from poppy seeds. The laboratory work, analysis of data and writing was carried out predominantly by MC.

JD and JA helped in the design and review of data and interpretation and all parties contributed to the writing and review of the article. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work was funded with the support from the Department of Applied Sciences, Northumbria University. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. This work was carried out and submitted as part of a Ph. Annett, H. Factors influencing alkaloidal content and yield of latex in the opium poppy Papaver somniferum.

History of opium. Askitopoulou, H. Archaeological evidence on the use of opium in the minoan world. Bernath, J ed. Google Scholar. Bonicamp, J. Can a poppy seed food addict pass a drug test? The wooden camping Pods are sustainable and environmentally friendly with solar panels. The Pod Village has been designed with accessibility in mind.

Ex military and current serving military can join the scheme and use the facility at weekends max 2 nights and school holidays max 4 nights. There is a gravel roadway leading to the pods with parking bays for blue badge holders only. We therefore ask all other vehicles to park in our main car park. Upon arrival you will be issued a drop-off pass, this will allow you 30 minutes of unloading time at the pod village.