DOSE:	pods	oral	Poppies - Opium	(tea)
		smoked	Cannabis
		oral	Acetaminophen

BODY WEIGHT:

11 st

I've had experience with most common pharma opiates including codeine, dihydrocodeine, morphine, and oxycodone, as well as non-poppy related opioids such as tramadol, tapentadol, and kratom. But previous experiments with poppy seeds proved underwhelming. I found poppy seed tea to be mild in effect even when they were described as unwashed and that huge amounts are needed to even make the tea at all.

So when the opportunity came around to get 100 dried gigantheum poppy pods I wasn't expecting too much, but they are cheap as chips so I figured I'd go for it. And I'm very pleased I did. I had already read that pods are far superior to seeds and my experience definitely proves this to be correct. The short version is that seeds felt like a mild dose of codeine while pods felt like a full dose of morphine or oxycodone with a lot of unique properties of its own that lasted almost 24 hours.

The first thing I did when I got the pods was crush them all up into one bowl. This took a while with 100 pods, but it's important as it helps reduce inconsistency between batches of tea. As pods can differ wildly in alkaloid levels even within the same batch, homogenising the batch helps increase predictability of strength a little bit compared to going from pod to pod, and every little helps.

I then put some water in a pot and put it over the stove on a low heat, so the water just simmered. I don't want to boil the water as this damages the precious morphine and other alkaloids. I also added some lemon juice in with the water which isn't strictly a necessary step but I've read everywhere that it helps extract more of the alkaloids due to the citric acid. Finally I put roughly 3-4 pods worth of material into the water and left it for about 30 minutes before pouring it into a mug through a colander to filter out the cut up pods. The pod matter was then put back into the pot so any remaining alkaloids could be extracted.

Throughout the course of the evening I poured out about four cups of tea in this manner and they kept getting darker and more bitter tasting each time, and although it's said this is no guarantee of strength, in this case each new cup did feel stronger until the fifth cup which was visibly weaker and it was clear by that point I'd gotten everything I could out of those pods.

I was with a friend when I did this and we shared the goods out, both sipping slowly to get a feel for the strength, and we both also had opiate tolerances already .

The taste is not nearly as bad as everyone says in my opinion. Maybe I've just chugged down so much kratom in the past that this is like a fresh glass of orange juice in comparison. But I was able to sip it without feeling like I needed to hold my nose or chug it down. In fact as it cooled down it tasted kind of pleasant.

The effects... very warm, very calming, ever so slightly stimulating at times, and after my last cup I even began properly nodding and that nod lasted for a good few hours.

The feelings came on quickly (10-20 mins after consumption) and in waves. The first thing I noticed was the body high, which made me feel very warm and comfortable and "floaty". The second was the mindset which felt different to pure morphine, as I tend to regard morphine as a "clean" high while this felt a little "muddier" in the high dose I took on the first time. However during subsequent sessions where I just sipped smaller amounts, it did feel closer to clean morphine. It seems at higher doses the other alkaloids become more active and affect the high.

The waves came and went, so it would feel as if the drug is wearing off but then it'd suddenly hit me again with a warm rush of euphoria through my body. When I got to the right level, those waves then came in nods, and that was pure bliss.

At this point it was your classic opiate high. A proper nod. This stuff is every bit as good as Oramorph and OxyContin for both analgesia and recreation in my opinion. I think there's certainly something to be said for the synergistic effect the alkaloids have together in their natural form.

I got pinned pupils and on the peak had a hard time even walking straight. I also felt a "headband" effect similar to some strains of weed, like a tightening feeling around the top of my head, but not unpleasant or painful.

Once it had properly kicked in and I got a feel for it, I decided to smoke some cannabis since I enjoy the combination of weed and opiates. They combined especially well as it all suitably felt very "natural". I got some pretty strong hits off my weed pipe but didn't feel paranoid just very relaxed, stoned, and of course hungry. So I ordered pizza and ate it while sipping more tea. Overall I just felt warm, cozy, safe. The weed also dealt with the slight opiate nausea I was getting without having to resort to antihistamines.

Downsides to poppy pod tea? The most obvious, as with any type of opioid, is addiction. This stuff is effectively DIY opium and it should come as no surprise that opium is addictive. I have a reasonable stash of it now and I'll have to use some willpower to not go at it too hard and often.

The big downside unique to this particular form of preparing opiates is the lack of clarity in dosing. Although one can prepare the pods as I did in such a way that the batch is more predicable than it would be otherwise, ultimately I still don't know my doses and am effectively eyeballing it each time. Even if I measure the weight of the pods, crushed up pods, or powder precisely, I still don't know what percentage of alkaloids each pod or each heap of crushed or powdered pod matter contains. This is why it's important to sip slowly until I work out how strong each cup is. This is serious stuff. It's opium and the main active ingredient is morphine. Take too much and you can OD. So be safe and sip slow.

As for side effects, I have the usual stuff I would get from any opioid such as constipation and itchiness, and I also find that I get very irritable on higher doses of pod tea which I don't tend to get from codeine or morphine alone. I suspect this is due to one of the many other alkaloids.

I also noticed that after my high dose I was constipated for a few days afterwards. Tried various laxatives including Movicol which usually works very well for opiate constipation as well as eating fibre and staying hydrated, but in the end magnesium citrate was the biggest help. I'm no stranger to opiates so I'm used to this side effect but it usually goes away the day after using as long as I don't redose and laxatives tend to help it along. I'm guessing it persisted here due to the long half-life of some alkaloids. I have sipped smaller amounts of the tea since and the constipation has been more bearable so it does seem to be dose dependent, but something to keep in mind if I go for a nod.

A bad headache was also present after the initial high dose experience. I drank some water and took some paracetamol which helped. Not sure if it's due to dehydration or a random alkaloid. The headache came in after the peak of the experience but it was a shame as it made an otherwise very clean high feel dirtier. At lower doses I do still notice a milder headache come on.

It does last a long time. The effects of the initial high dose truly did stick with me throughout the whole next day. Lower doses do lead to shorter duration but if I wanna nod out I expect to be high for around 24 hours (and constipated for possibly longer).

In conclusion, poppy pod tea is far above poppy seed tea and it is genuinely a properly recreational opiate (or should I say opium) experience in its own right. In fact I'd say it's at least as good as pharma grade morphine or oxycodone, if not actually a little better thanks to those other alkaloids adding to the high. It even has a little energetic edge to it like oxy, probably due to the thebaine content in pods (which is what oxy is synthesised from).

Medically it's also an extremely effective analgesic, anxiolytic, and hypnotic. And of course it will lift my mood. I can certainly see why doctors used opium to treat so many conditions.

Exp Year: 2020	ExpID: 114006
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Jul 1, 2020	Views: 3,924
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Poppies - Opium (43) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Preparation / Recipes (30), Retrospective / Summary (11), Combinations (3), First Times (2)