By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

A consumer advocacy group is once again calling on the Food and Drug Administration to establish and enforce regulations that limit opiate contamination of poppy seeds.

Over a year ago, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CPSI) petitioned the FDA to set a safe threshold for opiate alkaloids in imported poppy seeds, most of which come from Afghanistan. The tiny black seeds can become contaminated with trace amounts of codeine, morphine and other opiates when they are harvested from opium poppies.

Washed poppy seeds are often found in baked goods, but drug users have found they can use unwashed seeds to make a potent homemade tea. PNN has reported that some pain sufferers use the tea as an analgesic, although the bitter brew is mostly consumed by people who simply want to get high.     

In its petition, CSPI cited a study estimating that 19 people in the U.S. suffered fatal overdoses involving poppy seeds in recent years.

In a letter recently sent to the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, CSPI renewed its call for the agency to take action to prevent more deaths.

“The time is overdue for the FDA to establish standards that will protect U.S. consumers from ingesting dangerous levels of opiates through the food supply,” wrote Peter Lurie, MD, President of CSPI wrote.  

The European Food Safety Authority established maximum levels of morphine and codeine in poppy seeds last year, which are scheduled to take effect in July.

In 2019, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration classified unwashed poppy seeds as a Schedule II controlled substance and closed a loophole that allowed them to be sold legally in the U.S.  

Enforcement actions since then have been scant. In October 2021, federal regulators filed a civil forfeiture action against an Oklahoma bakery to halt the sale of unwashed seeds. But within a few weeks the company was selling them again on its website, with a disclaimer saying the seeds “may contain trace amounts of opiate alkaloid residue” and should be thoroughly washed before consuming.

To date, the only action the FDA has taken on the CSPI petition was to post a notice in the Federal Register asking for public comment on the need for poppy seed regulation. Over 3,000 people responded, most of them supporting the petition. Asked to comment on the CSPI’s new letter, an FDA spokesperson said the issue remains under review.

“As part of our review of CSPI’s petition, we are considering the points raised in the petition and the over 3,200 comments submitted to the docket. The FDA has been engaging with other federal partners in this effort to help protect the public’s health,” the spokesperson told PNN in an email. 

To be clear, consuming unwashed poppy seeds is risky. Home brewers usually have no way of knowing where the seeds came from or how heavily they are contaminated with opiates. The Internet is filled with cautionary stories from illicit drug users who nearly overdosed or became addicted to the tea and went into withdrawal when they tried to taper.

“I woke up yesterday with a migraine (that’s typical when I quit) and by the afternoon the withdrawals had started: sweating, anxious, can’t get comfortable, want to crawl out of my skin,” a person recently posted on Reddit. “I want to get off this merry go round. I feel like my brain is totally normal except that little piece that is constantly scheming where my next opiates are coming from. They don’t even make me high, they just make me feel ‘normal’, so what’s the point? I want to be free of this.”

For people in pain, there’s an added risk to poppy seeds. A recent study found that consuming just few seeds in a muffin or bagel could result in a positive drug test – a finding that could get a patient taken off opioids or dismissed by their doctor.