Poppy Seeds Draw More Scrutiny for Addiction Risk

By David Hilzenrath, Healthbeat

It sounds like a joke: poppy seeds infused with opioids.

Indeed, it was a plotline on the sitcom Seinfeld. But for some it has been a tragedy. People have died after drinking tea brewed from unwashed poppy seeds.

And after eating lemon poppy seed bread or an everything bagel, mothers reportedly have been separated from newborns because the women failed drug tests.

Poppy seeds come from the plant that produces opium and from which painkillers such as morphine and codeine are derived. During harvesting and processing, the seeds can become coated with the opium fluid.

Members of the House and Senate have proposed legislation “to prohibit the distribution and sale of contaminated poppy seeds in order to prevent harm, addiction, and further deaths from morphine-contaminated poppy seeds.” The bill was one of several on the agenda for a Sept. 10 House hearing.

The day before the hearing, The Marshall Project and Reveal reported on a woman who ate a salad with poppy seed dressing before giving birth, tested positive at the hospital for opiates, was reported to child welfare, and saw her baby taken into protective custody. Almost two weeks passed before she was allowed to bring her baby home, the story said.

“It’s not an urban legend: Eating poppy seeds can cause diners to test positive for codeine on a urinalysis,” the Defense Department warned military personnel in 2023.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency long ago issued a similar warning to athletes.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a watchdog group, petitioned the FDA in 2021 to limit the opiate content of poppy seeds. In May, after more than three years with no response, it sued the agency to force action.

“So far the FDA has been negligent in protecting consumers,” said Steve Hacala, whose son died after consuming poppy seed tea and who has joined forces with CSPI. The lawsuit was put on hold in July, after the FDA said it would respond to the group’s petition by the end of February 2025.

The FDA did not answer questions for this article. The agency generally does not comment on litigation, spokesperson Courtney Rhodes said.

A 2021 study co-authored by CSPI personnel found more than 100 reports to poison control centers between 2000 and 2018 resulting from intentional abuse or misuse of poppy seeds, said CSPI scientist Eva Greenthal, one of the study’s authors.

Only rarely would baked goods or other food items containing washed poppy seeds trigger positive drug tests, doctors who have studied the issue said.

It’s “exquisitely doubtful” that the “relatively trivial” amount of morphine in an everything bagel or the like would cause anyone harm, said Irving Haber, a doctor who has written about poppy seeds, specializes in pain medicine, and signed the CSPI petition to the FDA.

Unwashed Seeds More Potent

On the other hand, tea made from large quantities of unwashed poppy seeds could lead to addiction and overdose, doctors said. The risks are heightened if the person drinking the brew is also consuming other opioids, such as prescription pain relievers.

Benjamin Lai, a physician who chairs a program on opioids at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said he has been treating a patient who developed long-term opioid addiction from consuming poppy seed tea. The patient, a man in his 30s, found it at a health food store and was under the impression it would help him relax and recover from gym workouts. After a few months, he tried to stop and experienced withdrawal symptoms, Lai said.

Another patient, an older woman, developed withdrawal symptoms under similar circumstances but responded well to treatment, Lai said.

Some websites tout poppy seed tea as offering health benefits. And some sellers “may use specific language such as ‘raw,’ ‘unprocessed,’ or ‘unwashed’ to signal that their products contain higher concentrations of opiates than properly processed seeds,” the CSPI lawsuit said.

Steve Hacala’s son, Stephen Hacala, a music teacher, had been experiencing anxiety and insomnia, for which poppy seed tea is promoted as a natural remedy, the lawsuit said. In 2016, at age 24, he ordered a bag of poppy seeds online, rinsed them with water, and consumed the rinse. He died of morphine poisoning.

The only source of morphine found in Stephen’s home, where he died, was commercially available poppy seeds, a medical examiner at the Arkansas State Crime Lab said in a letter to the father. The medical examiner wrote that poppy seeds “very likely” caused Stephen’s death.

Steve Hacala estimated that the quantity of poppy seeds found in a 1-liter plastic water bottle in his son’s home could have delivered more than 10 times a lethal dose.

Steve Hacala and his wife, Betty, have funded CSPI’s efforts to call attention to the issue. (The publisher of KFF Health News, David Rousseau, is on the CSPI board.)

The lawsuit also cited mothers who, like those in the investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal, ran afoul of rules meant to protect newborns. For example, though Jamie Silakowski had not used opioids while pregnant, she was initially prevented from leaving the hospital with her baby, the suit said.

Silakowski recalled that, before going to the hospital, she had eaten lemon poppy seed bread at Tim Hortons, a fast-food chain, CSPI said in its petition. “No one in the hospital believed Ms. Silakowski or appeared to be aware that the test results could occur from poppy seeds.”

People from child protective services made unannounced visits to her home, interviewed her other children, and questioned teachers at their school, she said in an interview.

While on maternity leave, she had to undergo drug testing, Silakowski said. “Peeing in front of someone like I’m a criminal — it was just mortifying.”

Even family members were questioning her, and there was nothing she could do to dispel doubts, she said. “Relationships were torn apart,” she said.

The parent company of Tim Hortons, Restaurant Brands International, which also owns Burger King and Popeyes, did not respond to questions from KFF Health News.

In July, The Washington Post reported that Trader Joe’s Everything but the Bagel seasoning was banned and being confiscated in South Korea because it contains poppy seeds. Trader Joe’s did not respond to inquiries for this article. The seasoning is listed for sale on the company’s website.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says unwashed poppy seeds can kill when used alone or in combination with other drugs. While poppy seeds are exempt from drug control under the Controlled Substances Act, opium contaminants on the seeds are not, the agency says. The Justice Department has brought criminal prosecutions over the sale of unwashed poppy seeds.

Meanwhile, the legislation to control poppy seed contamination has not gained much traction.

The Senate bill, introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), has two co-sponsors.

The House bill, introduced by Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), has none. Though it was on the agenda, it didn’t come up at the recent hearing.

Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues.  

Pentagon Declares War on Poppy Seeds

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

The U.S. Department of Defense is escalating its war against opioids beyond just oxycodone, hydrocodone and other pain medications.

In a February 17 memo, a top Pentagon official warned all military service members that eating foods containing poppy seeds could result in a failed drug test.

“Recent data suggests poppy seeds varieties may have higher codeine contamination than previously reported. Consumption of poppy seed products could cause a codeine positive urinalysis result and undermine the Department’s ability to identify illicit drug use. Out of an abundance of caution, I find protecting Service members and the integrity of the drug testing program requires a warning to avoid poppy seeds,” wrote Gilbert Cisneros, Jr., the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

Cisneros did not specific what the “recent data” was or where it came from. Tiny black seeds from the poppy plant – most of which come from Afghanistan -- can become contaminated during harvesting with trace amounts of codeine, morphine and other opiates. Drug users have found they can then use unwashed seeds to make a potent homemade tea to relieve pain.

Given how widely used washed poppy seeds are in muffins, cookies, salad dressings and cosmetics, the threat posed by them may sound rather comical. But some organizations take it very seriously.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to set a safe threshold for opiate alkaloids in imported poppy seeds, citing a study that claimed 19 people in the U.S. suffered fatal overdoses after ingesting poppy seeds in recent years.

“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,” said Peter Lurie, MD, President of CSPI.  

In 2019, the Drug Enforcement Administration even classified unwashed poppy seeds as a Schedule II controlled substance, claiming they were “qualitatively similar” to opioid pain medications.

“Unwashed poppy seeds are a danger to the user and their abuse may result in unpredictable outcomes including death,” the DEA said.

Eating poppy seeds could be risky for someone taking a drug test.  A 2020 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 dismissed by their doctor or an employer refusing to hire a job applicant.

The Pentagon may also be trying to save money with its new directive. Simple urine drug screens performed in a doctor’s office are relatively cheap – and often wrong. False positive results should be confirmed with a mass spectrometry test performed in a laboratory, but those tests usually cost thousands of dollars.  It’s cheaper to just tell military personnel to stop eating bagels.

“The Military Departments are hereby directed to notify Service members to avoid consumption of all poppy seeds to include food products and baked goods containing poppy seeds. Service members are directed to work with their local legal office for any related concerns with urinalysis results,” Cisneros wrote in his memo.

The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have long taken a dim view of opioids. In recently updated medical guidelines, the agencies recommend that opioid medications not be used to manage non-cancer chronic pain.   

FDA Urged to Regulate Poppy Seeds

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.

How Poppy Seed Muffins Could Get You Flagged by a Drug Test

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

If you’re a patient who is prescribed opioid pain medication, you may have been warned not to eat poppy seed muffins or bagels before a drug test.

The tiny black seeds may contain trace amounts of morphine and codeine, which can be detected in a drug screen and wreak havoc with your medical care. A positive test could result in your doctor taking you off opioid medication or even dropping you as a patient.

Is the poppy seed warning accurate or just an urban myth? A group of researchers wanted to find out, so they ran a series of tests to measure opiate levels in commercially available poppy seeds. They washed, steamed and heated the seeds to see how that changed concentrations of three opium alkaloids: morphine, codeine and thebaine.

Washing or soaking the poppy seeds in water significantly reduced the presence of all three opium alkaloids. So did heating the seeds at a temperature of 392 F for at least 40 minutes.

However, baking the seeds in a muffin for 16 minutes at 392 F didn't significantly change the opium alkaloids, possibly because the internal and external temperatures of the muffins reached only 211 F and 277 F, respectively.

“Baking had no significant effect on concentrations of opium alkaloids. Overall, these results indicate that opium alkaloids may not be significantly affected by baking or steam application and that poppy seeds may require water washing or extended thermal treatment to promote reduction of these compounds,” said lead author Benjamin Redan, PhD, a research chemist who works in the FDA’s Institute for Food Safety and Health.

Redan says poppy seed muffins would have to be baked for at least two hours just to reduce morphine and codeine levels by 50 percent – which is not a recipe for passing a drug test or for baking tasty muffins.

The findings were recently published in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Poppy Seed Tea

Researchers and law enforcement agencies have been paying more attention to the lowly poppy seed because of anecdotal reports of people using the seeds to brew a potent tea that can be used for pain relief or to get high.

Late last year, Drug Enforcement Administration classified unwashed poppy seeds as a Schedule II controlled substance. While the poppy plant has long been classified as an illegal substance, the unwashed seeds were exempt because they were not perceived as a problem until recently.

“Individuals wishing to extract the opium alkaloid content from unwashed poppy seeds, use the seeds to create a tea, which contains sufficient amounts of alkaloids to produce psychoactive effects,” the DEA said. “Unwashed poppy seeds are a danger to the user and their abuse may result in unpredictable outcomes including death.”

The Internet is filled with stories about people experimenting with poppy seed tea. One alternative health website even has a recipe for making poppy seed tea that comes with a stark warning.

“Unfortunately, the abuse of or having insufficient knowledge about this tea has led to a few fatal incidences,” the recipe warns.

Poppy Seed Tea: Deadly Potion or Potent Pain Reliever?

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

You can find poppy seeds in cakes, cookies, muffins and salad dressings. The tiny versatile seed is even used in cosmetic products as a skin moisturizer and exfoliant.

What you may not know is that poppy seeds can also be used to make tea. The bitter homemade brew doesn’t taste good, but some chronic pain sufferers have discovered poppy seed tea is a potent pain reliever.

“This fall I will be growing opium poppies and extracting my own medicine. I did grow a few plants last year and the tea I had made from those poppy pods was extremely helpful,” said Ed, a pain patient in Texas who was taken off opioid medication by his doctor.

“I do know the dangers and illegality of doing this, but a man has to do what a man has to do for relief. I have exhausted every legal option I can think of. There is absolutely no help from the medical community around here.”

Ed is not alone. He and other patients who have lost access to opioid painkillers have learned that unwashed poppy seeds contain opium alkaloids that, when soaked in water, can be converted into morphine and codeine.

It takes hundreds of poppy seeds to brew a single cup, but the seeds can be purchased cheaply in bulk for about $10 a pound from online retailers like Amazon and eBay.

“This means for under $15/week I can be back to being a partially functional human being. I am doing way better than I was on the measly 20mgs of Oxy I had been struggling and stressing to get from the doctors,” said another pain sufferer, who claimed she used poppy seed tea to wean herself off oxycodone.

“Safe if used carefully. Easy to make and drink. You can add things like lemonade to make it taste better.”

DEA Warns About Unwashed Seeds

Poppy seeds make up only a tiny part of the worldwide trade in opium products, most of which comes from Afghanistan. According to The Washington Post, four times as much Afghan land is being used in poppy production today than in 2002, shortly after the U.S. invasion. Afghanistan now produces 82% of the world’s supply of heroin, far more than it did under Taliban rule.

With poppy seeds readily available online, the Drug Enforcement Administration recently closed a loophole that allowed unwashed seeds to be sold legally in the U.S. While the poppy plant has long been classified as an illegal controlled substance, the seeds were exempt because they don’t normally contain opium alkaloids. Whether by accident or design, many seeds become contaminated during harvesting.

“Harvesters, who wish to increase opium alkaloids contents on the poppy seed coats, make cuts in the opium pods before they ripen which allows the latex to seep onto the seed coats. Individuals wishing to extract the opium alkaloid content from unwashed poppy seeds, use the seeds to create a tea, which contains sufficient amounts of alkaloids to produce psychoactive effects,” the DEA said in a little publicized announcement that it was classifying unwashed poppy seeds as a Schedule II controlled substance.

“Unwashed poppy seeds are a danger to the user and their abuse may result in unpredictable outcomes including death when used alone or in combination with other drugs as reported in the scientific literature.”

The scientific literature on poppy seed tea is actually very limited. But one recent study urged policymakers to fix the “murky legal status” of poppy seeds and warn patients about the potential dangers.

“With no legal restrictions and apparent endorsement from reliable brands and trusted websites, patients may have little reason to think this tea is actually a version of morphine,” said lead author Jo Ann LeQuang, Director of Editorial Services for NEMA Research.

“I am happy to see the DEA finally take a stance,” says Madeleine Gates, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Forensic Science in the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University. “I think the poppy tea problem is just another devastating aspect of the opioid epidemic.”

In a 2017 study, Gates used four brewing methods to test 22 samples of bulk poppy seeds purchased legally on the internet. Her research, published in The Journal of Forensic Science, found that a potentially lethal dose of morphine can be brewed in a moderate amount of tea.

“When I was originally contacted to work on poppy tea, I had honestly never heard of it! Now it’s been so eye opening about the drug use that had flown under the radar for too long,” she said in an email to PNN.

Gates began investigating poppy seed tea after being contacted by the father of a 21-year-old man who died after ingesting home-brewed tea. A dozen similar deaths were cited by the DEA in its warning, but Gates believes there could be many more cases.

“I’ve spoken with physicians who are treating poppy tea addicts. I’ve also been involved in a case of a pregnant woman who naively used poppy tea during pregnancy and upon delivery her infant went into withdrawal,” she said.

“I’m sure there have been other cases that are yet to be reported or that may be overlooked. For those who may be known opioid addicts that would have morphine in their system for a hospital or autopsy toxicology test, the first thought is not to think of poppy tea. For that reason, those intoxications or fatalities wouldn’t necessarily be tied to poppy tea unless there was investigative information to link to the case.”

Poppy Tea Addiction

The Internet is filled with stories about illicit drug users experimenting with poppy seed tea. Some became addicted to the tea and went into withdrawal when they ran out of poppy seeds.

“I never got my seeds in time so the awful opiate withdrawals started. I made it two days until I had to go to hospital for withdrawals. I wanted to die!! It’s soooooo horrible. Never felt this way before,” one user posted on Reddit. “I wish I looked into this god damn tea before I started. Didn’t know the withdrawals were going to make me wanna kill myself. Please don’t get addicted to poppy seed tea. It’s awful addiction hard to stop ruins your life.”

Despite the DEA warning, unwashed poppy seeds are still being sold online. A controversial alternative health website even had a recipe for making poppy tea – since taken down — that came with a stark warning.

“Unfortunately, the abuse of or having insufficient knowledge about this tea has led to a few fatal incidences,” the recipe warns. “If you're planning on trying this tea, it's important that you're aware of your own threshold and sensitivities. It's also imperative that you test each batch of poppy seed tea to make sure that you're not unknowingly ingesting high amounts of the opiate alkaloids.”

Another drawback is that even a small amount of poppy seeds in a muffin or cookie can produce a positive reading for morphine in a drug test. That could result in a patient being dropped by their doctor or a referral to addiction treatment

But for some chronic pain patients, the urge to self-medicate is strong and worth the risk. Many, like Ed in Texas, feel abandoned by a healthcare system that has become paranoid about opioid medication. If doctors won’t treat his pain with a legal drug, then Ed believes he has a right to try whatever substance he wants.

“It is my personal observation that the so called medical ‘profession’ around here is lacking professionalism and is poor at best. At times I feel like a drowning man sinking into a deep pool of despair,” Ed wrote in an email. “It is my opinion that people with chronic pain issues should have the ability to break the cycle of the pain that plagues them. I understand the addictive nature of opiates and I feel that I am a responsible adult.”