Old thread, but the quality of info is a tad lacking, and it's not an uncommon query. Chipping in my five cents, as someone who's used fresh poppy pods extensively, in case anyone ever stumbles upon this thread via Google. Strap the fuck in and dip thy little toe into the long-form; this is lengthy.
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SOME BASICS:
On whether fresh pods are a viable source for opiates, as to the question of whether to steep or not to steep, and on the topic of strength and potency.
-Yes, fresh poppy pods, eaten raw, are capable of getting you high. Quite high. Potentially fatally high. Poppy pods aren't a weak opiate comparable to codeine; they produce a befuddlingly long-lasting (12-24hr) high much greater than the sum of it's constituents compounds. The high has the potential to be a hell of a lot stronger than codeine, and can easily exceeds the intensity of oral morphine or oxycodone, at the right dose.
This happens with fresh pods, this happens with dried pods, this happens with latex, this happens with seeds. It's all the same thing: opium latex, either dried or fresh. And contrary to oft-repeated belief, fresh pods are not weaker than dried pods; quite the opposite.
-No, they don't need to be steeped into a tea. The tea is useful for extracting opiates from inedible-ish plant matter; dried pods, as well as huge quantities of seed that would normally cause a bezoar in the stomach. If the pods are suitably fresh, there is no reason to make tea other than personal preference.
-Yes, the amount of opiates in the latex, as well as the amount of latex in the plant, will vary considerably based on factors you have little control over and no real way of easily measuring. There is no realistic way for your average user to assess the potency of fresh pods other than eating them, Shulgin-style.
Counting pods and accounting for their size helps, but it only gives you a starting-point; don't rely on those metrics. As such, the only way to safely dose them, if one is set on it, is the tried-and-true "low and slow" method. Low doses, consumed slowly, repeated until you're where you want to be.
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THOUGHTS ON HARVESTING/CULTIVATION AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES:
On the ideal time to harvest; latex production and distribution; taste; which parts of the pod to discard; the downsides of an ill-times harvest.
-Ideally one wants to wait five to ten days (assuming good, clear, sunny weather) after the petals have fallen off before eating the pods. Too soon, and those little darlings have yet to produce all the latex they're going to produce; too late, and some of the latex either decomposes or redistributes more evenly across the entire plant. Unsure which, but it's why fresh pods are marginally stronger than dried pods. A good indication that they're ready is the appearance of brown spotting on the exterior of the pod (or more accurately, on the exterior and just below the surface, beneath a thin layer of fibre). Given that it tastes like opium and can be scraped off, it seems likely that the spotting is dried latex. Whatever the cause, once the spotting appears, you're generally good to go, and should harvest within two weeks.
-The latex you want isn't contained solely in the poppy pod; it's found in the plant body, as well (though not the leaves, as far as I can tell). It's a defence mechanism intended to dissuade predation, iirc; damage the plant, and the latex rushes to fill the wound. This is why you damage the exterior of the plant via slicing to extract the latex for opium production.
As such, the latex is found in the pod *and* stem. There's a whole lot less of it, but by making a citrusy mash of the plant, sans pod, you can still extract some opiates. There's probably even trace amounts in the roots- though I've never heard of anyone bothering with them.
-They really aren't all that bad, taste-wise. But beware, the latex itself can cause minor chemical burn/irritation. Again- it's the plant's defence mechanism. The latex, taken sublingually, can produce a burning sensation. Never enough to lead to ulceration, in my experience, but still worth mentioning. The latex is, obviously, quite bitter, like pure codeine or morphine, in addition to it's strange 'spiciness'. But it's largely offset by the fresh, juicy 'green-ness' of the plant. Real academic, I know.
By themselves? Gross, too dry. But chewed up with a mouthful of water? Fine. Really. The water dilutes the latex, as well, helping with the burn, bitterness, and resulting opiate nausea. The only real problem I experienced came from eating such a colossal number of pods that my stomach had trouble with all the fibre; I ran into a similar issue with high dose kratom dosing regimens. But you know what /is/ bad?
-The crowns. That is, the crown-shaped growth that caps the pod. Cut them off, but keep them. They contain almost no latex, but there's usually some opiate-goodness stuck to the underside (where it meets the pod). They're pretty much inedible, unless they're super fresh, but you don't want to waste that little bit of latex, so cut/snip them off, collect them, and mash them in a cup with lemon juice to remove the latex. Drink the juice. If they're sufficiently fresh you can eat them, but if they're that fresh, you're likely harvesting too early. And that said...
-The longer you wait to harvest, the tougher the pod becomes. Timed right, they're an (admittedly pavlovian) delight. Too long, though, and they get exponentially tougher and 'chewier'- at this point, they really are difficult to eat. Or more accurately, are more laborious to eat. More time-consuming, 'grosser', more nausea, harder to pulp into a fine mash with your teethies. The flavour profile goes out the window, folks, I'm telling you. Like burnt toast versus buttered fresh bread. Mature pods really are pretty bad, and I imagine explain the rep for nastiness; but again, you can harvest before they reach this point without losing latex, and by waiting until they're that far-gone, you've actually lost some latex. This is my personal opinion, but this is also knowledge gleaned from thousands of years of cultivation, plucked from sources like the growing/harvest schedules of British opium growers in India. Poppy pods do not continuously produce ever-increasing quantities of latex, localized in the pod, over the entire course of their lives. Waiting until they're dead or near-dead to harvest makes some intuitive sense, but it's incorrect- much in the same way you wouldn't wait until the apple has already fallen from the tree to eat it, if you want the best tasting apple. Eat fresh pods when they're in their prime, and if you're eating them out of that timeframe- don't blame the plant when you gag on your fourth mouthful of what tastes like funky, dry, bitter watermelon rind.
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HARM REDUCTION TIPS:
Pertaining to best dosing practices; duration and absorption; constipation and miosis; drug combinations; plant-identification.
-Best practice is to not stress losing a little of the opiates through careful redosing. Codeine inhibits it's own conversion to morphine, sure, but there's so much codeine and morphine in the latex that I've never noticed a huge difference in potency redosing vs bulk dosing. Taking small repeated doses usually ended up leaving me with a better high than trying to guesstimate how many pods I needed and eating them all at once, *and* it's infinitely safer.
Because of the aforementioned fluctuations in potency, remember? No two pods necessarily have the same concentrations of opiates, even if they're the same size- hell, even if they're from the same plant. So take a little, wait two hours, and redose if necessary. The people who die from poppy seed tea or poppy pods are usually the people who are already habituated to them and are trying to megadose their way through tolerance buildup- and encounter a hot batch.
Take it low and slow, and you put a big obstacle in the way of any sudden overdoses. Because, obviously, once you've eaten your pods and started to feel them, you're pretty much committed; throwing up might do you a little good, but it's likely too late. Take too much, and there isn't really an off-ramp, short of naloxone. And because of the duration, you might need an injection every hour or so for twenty-four hours, if you've fucked up badly enough. Does that sound like a good day? No? Then go low and go fucken' slow.
-Oral opium (from dried or fresh pods) lasts all damn day (and night, and usually part of the next morning, too). It's a whole-day activity. Plan accordingly. I've had epic four hour nods, even from moderate doses, and fallen asleep in public- all the shit I associate with dope, but from eating pods, and not just immediately after they kick in, but *hours and hours* later.
As well, it can take a while to fully absorb all the opiates, because your stomach needs to break down some of that plant fibre to get to all of them. Chewing them into a fine pulp usually leads to quicker absorption, whereas choking down large rough bits leads to a slower come-up. By the two hour mark, unless you ate the pods on a full stomach, I've found it usually seems safe to consider them fully absorbed and redose if needed. I've gotten some surprises with slow-comeups that take an hour and a half, though so, really: give it time. It's an all day thing and you have all day, right? So don't rush!
-Like methadone or loperamide, the long duration of action means potentially uncomfortable constipation. Herbal laxatives are a nice way to offset this. Also, expect your pupils to be pinned for up to 36 hours if you're dosing without tolerance, or taking a large dose. I have no idea how long it's detectible in urine, but I'd imagine it's longer than morphine or codeine alone.
-I've found opium latex (so yeah, fresh pods, but also dried) to play... weird, with other drugs. Like, weirder than isolated opiates, like morphine, or codeine, or fentanyl. Sort of in the same way alcohol and cannabis can play a little weird, a little unpredictably. I chalk it up to the complex pharmacological profile of all the drugs in the latex, figuring it's not dissimilar to the entourage effect of cannabis flower. Whatever the case, play it cautious if you're polydrugging with pods; it may not play out quite like normal opioid/other drug combos you may be used to.
-And, finally: KNOW. YOUR. PLANTS. Know the difference between an opium poppy (papaver somniferum), and an Iranian or Oriental poppy. One will get you high, the other can poison you. I'm not going to get into the identification of each- that seems like sourcing, as well as a liability- but suffice to say, learn how to spot the difference. You'll be able to tell at a glance by looking at the stem and pod shape, after familiarizing yourself with some images of a few types of poppies. Poppies other than opium poppies are not safe to consume. They will not get you high, but they are capable of killing, if you eat enough. Not safe. Poison. Bad. Admiteddly useful for producing oxycodone if you're a multinational pharmaceutical conglomerate- but you aren't, are you.
Know. Your. Plants. You wouldn't go looking for psilocybin mushrooms without the know-how to spore-print them and a mental encyclopedia of similar-looking poison shrooms, would you? No, you wouldn't, not if you value a long life. So don't play that game with poppies. Trust- it's a lot easier than ID'ing mushrooms. Do some background research and save yourself a trip to the ER. Or a panic attack on your bathroom floor characterized by dry-heaving, brain-zaps, and hot-flashes, because you were *pretty sure* that Iranian poppy was just a gnarly-looking hairy-ass opium poppy. Cough cough.
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IN CLOSING:
The above info is all written in a rather confident tone, but to anyone reading, do not take any of it as gospel. It's a starting point, a little background to give you an idea of what to research, how to research it, and what terms to use in a Google search to find useful info.
It is by no means intended to serve as a comprehensive guide to the use of opium poppies.
Absent are warnings about opiate abuse, warnings on the dangers of trying to potentiate the high, and general advice about bad drug combinations (among a host of other crucial pieces of information). But this isn't meant to be a comprehensive guide; it's meant to fill in some of the gaps that a lot of poppy pod threads on BL seem to have, as well as compile those tidbits in one place.
It's my own research supplemented by my own lived experience and informed by my own mistakes and hard-won lessons; nothing more, and nothing less. It's kept me safe, but like anyone else, I have blindspots; to the curious, I would advise integrating this information into your own independent research, rather than using it as your sole source of information.
Stay safe, and don't forget to let a few poppies reach maturity unmolested, so they may spread their seed on the wind and contribute to a bountiful harvest in the proceeding years.
