LD50 for poppy seed tea

[AminoAcid]

Is there an approximate LD50 for this stuff? I'm very scared of overdosing. As far as I know the only people who have died used ~lbs of the stuff. Say you were to use half a pound with an acid extract (with minimal opiate tolerance), would that be enough to kill you? Of course I know the dose of morphine and other alkaloids is extremely variable, but what is the sort of the dose that no sane person would cross??

Also I heard that morphine does not dissolve well in non-polar solvents, and that it's best to use an alcohol like methanol, is this true?

And lastly is there any common source of pyridine HCl?

Thankyou

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

It is really hard to answer this question because the potency of poppy seed tea varies an incredibly large amount. I used to make PST all the time and even if I got seeds from the exact same source, some times they would be much more potent than the last batch. In theory, the seeds are supposed to be washed of all opium latex...so it really is just a question of how well your vendor actually washed the seeds (or didn't wash the seeds, depending).

The best way to avoid overdosing is to find a source that is consistent in its potency and to titrate your dosing up slowly (don't drink it all at once) until you get to where you want to go.

 

[Josair]

Also I heard that morphine does not dissolve well in non-polar solvents, and that it's best to use an alcohol like methanol, is this true?

Water is polar. Methanol is polar, but is also extremely toxic - you'll get blind sooner than high. Maybe you meant ethanol? Still, stick to water.. it is poppy tea, not poppy-infused vodka.

As for LD50:
Morphine sulfate - LD50 = 461 mg/kg (rat, oral), 600 mg/kg (mouse, oral). Human lethal dose by ingestion is 120-250 mg of morphine sulfate. ( http://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB00295 )

I think you will puke the shit out of you if you drink too much. Even _thinking_ of poppy seed tea makes me puke, and you wont probably risk OD with poppy tea alone. If wikipedia is right about the case you mentioned, the guy drank 2 liters of tea (gosh. how could he do that?) Anyway, it is best if someone with more experience will answer to that.

 

[cook]

The best way to avoid overdosing is to find a source that is consistent in its potency and to titrate your dosing up slowly (don't drink it all at once) until you get to where you want to go.

Too bad that just doesn't work with opioids, at least I need to take the full dose at once to get a decent effect. Titration just ruins everything.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

LD50s are pretty useless for determining safe dosing in humans. We are not rats or mice. For example I've seen the LD50 of IV heroin listed as 57 mg/kg in mice, which would mean that it would equate to over 3 g in a 120 lb person (an insanely high dose), while I've seen people OD on 25 mg. A dose being substantially under the LD50 does not make it safe.
Also tolerance is a HUGE factor.

All you can do is as NT said:

find a source that is consistent in its potency and to titrate your dosing up slowly (don't drink it all at once) until you get to where you want to go.

What is a safe/pleasant amount of poppy seed tea for you is GREATLY variable. I would not start off with half a pound, it might make you really sick.

Too bad that just doesn't work with opioids, at least I need to take the full dose at once to get a decent effect. Titration just ruins everything.

I disagree. You may not get quite as high if you are doing a titration where you are redosing every few hours, (although this also depends on the specific opioid and the person), but it doesn't "ruin everything" and you can do a different form of titration, like if you take a certain amount one day you can take a larger dose the next day or time you do it and so on. Titration is really the only safe way to determine an appropriate dose of an opioid that gets you where you want to be yet isn't bordering on dangerous. Especially with poppy seed tea which can vary SO MUCH.

For example, the morphine content in poppy seeds can vary by 125 times (meaning one batch could have 125x more morphine than another batch). One of the main ways people OD on seed tea is by assuming that they are safe to take their usual amount when they get a new batch. In most fatal ODs on PST the dose they took and the tolerance they had is unknown, someone just found them dead.

I have seen starting dosages for PST listed as ~200 g of seeds (just under 1/2 a lb).

One study which tested the morphine and codeine content of several different types of seeds found that the seeds they tested ranged from 2–251 mcg of morphine per g, and 0.4–57.1 mcg codeine per g. Using these figures that would make the dose for 200g of seeds up to 50 mg of morphine and up to 11 mg of codeine. If we said the codeine was equivalent to about 2mg morphine, then we could estimate that 200g of seeds is not very likely to be equal to more than roughly 52mg of morphine (although it's possible there are seeds out there even stronger than the strongest ones they tested). For comparison, starting doses of oral morphine given for pain in someone with a low opioid tolerance are ~10mg. It may be very possible that the seeds you have aren't nearly that strong, but it's always better to assume that they could be. 52 mg of morphine would be a lot for someone with no-low opioid tolerance, even if it might not kill you it would be unpleasant. Also I'm not sure how the other alkaloids in the tea could affect you or add to the risks.

TL;DR - Coming up with a dose for PST is pretty impossible. You have to start low and experiment.

 

[PeedOff]

There's absolutely no way of knowing. The only time I've ever got anything more then threshold effects was once and I randomly got really high and nodded off. and I've made it out of 2-3 pounds before and felt next to nothing. This is coming from someone who doesn't have any opiate tolerance.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

I'm sure this is implied but also don't use any potentiating substances when figuring out dosage.