Last week, right before my friend and I left for camping, we mixed up a batch of poppy pod tea.
So that people understand the setting: We were camping at the largest community farm in the United States, in the middle of the severely urban South Central Los Angeles. Because the developer who purchased the land from the city wants to bulldoze the farm for warehouses, people have been passionately protesting for months, which is our reason for camping there.
We cut up 4 golf-ball sized fresh pods and put it in 24 oz of warm water (about 110 F) for 15 minutes and poured the funny-smelling concoction into a mason jar. By the time we got to the farm, my friend's lady friend and her friend had joined us, so we had 4 people to share.
To make the description easier, I will refer to friends as A, B, and C. We were all pretty nervous because it is so difficult to judge the strength of the opium, so we each started with about two sips on nearly empty stomachs to see what happened. It just tasted like ground up lettuce at first, but the aftertaste is disgusting. After a small dinner and 30 minutes, A, B and I took three more good sips, and C took one. About 40 minutes later and after a bit of dessert, A, B, and I took two or three more. 30 min later, I once again had a couple sips.
We all agreed we were feeling it a bit around 2 hours after the first ingestion, although C was, of course, to a much lesser degree. It started to peak about 20 minutes later, when I totally spaced out, resting my face on a chain link fence and staring at the cabbages, not thinking about anything at all. I don't know how long I was standing there, but they said they didn't know where I was for at least 10 minutes. It wasn't sleeping, as my eyes were wide open and I was aware of everything around me, but I was certainly at a lower level of consciousness, simply 'being' and not really participating with anything, physical or mental. When they finally found me, I snapped back into the world with a convulsive snap of my neck and realized the opium is really kicking in. Around that time, A and B and I were stuttering a lot and had really long pauses between words and giggling a lot. It wasn't really the same kind of laughing at stupid things as might happen with weed, but things just seemed to be less serious and it seemed right to just... giggle.
When we all went to bed, I had an inexplicable fascination with the sounds outside the tent. There were lots of sounds. It was, after all, in the heart of the city. But I was utterly obsessed with them, sometimes spending 5 minutes talking to the virtually sober C about a single sound off in the distance. I remember saying something stupid like "it sounds like a low-pitched casino." In the morning, we talked about the last night, and my friends in the other tent said they too had this obsession with the sounds.
A, B, and I all seemed to have very little regard for uncomfort. I would rest on my elbow for half an hour, and even though I realized it was uncomfortable, comfort just didn't seem important enough to warrant the trouble of readjusting.
This last weekend, A and I camped once again, and I accidentally made another batch of tea, this time with warmer water (about 150 F) and let it steep for about 1 hour. I cut up three slightly smaller pods and put them in 12 oz water.
We figured this was going to be a lot stronger than the last batch we had, so we just had about two or three oz that night. We just felt slightly relaxed, but neither of us felt much of anything else.
A couple days later, the friend left for most of the day for another event. I was really thirsty and being the lazy fucker I am, I didn't want to fill the canteen. So I hit the opium tea, hehe. I nearly finished off the bottle, but I had to get up to fill the canteen anyway because the taste was so awful. About 45 minutes later I thought I felt the lightheadedness and a mild euphoria start to come on as I was participating in the nightly candle vigil around the farm. At the time, I wasn't exactly sure that was the tea, but I was a little concerned that I was feeling so strange, so I wanted to check. Halfway through the walk around, I idiotically asked this gal who was endlessly hitting on me if my eyes looked alright. She took this as some sort of corny flirt line and said something complimentary (how nice). But I was really getting foggy thoughts and soggy speech, so I lazily explained, without realizing how obvious I was making it, that I was talking about my pupils.
So my friend came back with his better half right as I was sure it was kicking in. It was pretty much like the other two times at that point, but it quickly got more intense. I suddenly felt really drowsy and slow.
It seemed like my mind was reacting to things and working normally, except that it took a while to build up the will to do anything. Even when I was doing things like unzipping the tent, it took me forever because I kept pausing and deciding whether I really should get the zipper unstuck. It was a really strange feeling.
As soon as I was in the tent, I collapsed into a really awkward position with my head pressed at an angle against the side of the tent, but I didn't care and went almost immediately to sleep. My friends were apparently pretty concerned about me sleeping because I was so messed up, probably slurring my speech and stuttering and all that, so they tried to wake me. I think she had to shake me to get me up.
They said I kept giggling, but I didn't notice at the time, however after it wore off I remember laughing my ass off when they said that...
I dozed off a few more times, each time they would wake me up to make sure I was ok. At this point I had this feeling I was in a dangerous situation, but I didn't really care; I would have been perfectly content with sleeping forever there.
One time they woke me up, I was really confused until I came to my senses. I said "oh shit, I just had the craziest dream." I dreamed that the nopales (an edible cactus that grows in abundance at the farm) had sprouted legs and were wielding their spina at the sheriff who had finally come to evict us from the farm (the reason we were camping there). All of the farmers and their encampment supporters were in a half-circle around a group of sheriff, trying to get them to drop the tear gas and push them out.
That is when I decided to go drink a good liter of water, then took a pit stop and pissed like a racehorse, and idly walked around until I came back to my senses a little.
When I came back to the tent, I was a lot better, but still pretty out of it. I just sprawled on the floor, really wishing I had some weed.
I recommend the tea medicinally as a sedative and an analgesic, but be really careful with it, cause if you are trying to get high, it is kinda scary. It felt damn good, but I have a feeling it could have been much worse if I just had a little more. Smoking opium is by far better since you can control the dose much more easily.
So that people understand the setting: We were camping at the largest community farm in the United States, in the middle of the severely urban South Central Los Angeles. Because the developer who purchased the land from the city wants to bulldoze the farm for warehouses, people have been passionately protesting for months, which is our reason for camping there.
We cut up 4 golf-ball sized fresh pods and put it in 24 oz of warm water (about 110 F) for 15 minutes and poured the funny-smelling concoction into a mason jar. By the time we got to the farm, my friend's lady friend and her friend had joined us, so we had 4 people to share.
To make the description easier, I will refer to friends as A, B, and C. We were all pretty nervous because it is so difficult to judge the strength of the opium, so we each started with about two sips on nearly empty stomachs to see what happened. It just tasted like ground up lettuce at first, but the aftertaste is disgusting. After a small dinner and 30 minutes, A, B and I took three more good sips, and C took one. About 40 minutes later and after a bit of dessert, A, B, and I took two or three more. 30 min later, I once again had a couple sips.
We all agreed we were feeling it a bit around 2 hours after the first ingestion, although C was, of course, to a much lesser degree. It started to peak about 20 minutes later, when I totally spaced out, resting my face on a chain link fence and staring at the cabbages, not thinking about anything at all. I don't know how long I was standing there, but they said they didn't know where I was for at least 10 minutes. It wasn't sleeping, as my eyes were wide open and I was aware of everything around me, but I was certainly at a lower level of consciousness, simply 'being' and not really participating with anything, physical or mental. When they finally found me, I snapped back into the world with a convulsive snap of my neck and realized the opium is really kicking in. Around that time, A and B and I were stuttering a lot and had really long pauses between words and giggling a lot. It wasn't really the same kind of laughing at stupid things as might happen with weed, but things just seemed to be less serious and it seemed right to just... giggle.
When we all went to bed, I had an inexplicable fascination with the sounds outside the tent. There were lots of sounds. It was, after all, in the heart of the city. But I was utterly obsessed with them, sometimes spending 5 minutes talking to the virtually sober C about a single sound off in the distance. I remember saying something stupid like "it sounds like a low-pitched casino." In the morning, we talked about the last night, and my friends in the other tent said they too had this obsession with the sounds.
A, B, and I all seemed to have very little regard for uncomfort. I would rest on my elbow for half an hour, and even though I realized it was uncomfortable, comfort just didn't seem important enough to warrant the trouble of readjusting.
This last weekend, A and I camped once again, and I accidentally made another batch of tea, this time with warmer water (about 150 F) and let it steep for about 1 hour. I cut up three slightly smaller pods and put them in 12 oz water.
We figured this was going to be a lot stronger than the last batch we had, so we just had about two or three oz that night. We just felt slightly relaxed, but neither of us felt much of anything else.
A couple days later, the friend left for most of the day for another event. I was really thirsty and being the lazy fucker I am, I didn't want to fill the canteen. So I hit the opium tea, hehe. I nearly finished off the bottle, but I had to get up to fill the canteen anyway because the taste was so awful. About 45 minutes later I thought I felt the lightheadedness and a mild euphoria start to come on as I was participating in the nightly candle vigil around the farm. At the time, I wasn't exactly sure that was the tea, but I was a little concerned that I was feeling so strange, so I wanted to check. Halfway through the walk around, I idiotically asked this gal who was endlessly hitting on me if my eyes looked alright. She took this as some sort of corny flirt line and said something complimentary (how nice). But I was really getting foggy thoughts and soggy speech, so I lazily explained, without realizing how obvious I was making it, that I was talking about my pupils.
So my friend came back with his better half right as I was sure it was kicking in. It was pretty much like the other two times at that point, but it quickly got more intense. I suddenly felt really drowsy and slow.
It seemed like my mind was reacting to things and working normally, except that it took a while to build up the will to do anything. Even when I was doing things like unzipping the tent, it took me forever because I kept pausing and deciding whether I really should get the zipper unstuck. It was a really strange feeling.
As soon as I was in the tent, I collapsed into a really awkward position with my head pressed at an angle against the side of the tent, but I didn't care and went almost immediately to sleep. My friends were apparently pretty concerned about me sleeping because I was so messed up, probably slurring my speech and stuttering and all that, so they tried to wake me. I think she had to shake me to get me up.
They said I kept giggling, but I didn't notice at the time, however after it wore off I remember laughing my ass off when they said that...
I dozed off a few more times, each time they would wake me up to make sure I was ok. At this point I had this feeling I was in a dangerous situation, but I didn't really care; I would have been perfectly content with sleeping forever there.
One time they woke me up, I was really confused until I came to my senses. I said "oh shit, I just had the craziest dream." I dreamed that the nopales (an edible cactus that grows in abundance at the farm) had sprouted legs and were wielding their spina at the sheriff who had finally come to evict us from the farm (the reason we were camping there). All of the farmers and their encampment supporters were in a half-circle around a group of sheriff, trying to get them to drop the tear gas and push them out.
That is when I decided to go drink a good liter of water, then took a pit stop and pissed like a racehorse, and idly walked around until I came back to my senses a little.
When I came back to the tent, I was a lot better, but still pretty out of it. I just sprawled on the floor, really wishing I had some weed.
I recommend the tea medicinally as a sedative and an analgesic, but be really careful with it, cause if you are trying to get high, it is kinda scary. It felt damn good, but I have a feeling it could have been much worse if I just had a little more. Smoking opium is by far better since you can control the dose much more easily.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
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