i used the pods and a bit of stalk.
they're good fresh, and only need to be dried if you want to keep them to use throughout the year, if you have the willpower to keep them (but really, you could just freeze fresh pods).
drying them can be a little risky because of mould. when i had lots of pods, i actually bought a food dehydrator to preserve them, because they tend to go funky pretty quickly if you don't have a good way of drying them. and mouldy pods are a major bummer.
i remember getting a bit desperate at one point, and chucking a handful of stems in the blender, and they were more potent than i expected. apparently there
are opiate alkaloids in the stalks and foliage too, but in lower concentrations, and IMO it's a lot of fucking around for probably little reward.
so i would just use the pods and a few inches of the stem.
chop the pods open (if the crowns haven't already popped) and shake out as many seeds as you can, but i never stressed too much about getting a few in there.
if you want to save seeds for next year, wait for the pods to pop open themselves, but you might find some have popped their crowns and some haven't when you want to harvest them.
i refined my pod consumption method to the most simple method possible; it's not elegant, but it's zero waste.
i would simply chucked a few pods in a blender with a bit of (cold/tap) water and some lemon juice to help with the bitter taste a bit.
no heating or soaking are really necessary, unless you want to brew up a tea and strain all the fibrous pod matter out - you could filter it through a mesh kitchen strainer or use a french press - but i used to just strain it, pick out any hard or sharp bits left in the grinds (such as the pointy crown bits of the pods) and use the liquid to wash the pod pulp down.
if you're wanting a nice cuppa tea, you could boil the ground up pods for a bit, give them a couple of rinses and strain them out - but it's still going to taste like crap, and heating it and doing multiple washes takes longer, and you still may lose some of your goodies when you discard the ground pods.
so i used to ingest the grinds as well as the liquid, just little bits at a time, with each sip. take it slow so you're not choking on the stuff, but it's really not hard to swallow.
when they're fresh, they're pretty soft and pulpy - and it's just so much more simple than fucking around with making teas or whatever. if you've dried them, they soften up again in some warm water, and the same method is fine.
i learned this technique from the poppy nerds that had a whole forum about poppy pods that i guess disappeared about 5 or 6 years ago, i think (when authorities caught onto the massive market of apparently legal 'floral arranging' pods being sold online, especially in the States if i remember correctly).
people would refer to their doses in terms of the quantity (weight or volume) of 'grinds' (as opposed to number of pods, which can vary in size from a large marble to bigger than a tennis ball). a couple of heaped tablespoons of grinds would be a goods starting dose i reckon - but you don't know how strong they are, so be cautious with the dosing.
it's not like codeine which you should take all at once - you can redose effectively which allows you to to titrate your dose.
some folks from the poppy forum made tea out of steeping the grinds, whereas i think most favoured the "wash'n'toss" method i preferred.
may not be elegant, washing down little lumps of ground up pods, but it's quick and easy and you don't waste anything, and you don't find yourself re-washing old grinds, wondering if the watery "tea" still has anything of use in it.
...also, the amount of fibre in the ground up pods helps counteract some of the unpleasant effects opiates have on your GI tract - just make sure you consume lots of liquids too.
pods were always my opiate of choice. nice stone that lasts all day.
pretty flowers too, eh
