Hey all.. just thought I'd put out an alert to any Aussies here who drink poppy seed tea or are considering doing so. The past few days there have been a series of hospitalisations from people drinking "hoyts" brand poppy seeds in a tea preparation.. it has been confirmed that a number of the people had very high levels of thebaine in their blood... seizure like symptoms have been experienced, elevated heart rate, dizziness, vomitting, stomach pain and difficulty breathing. I can confirm some of these symptoms as I unfortunately went through an ordeal myself..

Apparently a high thebaine strain of seed was accidentally leaked into the food supply.. I will post more when I know more. I would strongly recommend refraining from drinking poppy seed tea in Australia at the moment.

What is the reason for drinking poppy seed tea/brew? Does it have some health benefits?

It's typically consumed for the morphine content, from what I gather. Unfortunately this is very unreliable. Thebaïne or otherwise, even an unexpectedly strong batch of seeds can present an overdose risk.

That is correct, however the levels of thebaine have been found to be high enough to hospitalise someone at as little as 120g (which is venturing into "baking" quantities) and there are now at least 20 incidents across the board in the past week. The seeds that made it into the food supply were NOT a food item and are strictly prohibited from our shelves because they are bred to contain high levels of thebaine. They are not seeds intended for culinary consumption. Unfortunately health organizations around Australia are not acknowledging that the thebaine causing poisonings is due to an accidental "leak" of a banned product into the food supply. In their campaigns they are instead just giving blanket statements saying don't drink poppy seed tea because you might overdose.. which to an opiate user is just going to sound like a high morphine batch and act as the complete opposite to a deterrent.. By not acknowledging the accidental flowing of thebaine contaminated seeds onto supermarket shelves they are making a serious mistake which has already led to harm across the country.


Anyways.. just thought I'd put the word out there in case any Australians are reading

Thanks for clarifying. That omission does indeed sound dangerous.

The high thebaïne varieties are grown specifically as a feedstock for pharmaceutical use. Thebaïne can undergo conversion to a number of semi-synthetic opioids such as etorphine. This incident suggests to me that seeds of Papaver bracteatum have reached the market, rather than the usual P. sominferum.

A recall was finally done and a statement put out about the thebaine containing seeds accidentally making its way into the food supply.. glad its been corrected