Ingredients: dried turkish poppies (easily purchased at http://www.poppiesinternational.com/index.html or http://www.poppiesshop.com/poppies/turkish-poppy-pods.html )

Remove the pod-shaped heads from the stems and carefully crack them open to remove all seeds - best way to do this is to 'open' the bottom of the head by breaking the stem off to one side and opening a nice hole. Count out approximately five medium-sized heads per dose of tea. Grind the heads in a coffee grinder to a powder. Throw your powder into 2.5 cups of water (again, per dose) and bring to a rolling boil. Add a teaspoon of lemon juice to get those alkaloids out. Let it cook on a low boil for about 15-30 minutes, you'll see a lot of that water disappear. Stir occasionally to keep things moving.

Dump your mixture into a large strainer using coffee filters (I recommend getting a pack of the industrial size coffee filters, borrow some from a local coffeeshop if need be or check a restaurant supply store) to avoid a grainy tea. Make sure and squeeze out all of the goodness (careful - those filters are going to want to rip) by twisting from the top and pressing with a spatula. Add a second filter when squeezing to avoid rips. If you're frugal or have a serious problem with wasting fine drugs you can start the process over now with the mush - you'll get a much smaller amount of opium but you'll get some.

The resulting brew will smell somewhere between boiled asparagus and wheat-grass seeds. It will taste far worse. I recommend adding a little honey, brown sugar and most importantly chasing the drink with Squirt, lemonade or something else sickly sweet and citrus flavored. It'll help, trust me. The other way to approach the bitterness is to cover it with a more friendly bitterness. A 50/50 mixture of opium tea with plain (unsweetened) iced tea and a wedge of lemon can work quite well. I recommend drinking it down quickly nonetheless. Two big gulps, chased with limeade or lemonade or Squirt.

If you wish to turn your tea into actual 'opium' it's not all that hard. Pour your tea (ideally without the sugar and lemon tea added) into a shallow non-stick (teflon) pan and put it in your oven on the lowest temp available. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't dry completely out. It should take a day or so for the water to evaporate off and what you've got left will be an extremely sticky mass of goop. That's the good stuff. Scrape it onto a hard, non-porous surface (I use a plastic cutting board) and let it sit for a bit. Carefully pack the sludge into empty gel caps (you can purchase these at most health food stores or drug stores). If the goop is too sticky try putting it in the freezer for a few minutes.

Be careful. Start out slow and find your proper dose. Experiment. Be careful.

Enjoy.