Teen Dies After Drinking Poppy Pod Tea

BOULDER, Colo. --

A 19-year-old Boulder man died Tuesday morning, hours after he and his older brother drank poppy pod tea.

The coroner performed an autopsy on Jeffrey Joseph Bohan Tuesday afternoon but the cause of his death is pending laboratory testing.

Bohan's is the second poppy tea-related death in Boulder in just five months, Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said.

Bohan and his older brother drank poppy pod tea around midnight, Huntley said. The two then went to a house on Hanover Avenue and 43rd Street to visit friends and fell asleep there around 4 a.m.

A couple of hours later, Bohans' older brother woke up and discovered that his brother wasn’t breathing. He called 911. Paramedics pronounced Bohan dead at the scene.

Police wanted to remind the public that ingesting poppy tea, either from the seeds or pods, can be fatal.

On Feb. 22, Alex McGuiggan, 20, died in his home from a morphine overdose. The coroner's office later determined that he had ingested fatal quantities of opium from poppy tea that had been brewed at his home.

Poppy pods can be purchased over the Internet, but they are not necessarily safe and in some cases, can be fatal, police said. Depending on how they are used, they may also be illegal.

No arrests have been made, and the investigation is continuing, Huntley said.