Background
Defendants Brandon and Rachel McCarthy operated an online store selling unprocessed poppy seeds coated in opium latex. They published guides and recipes for making poppy-seed tea, which contains opioids. One customer died from an overdose after consuming tea made from the seeds. A grand jury returned a forty-one count indictment. The district court dismissed the charges, ruling that the Controlled Substances Act excludes prosecution of poppy seeds and that the statute was unconstitutionally vague.
The court’s reasoning
The court applied de novo review to the statutory terms manufacture and material. It found that the Controlled Substances Act defines manufacture to include extraction from substances of natural origin. The court concluded that steeping poppy seeds to extract opioids is an extraction process. Regarding the term material, the court found the ordinary meaning encompasses poppy seeds. The court rejected arguments based on canons of construction like in pari materia and noscitur a sociis, noting that Congress intended the precursor provisions to be comprehensive. The court also dismissed arguments regarding the rule of lenity and vagueness, finding the statute unambiguous as applied to the defendants.
We therefore must conclude that producing poppy-seed tea is manufacturing.
United States v. McCarthy, et al., 25-5026 (10th Cir. May 6, 2026)
What it means going forward
The decision allows federal prosecutors to charge individuals with distributing drug precursors when they sell unprocessed poppy seeds with the knowledge that they will be used to manufacture opioids, even if the seeds themselves are not listed as controlled substances.
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