Some pointers for poppies:
In many ways growing poppies is the opposite of growing MJ.
A) Veg in the flower rm, bloom in the veg rm. Poppies like to veg in short days (12 hrs), and bloom in long- 18 hrs.
B) the nutes are opposite-low N for veg, high N for flower.
C) Opium IS water-soluble.
Poppies flower at 90 days from germ.The pods are ripe about 10 days after they lose their petals- pods are now blue/green with the "crowns" pointing up.At this point they are ready for harvest. With an X-acto or similar tool make VERY shallow incisions. The latex flows immediately, but not in lg. quantities. The latex is pure opium and can be smoked "raw" when dry. The chinese tend to cook it down in H2O, but you probably won't have the quantity to do this. Last year I wiped the late from the pods with a gauze pad. I kept the full pads, dried, and eventually soaked them all to dissolve the O uot, then evaporate the water and scrape up the O.
Like herb, O loses a lot of volume when dried. It's much better to save up for aweek or two to get a decent amount. Trying to smoke the product of 1 or 2 pods probably won't do it, but if you wait until you have more you won't be wasting it trying to get off on a small hit. (my personal experience)