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Santa Cruz Centinel said:Santa Cruz home-brewer arrested after making poppy beer
Jennifer Squires - Sentinel Staff Writer
Article Launched: 09/20/2008 01:32:39 AM PDT
SANTA CRUZ -- Police raided a Westside house Friday morning where they suspected people were producing opiates and arrested a UC Santa Cruz doctoral candidate who said he used dried poppy pods to flavor home-brewed beer a month ago.
"All I did was make a poppy beer," said Chad Renzelman, 28, who was arrested at his Bay Street home Friday. "I spent all morning in jail for brewing beer. I had no idea what I was doing was illegal."
But police reported that Renzelman, who studies chemistry, allegedly had used a chemical process to extract opium from poppy plant pods, then converted the opium to morphine.
Morphine is the active opiate in heroin.
Police reported finding a pressurized canister of homemade beer laced with morphine in Renzelman's garage, as well as lab equipment contaminated with opium alkaloids and other hazardous chemicals.
Renzelman said in a phone interview Friday that he bought the dried poppy pods on eBay and used them more than a month ago to make beer. He and some friends have a "home-brew co-op" and brew beer together on the weekends.
"Then we just have it always for us to drink," he said.
Other recent brews have included a chocolate mint stout and a mango blonde ale. The poppy beer has since been consumed, he said.
"We make a different beer every week. Poppy beer just happened to be one of them," he said. "It was a little stronger. It had a kick to it but it wasn't anything horrible."
Police suspected the poppies were used in the beer production, but that's still illegal, Capt. Steve Clark said.
Police got a search warrant after informants tipped them off to suspected poppy processing at the house, Clark said. Renzelman said he thinks officers found the poppy stems he put in the trash last month.
"I guess they've just been brewing on this for a while," he said.
Friday afternoon, lab investigators from the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, chemists from the state Department of Justice and officials from county Environmental Health were called to survey Renzelman's backyard because police suspected he was dumping hazardous poppy waste there.
Renzelman said they were wearing hazmat suits and digging through his compost pile, where he disposes of the spent grain from his beer-making.
Police reported that the hazardous material was cleaned up and there was no danger to surrounding homes.
Renzelman was not growing plants.
However, just having poppy plants in a flower bed is technically a violation, though officers usually just seize the plants without making any arrests.
"It's pretty common for people to grow poppy flowers around the city because they're pretty," Clark said.
Renzelman was arrested on suspicion of possessing and manufacturing a controlled substance.
If convicted, Renzelman faces up to seven years in prison.
Contact Jennifer Squires at 429-2449 or [email protected].
