Grad student sentenced for morphine-laced homebrew

A Santa Cruz graduate student has pleaded no contest to heroin possession after police said they found morphine-laced beer in his garage.

Chad Renzelman said he used "a handful" of dried poppy pods to flavor a batch of homemade beer in August.

The organic chemistry student at the University of California, Santa Cruz said he extracted opium from the poppies, which he then converted to morphine

So he was convicted for heroin possession, when he had morphine, which seems to have little to do using poppies as a admixture? I'm a bit confused by this. If he was making heroin, shouldn't that be pointed out as a separate aspect of the case?

He said the beer was for home consumption and that he didn't know his actions were illegal.

If he was making heroin, he would have known it was illegal, he couldn't be that dumb, which leads me to again question the heroin charge.

More so, how did they get a warrant to search his homebrewing supplies? It's legal to brew, he's clearly of age (as a grad student), poppies aren't exactly "drug paraphernalia".

Of course given the chance to ask questions I'd like to know what sort of beer recipe he was working from to make a palatable drink, this project has been in my notes for a while and I'd love more input.