OPIUM

Opium is a highly addictive non-synthetic narcotic that is extracted from the

poppy plant, Papaver somniferum. The opium poppy is the key source for many
narcotics, including morphine, codeine, and heroin. Opium is dried latex
obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum.
Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid
morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic
opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade.

Opium, narcotic drug that is obtained from the unripe seedpods of the opium
poppy (Papaver somniferum), a plant of the family Papaveraceae. (See poppy.)
Opium is obtained by slightly incising the seed capsules of the poppy after the
plant’s flower petals have fallen. The slit seedpods exude a milky latex that
coagulates and changes colour, turning into a gumlike brown mass upon
exposure to air. This raw opium may be ground into a powder, sold as lumps,
cakes, or bricks, or treated further to obtain derivatives such
as morphine, codeine, and heroin. Opium and the drugs obtained from it are
called opiates.

Some slang terms for opium include: "Big O",

"Shanghai Sally", "dope", "hop", "midnight oil",
"O.P.", and "tar". "Dope" and "tar" can also refer
to heroin. The traditional opium pipe is known as
a "dream stick." The term dope entered the
English language in the early nineteenth century,
originally referring to viscous liquids, particularly
sauces or gravy. It has been used to refer to opiates since at least 1888, and this
usage arose because opium, when prepared for smoking, is viscous.

OPIUM ALKALOIDS
The pharmacologically active principles of opium reside in its alkaloids, the most
important of which, morphine, constitutes about 10 percent by weight of raw
opium. Other active alkaloids such as papaverine and codeine are present in
smaller proportions. Opium alkaloids are of two types, depending on chemical
structure and action. Morphine, codeine, and thebaine, which represent one
type, act upon the central nervous system and are analgesic, narcotic, and
potentially addicting compounds. Papaverine, noscapine (formerly called
narcotine), and most of the other opium alkaloids act only to relax involuntary
(smooth) muscles.

PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIONS OF OPIATES

Opiates (e.g., morphine, codeine, and thebaine) exert their main effects on
the brain and spinal cord. Their principal action is to relieve or suppress pain.
The drugs also alleviate anxiety; induce relaxation, drowsiness, and sedation;
and may impart a state of euphoria or other enhanced mood. Opiates also have
important physiological effects: they slow respiration and heartbeat, suppress
the cough reflex, and relax the smooth muscles of the gastrointestinal tract.
Opiates are addictive drugs; they produce a physical dependence and
withdrawal symptoms that can only be assuaged by continued use of the drug.
With chronic use, the body develops a tolerance to opiates, so that
progressively larger doses are needed to achieve the same effect. The higher
opiates—heroin and morphine—are more addictive than opium or codeine.
Opiates are classified as narcotics because they relieve pain, induce stupor
and sleep, and produce addiction. The habitual use of opium produces physical
and mental deterioration and shortens life. An acute overdose of opium causes
respiratory depression which can be fatal.
Opium was for many centuries the principal painkiller known to medicine and
was used in various forms and under various names. Laudanum, for example,
was an alcoholic tincture (dilute solution) of opium that was used in European
medical practice as an analgesic and sedative. Physicians relied on paregoric, a
camphorated solution of opium, to treat diarrhea by relaxing the
gastrointestinal tract. The narcotic effects of opium are mainly attributable to
morphine, which was first isolated about 1804. In 1898 it was discovered that
treating morphine with acetic anhydride yields heroin, which is four to eight
times as potent as morphine in both its pain-killing properties and its addictive
potential. The other alkaloids naturally present in opium are much weaker;
codeine, for example, is only one-sixth as potent as morphine and is used
mainly for cough relief. Since the late 1930s, various synthetic drugs have been
developed that possess the analgesic properties of morphine and heroin. These
drugs, which include meperidine (Demerol), methadone, levorphonal, and many
others, are known as synthetic opioids. They have largely replaced morphine
and heroin in the treatment of severe pain.

Opiates achieve their effect on the brain because their structure closely
resembles that of certain molecules called endorphins, which are naturally
produced in the body. Endorphins suppress pain and enhance mood by
occupying certain receptor sites on specific neurons (nerve cells) that are
involved in the transmission of nervous impulses. Opiate alkaloids are able to
occupy the same receptor sites, thereby mimicking the effects of endorphins in
suppressing the transmission of pain impulses within the nervous system.

HISTORY OF OPIUM
The opium poppy was native to what is now Turkey. Ancient Assyrian herb lists
and medical texts refer to both the opium poppy plant and opium, and in the
1st century CE the Greek physician Dioscorides described opium in
his treatise De materia medica, which was the leading Western text
on pharmacology for centuries. The growth of poppies for their opium content
spread slowly eastward from Mesopotamia and Greece. Apparently, opium was
unknown in either India or China in ancient times, and knowledge of the opium
poppy first reached China about the 7th century. At first, opium was taken in
the form of pills or was added to beverages. The oral intake of raw opium as a
medicine does not appear to have produced widespread addictions in ancient
Asian societies.
Opium smoking began only after the early Europeans in North
America discovered the Indian practice of smoking tobacco in pipes. Some
smokers began to mix opium with tobacco in their pipes, and smoking gradually
became the preferred method of taking opium. Opium smoking was introduced
into China from Java in the 17th century and spread rapidly. The Chinese
authorities reacted by prohibiting the sale of opium, but these edicts were
largely ignored. During the 18th century European traders found in China an
expanding and profitable market for the drug, and the opium trade enabled
them to acquire Chinese goods such as silk and tea without having to
spend precious gold and silver. Opium
addiction became widespread in China,
and the Chinese government’s attempts to
prohibit the import of opium from British-
ruled India brought it into direct conflict
with the British government. As a result of
their defeat in the Opium Wars, the
Chinese were compelled to legalize the
importation of opium in 1858. Opium
addiction remained a problem in Chinese
society until the Communists came to
power in 1949 and eradicated the practice.

In the West, opium came into wide use as a painkiller in the 18th century, and
opium, laudanum, and paregoric were active ingredients in many patent
medicines. These drugs were freely available without legal or medical
restrictions, and the many cases of addiction they caused did not arouse undue
social concern. Morphine was first isolated from opium about 1804, and the
hypodermic syringe was invented at mid-century. Their use in combination on
hundreds of thousands of sick or wounded American soldiers in the Civil
War produced unprecedented numbers of addicts. Heroin, which was first
synthesized in 1898, proved even more addictive than morphine, and by the
early decades of the 20th century the legal use of opiates of any kind had been
curtailed. The traffic in such drugs then went underground, leading to a vast
illicit trade in heroin.

Although opium trade routes extending from the southeastern and

southwestern regions of Asia closed temporarily during World War II, cultivation
of the plant continued and even prospered in areas of China. In 1948 Burma
(Myanmar), located along the southwestern border of China, gained
independence and soon after emerged as a major producer of the drug,
paralleling the suppression of opium cultivation in China. Throughout the 1960s
and ’70s, Southeast Asia experienced substantial growth in illicit opium trade.
The border area shared by Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand eventually became
known as the Golden Triangle, a region that by the mid-1990s was the world’s
leader in opium cultivation.

Smoking of opium declined in the 20th century, partly because it had been
supplanted by more-potent derivatives and partly because of determined
efforts in China and other developing countries to eradicate it. In the late 1990s,
drug-control programs headed by the United Nations and by individual
governments contributed to a reduction in opium poppy cultivation in the
Golden Triangle. However, the region subsequently became a major producer
of other illicit substances, including methamphetamines.

Also in the late 1990s, opium poppy cultivation increased in Afghanistan, and
that country became a leading producer of heroin. As cultivation of the plant
continued to soar there in the early 2000s, drug trade in the region became
associated with terrorism and lawlessness. Near the end of the decade,
however, increased law enforcement efforts and the outbreak of a poppy fungal
disease caused poppy cultivation and opium production in Afghanistan to drop
significantly. As a result, opium prices increased across the region, threatening
to undermine the country’s illegal opium and heroin trade. The declines were
seen as an opportunity to persuade local farmers to cultivate legal crops.
Because of Internet pharmacies that sold the drug illegally, however, global
opium trafficking remained high.

EXTRACTION OF ALKALOIDS FOR OPIUM

A method for extracting at least one alkaloid from opium that includes dissolving
opium in a solvent, heating the dissolved opium solution, cooling the dissolved
opium solution, adjusting the pH of the dissolved opium solution with at least
one first weak acid, filtering the dissolved opium solution to recover a filtrate;
and then separating and purifying at least one alkaloid in the filtrate. Preferably,
this includes an additional step of chilling the opium solution after adjusting the
pH of the dissolved opium solution with at least one first acid. The preferred
method for separating and purifying at least one alkaloid in the filtrate includes
utilizing preparative liquid chromatography, however, solvent extraction and
filtration can also be utilized.
HARVESTING AND PROCESSING

When grown for opium production, the skin of the ripening pods of these
poppies is scored by a sharp blade at a time carefully chosen so that rain, wind,
and dew cannot spoil the exudation of white, milky latex, usually in the
afternoon. Incisions are made while the pods are still raw, with no more than a
slight yellow tint, and must be shallow to avoid penetrating hollow inner
chambers or loculi while cutting into the lactiferous vessels. In the Indian
Subcontinent, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Iran, the special tool used to make
the incisions is called a nushtar or "nishtar" (from Persian, meaning a lancet)
and carries three or four blades three millimeters apart, which are scored
upward along the pod. Incisions are made three or four times at intervals of two
to three days, and each time the "poppy tears", which dry to a sticky brown
resin, are collected the following morning.

One acre harvested in this way can produce three to five kilograms of raw
opium.]In the Soviet Union, pods were typically scored horizontally, and opium
was collected three times, or else one or two collections were followed by
isolation of opiates from the ripe capsules. Oil poppies, an alternative strain
of P. somniferum, were also used for production of opiates from their capsules
and stems. A traditional Chinese method of harvesting opium latex involved
cutting off the heads and piercing them with a coarse needle then collecting the
dried opium 24 to 48 hours later.
Raw opium may be sold to a merchant or broker on the black market, but it
usually does not travel far from the field before it is refined into morphine base,
because pungent, jelly-like raw opium is bulkier and harder to smuggle. Crude
laboratories in the field are capable of refining opium into morphine base by a
simple acid-base extraction. A sticky, brown paste, morphine base is pressed
into bricks and sun-dried, and can either be smoked, prepared into other forms
or processed into heroin.

Other methods of preparation (besides smoking), include processing into

regular opium tincture (tinctura opii), laudanum, paregoric (tinctura opii
camphorata), herbal wine (e.g., vinum opii), opium powder (pulvis opii),
opium sirup (sirupus opii) and opium extract (extractum opii). Vinum opii is
made by combining sugar, white wine, cinnamon, and cloves. Opium syrup is
made by combining 97.5 part sugar syrup with 2.5 parts opium extract. Opium
extract (extractum opii) finally can be made by macerating raw opium with
water. To make opium extract, 20 parts water are combined with 1 part raw
opium which has been boiled for 5 minutes (the latter to ease mixing).

CHEMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES

Morphine is the primary biologically active chemical constituent of opium

Codeine is another biologically active chemical constituent of opium

Opium contains two main groups of alkaloids. Phenanthrenes such

as morphine, codeine, and thebaine are the main psychoactive
constituents. Isoquinolines such as papaverine and noscapine have no
significant central nervous system effects. Morphine is the most prevalent and
important alkaloid in opium, consisting of 10–16 percent of the total, and is
responsible for most of its harmful effects such as lung edema, respiratory
difficulties, coma, or cardiac or respiratory collapse. Morphine binds to and
activates mu opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, stomach and intestine.
Regular use can lead to drug tolerance or physical dependence. Chronic opium
addicts in 1906 China consumed an average of eight grams of opium daily;
opium addicts in modern Iran are thought to consume about the same.

Both analgesia and drug addiction are functions of the mu opioid receptor, the
class of opioid receptor first identified as responsive to morphine. Tolerance is
associated with the superactivation of the receptor, which may be affected by
the degree of endocytosis caused by the opioid administered, and leads to a
superactivation of cyclic AMP signaling. Long-term use of morphine in palliative
care and the management of chronic pain always entails a risk that the patient
develops tolerance or physical dependence. There are many kinds
of rehabilitation treatment, including pharmacologically based treatments
with naltrexone, methadone, or ibogaine.

In 2021, the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that opium
is a Group 1 (sufficient evidence) human carcinogen, causing cancers of the
larynx, lung, and urinary bladder.

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