Codeine and Heroin

Morphine A Molecule That s Good at Changing Its Shape  

Morphine is the best molecule available for dulling acute and chronic severe pain. It takes its name from Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. 

Morphine itself was not isolated until 1804. It is one of a number of alkaloids found in the milky sap obtained when unripe seedpods of the opium poppy Papaver somniferurri) are scraped. On drying, this becomes a yellow-brown paste, which is known as opium. This contains over 20 alkaloid molecules - the most abundant being morphine - but the only other one with sedative properties is 

The opium poppy is native to Asia Minor (the Eastern Mediterranean) but is now cultivated over a much wider area which extends into China and Southeast Asia. The ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia traded opium as far back as 4000 BC. And opium came before morphine as a painkiller. 

Early in the sixteenth century, a Swiss-born doctor usually known as Paracelsus popularized an extract of opium in brandy, which was known as laudanum. A century and a half later, the Oxford-educated doctor Thomas Sydenham promoted laudanum as a general cure-all. It became very popular in the eighteenth century, not least because it was half the price of beer, as well as being a treatment for cholera and dysentery. And it was safer than drinking the water in many places, which made it a boon to the poor. 

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The PE spectra of some other alkaloids like methadone and the opiate narcotics morphine, codeine and heroin have been investigated by Klasinc and coworkers95. Also in this study structure-activity relationships based on IPs were sought but not found. Since the interaction of the drug molecule with the receptor is highly specific, it is not unreasonable that the molecular rather than the electronic structure is more important for the physiological activity. 

I o find new and more effective medicines, chemists use various models that J. describe how drugs work. By far, one of the most useful models of drug action is the lock-and-key model. The basis of this model is the connection between a drugs chemical structure and its biological effect. For example, morphine and all related pain-relieving opioids, such as codeine and heroin, have the T-shaped structure shown in Figure 14.1. 

The effects of morphine, codeine, and heroin in the brain are dose-related. Small doses produce drowsiness, decreased anxiety and inhibition, reduced concentration, muscle relaxation, pain relief, depressed respiration, constricted pupils, nausea, and a decreased cough reflex, which is why codeine found its way into cough suppressants. At slightly higher doses, morphine and heroin can produce a state of intense elation or euphoria. 

Poppy seeds do, however, contain a substance called opium. Opium contains the drugs morphine, codeine, and heroin, collectively known as opiates. 

The papers dealing with the GC/MS detection of 10 different opiates in hair are listed in Table 7. The first report was published in 1984 about codeine detection in animal hair after administration of the drug. One paper is included with direct insertion of the probe and Cl. As heroin samples always contain codeine as an impurity, this substance also can be detected in cases of heroin abuse. Morphine is a metabolite of codeine and can be detected when codeine is abused. The quantitation of both drugs allows differentiation between codeine and heroin abuse. The detection of heroin or 6-acetylmorphine opens the possibility to prove directly the abuse of heroin.2 2" Here also, the more lipophilic 6-acetylmorphine exceeds the morphine in most samples. 

Morphine, (+)-codeine, and (+)-heroin are all devoid of MHP (sc) antinociceptive activity/119 although (+)-morphine did show some central actions in rats when administered intracerebrally.(120) Compounds of the (+)-morphine series are related configurationally to (-)-sinomenine (53 of Chap. 3),(m) the absolute configuration of which has been demonstrated to be enantiomeric with that of natural (-)-morphine. 

Opiates are drugs that exert their beneficial actions through the CNS, and although codeine and heroin have a reasonable level of passage across the blood-brain barrier, morphine s passage is much lower/419 ... 

FIGURE 7.32 The molecular structures of some analgesics (a) aspirin (b) acetaminophen and (c) morphine. Note how slight the differences are among morphine, codeine, and heroin. 

Improved synthesis of (+)- morphine, (+)-codeine and (+)-heroine Rice, Kenner C. Iijima, Ikuo Brossi, Arnold... 

Morphine, codeine, and heroin 1. Neurotransmitter associated with drug addiction and... 

Identify by chemical name the oxygen-containing functional groups in morphine, codeine, and heroin (see Figure 17.5). 

The method described here corresponds to a modification of that reported by Williams et al. (29). A 10-ng/mL Toxiclean drug mixture (Alltech, Chicago, IL) containing amphetamine, methamphetamine, butabarbital, amobarbital, meperidine, pentobarbital, secobarbital, glutethimide, phencyclidine, methaqualone, methadone, cocaine, amitrptyline, imipramine, doxepin, desipramine, pentazocine, codeine, and heroin is employed. 

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