Poppy straw

More interesting, as regards future developments, are the eiforts now being made to dispense with opium as an intermediate in the production of morphine. The early history of experiments in the direct extraction of the alkaloid from poppy capsules and poppy straw has been recounted by Goris and by Wiiest and Frey. ... 

Wiiest and Frey have pointed out that poppy straw has disadvantages in low yield of morphine and in bulkiness, and prefer poppy heads as a primary material. Many samples of capsules from seven countries were examined by them and found to yield from 0-18 to 0-9 per cent, of morphine, and they conclude that it should be possible to get ripe, dry capsules containing on the average 0-3 to 0-5 per cent, of morphine. Their paper includes a description of a process of analysis, which was found speedy and accurate. 

Karrer and Schmid have examined the water-soluble constituents in poppy straw after extraction of the alkaloids, and have recorded the presence of -hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillin, -hydroxystyrene, meconin and the following acids fumaric, dZ-lactic, benzoic, -hydroxycinnamic, p-hydroxybenzoic, 2-hydroxycinchoninic, vanillic, phthalic, hemipinic and m-hemipinic, with a more highly unsaturated, carboxylic acid J, b.p. 170-570-02 mm., and three unidentified substances Fa , m.p. 271-2° Wx, m.p. 310° (dec.) and Q, m.p. 260° the two latter are free from nitrogen and contain no methoxyl. 

Mohn-saft, OT. poppy juice, opium, -samen, ot. poppyseed, -saure,/. meconic acid, -stoff, m. narcotine, -stroh, n. lit., poppy straw (residue from extraction of poppy heads and stems). 

Morphine is isolated from the opium poppy from either opium, the resin obtained by lancing the unripe pod, or from poppy straw. It is isolated by various methods, of which the final step is precipitation of morphine from an acid solution with excess ammonia. It is then recrystallized from boiling... 

According to the Controlled Substances Act, the term narcotic drug refers to more than just opiate drugs it also includes opium, poppy straw, derivatives of opium and opiates, cocaine, coca leaves, and extracts that contain cocaine and ecgonine (the major metabolite of cocaine) and its derivatives. These may be directly or indirectly produced by extraction from substances, by chemical synthesis, or by a combination of both methods. 

Which brings us back to the mushrooms, and the topic of the law. In the original writing of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, our Federal drug law, there are only four plants listed as being "Scheduled Drugs." In Schedule I there was Marijuana (later defined as the plant Cannabis spp.) and Peyote (later defined as the botanical Lophophora williamsii) in Schedule II there was Opium poppy and poppy straw, and Coca leaves. It is generally known that commercial opium comes from the plant Papaver somniferum and that commercial coca comes... 

Thebaine, codeine and morphine from poppy straw (Papaver somniferum) were extracted with carbon dioxide and various polar modifiers at 20 MPa and 40.5 °C. Kinetic extraction curves for morphine showed that 50% methanol in carbon dioxide was necessary in order to achieve quantitative yields in less than 20 min. A mixture of 25% methanol, 0.22% methylamine and 0.34% water had the same effect as 50% methanol in the catbon dioxide. However, it was also reported that, in spite of its strong extraction power, the methylamine-water mixture had a major drawback in that morphine in the presence of the amine degraded in the presence of light. Hence, carbon dioxide-methanol-water mixtures were investigated increasing the water content in the extraction fluid dramatically enhanced the extraction rate for thebaine [29]. 

Opium has been known and used for 4000 years or more. In recent times, attempts have been made at governmental and international levels to control the cultivation of the opium poppy, but with only limited success. In endeavours to reduce drug problems involving opium-derived materials, especially heroin, where extremely large profits can be made from smuggling relatively small amounts of opium, much pharmaceutical production has been replaced by the processing of the bulkier poppy straw . The entire plant tops are harvested and dried, then extracted for their alkaloid content in the pharmaceutical industry. Poppy straw now accounts for most of the medicinal opium alkaloid production, but there is still... 

The main producer of medicinal opium is India, whilst poppy straw is cultivated in Turkey, Russia, and Australia. Opium destined for the black market originates from the Golden Triangle (Burma, Laos, and Thailand), the Golden Crescent (Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), and Mexico. 

The United States imports about 70% of the world s opium. About 95% of that opium is consumed in the form of schedule III preparations, of which codeine is the most common. Until the mid-1970s, opium had been the main raw material used for the production of morphine and codeine. Since 1978, however, concentrate of poppy straw has been used with increasing frequency for that purpose. Poppy straw is a term used for the remainder of the poppy plant—but primarily refers to the seed capsule itself—once the seeds and opium-producing fluid have been removed. The majority of morphine and codeine production now comes from concentrate of poppy straw. 

The concentrations of morphine and codeine in both raw opium and poppy straw vary greatly, but morphine concentrations as a percentage of total weight are typically about 10 times greater than are those of codeine. Therefore, processing of opium and poppy straw produces much more morphine than codeine. However, greater quantities of codeine than morphine are required for medical purposes. Based on the discrepancies between production and use of the two drugs, about 80% of morphine is converted into codeine. 

J.L. Janicot, M. Caude, and R. Rosset, Separation of opium alkaloids by carbon dioxide sub- and supercritical fluid chromatography with packed columns Application to the quantitative analysis of poppy straw extracts, J. Chromatogr., 437 351 (1988). 

A young man dependent on Kompot or Polish heroin , a domestic product produced from poppy straw or the juice of poppy heads (P. somniferum) and given intravenously, developed Guillain-Barre syndrome after severe intoxication induced by home-made heroin, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines (11). 

Column yBondapak Phenyl (250x5 mm ID), guard column Corasil C18 37-50 pm (70x2 mm ID), mobile phase A acetonitrile - water (5 95) and B acetonitrile - water (20 80) both containing 1 ml/1 N,N-dimethyloctylamine (pH 3.5 with sodium hydroxide), linear gradient from A to B in 20 min, flow rate 1.0 ml/min, detection UV 275 nm. Peaks 1, morphine 2, codeine 3, thebaine 4, quinine 5, papaverine 6, noscapine. Chromatogram A poppy-straw concentrate, B standard mixture. 

Analysis of poppy straw concen- uBondapak Phenyl trate (Fig.7.9)... 

Opiates used in the CEECs include heroin —whose use in the region was negligible until the early 1 990s — and substances derived from domestic production, such as Kompot or poppy straw. Morphine and other opiates, including hydrocodeine, may be included in the second group, but are only found in a limited number of CEECs (hydrocodeine is only reported in Hungary). 

Albania and Latvia reported a rapid rise in heroin use in 1998, while in Estonia a move away from poppy straw to heroin was observed from 1997 to 1998. In Hungary, the proportion of addicts treated primarily for opiate use rose from 21.5 % in 1994 to 34.7 % in 1998. In parallel, sedative use declined from 27.8 to 1 2.2 %, and volatile substance use fell from 15.7 to 3.4 %. In Poland, the proportion of users of home-made opiates (so-called Polish heroin) has been decreasing markedly, while the percentage of heroin users is increasing. Slovakia reported an increase in heroin use among treatment clients from 37 % in 1 993 to 86 % in 1 994. 

MORPHINE EXTRACTION FROM POPPY STRAW The production of opium is, as is evident from the description above, a method that is very labour intensive. Therefore methods have been developed to extract morphine directly... 

In Eastern Europe, e.g. Hungary and Romania, the opium poppy is cultivated for the seeds and poppy straw is a useful byproduct. 

DEVELOPMENT OF CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS FINGERPRINTS AND MULTIVARIATE STATISTICS FOR THE DIFFERENTIATION OF OPIUM AND POPPY STRAW SAMPLES... 

The first objective was to develop a CZE separation (or fingerprint) using only migration times and peak areas for opium from different locations and poppy straw samples from different plants. Previously, a CZE method had shown poor separation for certain alkaloids in opium samples (24), and in other methods pH has had to be strictly controlled (25, 26). Some methods were unable to operate at the optimum detection wavelengths (25, 27, 28), while others have used various cyclodextrin additives to obtain separation (25, 29-31). 

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