Poppy straw, alkaloids

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. ... 

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. 

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large profits can be made from smuggling relatively small amounts of opium, much pharmaceutical production has been replaced by the processing of the bulkier poppy straw .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... 

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). 

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). 

The authors acknowledge the donation of poppy straw samples from Dr. A.J. Fist, Tasmanian Alkaloids Pty Ltd. Westbury, Tasmania. 

Table 1 Worldwide production of raw materials. Designated as alkaloids contained in poppy straw (tons) (see footnote 1)...

Preparation of Concentrated Poppy Straw (CPS) and Alkaloid Determination. Dried poppy straw (20 g) is extracted in a Soxhlet apparatus with MeOH (12h), concentrated to a pasty mass and treated with 0.25 g Ca(OH)2 and 2.5% acetic acid solution (5 ml). The mixture is centrifuged and the supernatant separated and filtered. This process of extraction is repeated three times to obtain the CPS, which is then made up to 10ml solution in a volumetric flask with the acetic acid solution. 

The commercial preparation of morphine takes place from opium and from poppy straw at approximately equal proportions. [72] Since 1960, the production of thebeine has gained growing significance, due to an increased demand for semi-synthetic opiates. This is generated from opium like morphine, codeine and papaverine. The key step is removal of the crude morphine with tartaric acid. The various alkaloids are subsequently separated by fractional crystallisation and extraction (Fig. 5.53). 

Codein phosphate and hydrochloride caused contact dermatitis in a worker in the production of opium alkaloids. Codeine bitartrate caused contact dermatitis in a worker in the production of concentrated poppy straw. Codeine was a sensitizer in a laboratory worker at an opiate-manufacturing pharmaceutical company, also sensitive to thebaine. 

The other field of application of the different methods of analysis is the cultivated opium plant (P. somniferum L.) itself, which produces TB. It has a Imig cultivatiOTi history worldwide and there are many varieties having various colors and shapes of flowers, shapes of capsules, and alkaloid composition and content. Despite the strict control of the plants, seeds of P. somniferum have been imported and sold as an ornamental gardening flower for which to control illegal cultivation of the plants, rapid and reliable extraction methods of opium alkaloids fi om many plant samples are required. CZE-UV has been employed for the analysis of opium samples and poppy straws [111, 113] and in presence of p-CD by CE-CD-UV in Iranian opium poppy plants [114]. Other detection systems such as MS and ECL with the same separation technique have been employed for the analysis of illicit samples [131] and Chinese traditional medicine opium poppy samples [124], respectively. 

Gupta, M. M., and Verma, R. K. (1996). Combined thin-layer chromatography-densitometry method for the quantitative estimation of major alkaloids in poppy straw samples. Indian J. Pharm. Sci. 58 161-163. 

Since no cost-efficient synthesis of morphine and codeine has been developed, these alkaloids are isolated from poppy straw , which consists of the entire plant tops (Dewick, 2002), and... 

Opium alkaloids the Papaveraceae alkaloids (see) that occur in Opium (see). Main representatives of the approximately 40 different O.a. are Morphine (see), Codeine (see) and Papaverine (see). More than 1,000 tons of morphine are produced annually. Nowdays the straw of the poppy plant is also used for the isolation of O.a. This new source accounts for about one third of the annual production of morphine. 

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