Opium

WARNING: The processes, techniques, or activities described in this article may be illegal or regulated in many jurisdictions. This page is provided for informational purposes only and does not endorse, encourage, or condone any illegal activities. Readers are responsible for complying with all applicable local, national, and international laws.

Warning: While it is perfectly legal in most cases to grow opium producing poppies, harvesting opium from them is not in most places. Under no circumstances are illicit activities supported, this is for educational purposes. Please adhere to your local laws.

Opium poppy seed pod exuding latex from a cut

Opium, or rather raw opium, is the dried milky, latex sap collected from superficially slicing the sides of the unripe seed pods of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. Raw opium contains about 12% morphine by weight, and much smaller percentages of 23 other opiate alkaloids such as codeine. Opium is traditionally used as a pain-relief medicine and recreational drug through smoking, inhalation of vapors, suppositories or medical poultices.

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. 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. Morphine is also responsible for most of its harmful effects such as lung edema, respiratory difficulties, coma, or cardiac or respiratory collapse.

While the majority of the opiate alkaloids of the plant are released in the opium sap, useable quantities remain within the rest of the plant. The seed pods (even after collecting raw opium and seeds from), as well as the flower petals contain enough alkaloids to be useful without needing much if any extraction or refinement. The leaves, stems, and roots contain very little active alkaloids and require extraction and refinement to be used as an opium product.

History, medicinal and recreational use

Opium has been used both medicinally and recreationally for over 8,000 years.

Its medicinal properties include treating diarrheas by reducing digestive motility, which was historically very useful during cholera or dysentery outbreaks for example.

It is also very useful as a pain killer and sedative, including for wounds treatment.

How raw opium is gathered

Dried latex from opium poppy

To extract opium, the unripe poppy seed pod 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, 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. 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.

Usages of raw opium paste

Opium preparation include processing into regular opium tincture (laudanum) through alcohol maceration, herbal wine (vinum opii), opium powder, opium sirup and opium extract. Opium extract (extractum opii) finally can be made by macerating raw opium with water, by 20 parts water with 1 part raw opium which has been boiled for 5 minutes. Opium wine is made by combining opium with sugar, white wine, cinnamon, and cloves. Opium syrup is made by combining 97.5 part sugar syrup with 2.5 parts opium extract.

Morphine synthesis

Raw opium may be refined into morphine base, because the pungent, jelly-like form of raw opium is bulkier and harder to transport. 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 or prepared into other forms.

In the opium poppy, the alkaloids are bound to meconic acid and must be dissociated from it to be used.

1. Extraction from Plant Material:
   • Crush the opium poppy dried latex.
   • Use diluted sulfuric acid (stronger than meconic acid but gentle on alkaloids) to extract alkaloids in 6–10 repeated steps to maximize yield.
2. Precipitation of Alkaloids:
   • Add ammonium hydroxide or sodium carbonate to the extracted solution to precipitate alkaloids.
3. Purification & Separation:
   • Isolate morphine from other alkaloids (e.g., codeine, thebaine).
   • Further refine via crystallization or solvent extraction.

For a small scale use, it is not necessary to isolate morphine from the other compounds as they are also medically active.

How to make a simple opium tea

Before or after opium or seeds are harvested, the seed pods (and optionally, the flower petals) can be dried and stored. A simple opium tea can be made by steeping the dried pods in hot water like any other common herbal tea. Seed pods that have already had opium extracted from them will be notably less potent. While this tea can be made to be very potent, it is generally quite mild and is best used as a light pain killer for headaches, joint pains, and other minor pains and injuries.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Opium, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Morphine, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Laudanum, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).