'Home-brewed morphine' made possible

[Potoooooooo]

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32780624
Scientists have figured out how to brew morphine using the same kit used to make beer at home.

 

[Valjean]

Cool!
Better living through fermentation.

 

[tantric]

y'all know they sell opium poppy seeds at mal-wart, right? you can grow those, scratch the seed pod and get raw opium or dry all the plant material, do an acid-base extraction and isolate the raw alkaloids, with a significant percentage of morphine. now the process they are proposing is fantastic, isolating the entire biological path way, but this tech will be used to put those genes in plants other than poppies for the heroin trade. the cartels have already produced a pesticide resistant coca plant (so the black choppers can't kill it).

there are a few countries that seem to have 'dibs' on the legal poppy market, tasmania for example. early on it was proposed that the powers that be just buy the afghan opium crop and turn it into legal, needed drugs, but capitalism killed that. can you imagine the effect of a few factories in kabul and kandahar turning poppy paste into pharmaceutical morphine, dilaudid, etc? yes, some would hit the black market, which is *much* better than crude heroin in terms of harm reduction.

 

[Malintent]

y'all know they sell opium poppy seeds at mal-wart, right? you can grow those, scratch the seed pod and get raw opium or dry all the plant material, do an acid-base extraction and isolate the raw alkaloids, with a significant percentage of morphine. now the process they are proposing is fantastic, isolating the entire biological path way, but this tech will be used to put those genes in plants other than poppies for the heroin trade. the cartels have already produced a pesticide resistant coca plant (so the black choppers can't kill it).

there are a few countries that seem to have 'dibs' on the legal poppy market, tasmania for example. early on it was proposed that the powers that be just buy the afghan opium crop and turn it into legal, needed drugs, but capitalism killed that. can you imagine the effect of a few factories in kabul and kandahar turning poppy paste into pharmaceutical morphine, dilaudid, etc? yes, some would hit the black market, which is *much* better than crude heroin in terms of harm reduction.

Poppy seeds you can find in the US are from a non-opiate-producing variety. You can't get opium (or morphine, or heroine, or codeine - all opiates) from poppy plants or seeds in the US. .at least, not legally or commercially. Used to be (in like the 1970's) you could maybe weasel yourself out of a positive drug test by claiming you just ate half a dozen poppy seed bagels... but not anymore... not for decades. My father (a health provider in a related field) hears about failed attempts at this claim from time to time... and is my source.

There are a few places outside of the US where you can get viable poppy seeds that have not been modified... and you can order online. Check High Times magazine or the like for information. Also, you cannot just "dry out the plant material and harvest the opium". There is a specific process to cause the flower bulbs to 'bleed' resin, and that resin is harvested... not the plat material.

 

[rjh01]

It is only a matter of time before you can buy this on-line and then it would be pointless trying to keep morphine illegal.

 

[Valjean]

delete

 

[bilby]

It is only a matter of time before you can buy this on-line and then it would be pointless trying to keep morphine illegal.

You might think so; but right now it is very easy to obtain cannabis seeds and grow cannabis plants - in my part of the world, they grow like a weed, so all you really need to do is chuck the seeds in the ground and wait.

And yet cannabis is still illegal, and while prohibition does seem rather pointless, it is nevertheless still with us - at least in Queensland. Allowing cannabis plants to grow in my front yard would very quickly attract the attention of the QPS.

Insofar as there is any point in trying to keep morphine illegal now, an easy method to produce it would not change that point very much, if at all.

 

[rjh01]

It is only a matter of time before you can buy this on-line and then it would be pointless trying to keep morphine illegal.

You might think so; but right now it is very easy to obtain cannabis seeds and grow cannabis plants - in my part of the world, they grow like a weed, so all you really need to do is chuck the seeds in the ground and wait.

And yet cannabis is still illegal, and while prohibition does seem rather pointless, it is nevertheless still with us - at least in Queensland. Allowing cannabis plants to grow in my front yard would very quickly attract the attention of the QPS.

Insofar as there is any point in trying to keep morphine illegal now, an easy method to produce it would not change that point very much, if at all.

Yes, you can grow cannabis easily where you are but
1. This is not true everywhere
2. Try to grow it in a public space and I am sure a lot will get stolen.

Point 2 gives me an idea. Flood the region with plants. Plant it everywhere and see what happens.

 

[untermensche]

Unlike marijuana, morphine is highly addictive and can easily kill you.

 

[NobleSavage]

You might think so; but right now it is very easy to obtain cannabis seeds and grow cannabis plants - in my part of the world, they grow like a weed, so all you really need to do is chuck the seeds in the ground and wait.

And yet cannabis is still illegal, and while prohibition does seem rather pointless, it is nevertheless still with us - at least in Queensland. Allowing cannabis plants to grow in my front yard would very quickly attract the attention of the QPS.

Insofar as there is any point in trying to keep morphine illegal now, an easy method to produce it would not change that point very much, if at all.

Yes, you can grow cannabis easily where you are but
1. This is not true everywhere
2. Try to grow it in a public space and I am sure a lot will get stolen.

Point 2 gives me an idea. Flood the region with plants. Plant it everywhere and see what happens.

How about some GMO hybrid plants? We mix the THC genes with all kids of plants they can't easily outlaw; such as, corn, spinach, and soybeans.

 

[rjh01]

Unlike marijuana, morphine is highly addictive and can easily kill you.

Small correction. The difference between a dose that gives a person a high and a dose that kills is not that great. So as long as that person knows how much they are taking there is no danger.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, you can grow cannabis easily where you are but
1. This is not true everywhere
2. Try to grow it in a public space and I am sure a lot will get stolen.

Point 2 gives me an idea. Flood the region with plants. Plant it everywhere and see what happens.

How about some GMO hybrid plants? We mix the THC genes with all kids of plants they can't easily outlaw; such as, corn, spinach, and soybeans.

Great idea. Pity it is not easy to do.

 

[untermensche]

Small correction. The difference between a dose that gives a person a high and a dose that kills is not that great. So as long as that person knows how much they are taking there is no danger.

You have it backwards.

The closer a lethal dose is to a therapeutic dose, the more dangerous the drug.

Marijuana really has no known lethal dose. It is an extremely safe drug.

Morphine is an extremely dangerous drug and people kill themselves by accident all the time with it.

 

[rjh01]

Small correction. The difference between a dose that gives a person a high and a dose that kills is not that great. So as long as that person knows how much they are taking there is no danger.

You have it backwards.

The closer a lethal dose is to a therapeutic dose, the more dangerous the drug.

Marijuana really has no known lethal dose. It is an extremely safe drug.

Morphine is an extremely dangerous drug and people kill themselves by accident all the time with it.

Do you have any evidence that "people kill themselves by accident all the time with it [morphine]"? I am not talking about illegally obtained drugs, but prescribed drugs.

The main problem with illegal drugs is the fact that they are illegal. The quality control with these drugs is poor. If people could obtain legal sources with good quality control then most of the dangers would not be there.

 

[tantric]

y'all know they sell opium poppy seeds at mal-wart, right? you can grow those, scratch the seed pod and get raw opium or dry all the plant material, do an acid-base extraction and isolate the raw alkaloids, with a significant percentage of morphine. now the process they are proposing is fantastic, isolating the entire biological path way, but this tech will be used to put those genes in plants other than poppies for the heroin trade. the cartels have already produced a pesticide resistant coca plant (so the black choppers can't kill it).

there are a few countries that seem to have 'dibs' on the legal poppy market, tasmania for example. early on it was proposed that the powers that be just buy the afghan opium crop and turn it into legal, needed drugs, but capitalism killed that. can you imagine the effect of a few factories in kabul and kandahar turning poppy paste into pharmaceutical morphine, dilaudid, etc? yes, some would hit the black market, which is *much* better than crude heroin in terms of harm reduction.

Poppy seeds you can find in the US are from a non-opiate-producing variety. You can't get opium (or morphine, or heroine, or codeine - all opiates) from poppy plants or seeds in the US. .at least, not legally or commercially. Used to be (in like the 1970's) you could maybe weasel yourself out of a positive drug test by claiming you just ate half a dozen poppy seed bagels... but not anymore... not for decades. My father (a health provider in a related field) hears about failed attempts at this claim from time to time... and is my source.

There are a few places outside of the US where you can get viable poppy seeds that have not been modified... and you can order online. Check High Times magazine or the like for information. Also, you cannot just "dry out the plant material and harvest the opium". There is a specific process to cause the flower bulbs to 'bleed' resin, and that resin is harvested... not the plat material.

BS. i checked erowid and rhodium. dude, i once ran an MDMA lab - and sold the results at cost or gave them away, just to do my part in the war on (some) drug users. meaning i know my drugs - not bathtub style, but full on glassware, lab reagents, etc. until very recently you could go to the craft store and buy dried poppy pods, make tea and get high. all poppies have morphine and codeine, though the selectively bred ones have more. you can buy those seeds for entheogen suppliers, i did at one point. get 'hens and chicks' - it's a mutant strain that makes multiple pods per stalk.

method one is traditional - you have a tool that has three razor blades and scratch the pod, then collect the latex the next morning. that's raw opium. the modern way is to harvest the whole plant and chemically extract all the alkaloids, via an acid-base extraction.

read opium made easy, a modern post about garden opium.

also, addicts almost always die from the cut. once you're a addicted, you can take a 5x overdose and survive. but when you think you have heroin, and try a 15mg dose but instead you have fentanyl (china white, you can buy fentanyl analogs that are just as potent from chemical manufacturers in china over the internet, no i won't tell except MAYBE if you're in chronic pain) where a good dose is 200 MICROgrams, yeah, you'll die.

in addition, there's a tree that grows in SE asia the leaves of which contain a natural opiod. it's called kratom and you can buy the extract over the net, it's not even illegal.

 

[crispy]

Guess jenkem will have some serious competition now

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You have it backwards.

The closer a lethal dose is to a therapeutic dose, the more dangerous the drug.

Marijuana really has no known lethal dose. It is an extremely safe drug.

Morphine is an extremely dangerous drug and people kill themselves by accident all the time with it.

Do you have any evidence that "people kill themselves by accident all the time with it [morphine]"? I am not talking about illegally obtained drugs, but prescribed drugs.

The main problem with illegal drugs is the fact that they are illegal. The quality control with these drugs is poor. If people could obtain legal sources with good quality control then most of the dangers would not be there.

Variable purity of street drugs is a big part of why people kill themselves by accident with morphine!

(The other big cause is people who were cut off--say, in jail--and then take a normal dose when they get a source of supply.)

 

[untermensche]

You have it backwards.

The closer a lethal dose is to a therapeutic dose, the more dangerous the drug.

Marijuana really has no known lethal dose. It is an extremely safe drug.

Morphine is an extremely dangerous drug and people kill themselves by accident all the time with it.

Do you have any evidence that "people kill themselves by accident all the time with it [morphine]"? I am not talking about illegally obtained drugs, but prescribed drugs.

The main problem with illegal drugs is the fact that they are illegal. The quality control with these drugs is poor. If people could obtain legal sources with good quality control then most of the dangers would not be there.

Here's just 2 years of deaths in Virginia. This was 2004 to 2006.

In Virginia alone there were 129 deaths from Morphine in this time period, and the problem is worse now. Morphine is an extremely dangerous drug. To deny this is to not know much about drugs.

http://www.vdh.state.va.us/medExam/documents/2009/pdfs/IllegalDrugs.pdf

And death by heroin is really death by morphine since the effect of heroin is because it is metabolized to morphine in the brain.

 

[tantric]

In Virginia alone there were 129 deaths from Morphine in this time period, and the problem is worse now. Morphine is an extremely dangerous drug. To deny this is to not know much about drugs.

http://www.vdh.state.va.us/medExam/documents/2009/pdfs/IllegalDrugs.pdf

And death by heroin is really death by morphine since the effect of heroin is because it is metabolized to morphine in the brain.

know this from wikipedia on 'therpeutic index':

The therapeutic index varies widely among substances: most forgiving among the opioid analgesics is remifentanyl, which offers a therapeutic index of 33,000:1; tetrahydrocannabinol, a sedative and analgesic of herbal origin (cannabis), has a safe therapeutic index of 1000:1, while diazepam, a benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotic and skeletal muscle relaxant has a less-forgiving index of 100:1 and morphine, a sedative, antidepressant, and analgesic also of herbal origin (genus Papaver) has an index of 70:1[3] (which, however, is still considered very safe).

Less safe are cocaine, a stimulant and local anaesthetic, and ethanol (colloquially, the "alcohol" in alcoholic beverages), a widely available sedative consumed world-wide – the therapeutic indices for these substances are 15:1 and 10:1, respectively.[4] Even less-safe are drugs such as digoxin, a cardiac glycoside; its therapeutic index is approximately 2:1.[5] Other examples of drugs with a narrow therapeutic range, which may require drug monitoring both to achieve therapeutic levels and to minimize toxicity, include: paracetamol (acetaminophen),

morphine's therapeutic index is 400:1. street dope is VERY dangerous, but it's not because of the morphine. likewise hydrocodone - you'll OD from the tylenol in the pills before the drug will kill you, especially an addict. i researched this VERY carefully before i addicted myself to morphine so i could write like coleridge and w. burroughs - i was a scientist before that.

 

[untermensche]

know this from wikipedia on 'therpeutic index':

The therapeutic index varies widely among substances: most forgiving among the opioid analgesics is remifentanyl, which offers a therapeutic index of 33,000:1; tetrahydrocannabinol, a sedative and analgesic of herbal origin (cannabis), has a safe therapeutic index of 1000:1, while diazepam, a benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotic and skeletal muscle relaxant has a less-forgiving index of 100:1 and morphine, a sedative, antidepressant, and analgesic also of herbal origin (genus Papaver) has an index of 70:1[3] (which, however, is still considered very safe).

Less safe are cocaine, a stimulant and local anaesthetic, and ethanol (colloquially, the "alcohol" in alcoholic beverages), a widely available sedative consumed world-wide – the therapeutic indices for these substances are 15:1 and 10:1, respectively.[4] Even less-safe are drugs such as digoxin, a cardiac glycoside; its therapeutic index is approximately 2:1.[5] Other examples of drugs with a narrow therapeutic range, which may require drug monitoring both to achieve therapeutic levels and to minimize toxicity, include: paracetamol (acetaminophen),

morphine's therapeutic index is 400:1. street dope is VERY dangerous, but it's not because of the morphine. likewise hydrocodone - you'll OD from the tylenol in the pills before the drug will kill you, especially an addict. i researched this VERY carefully before i addicted myself to morphine so i could write like coleridge and w. burroughs - i was a scientist before that.

First you ask for death statistics, then you proceed to totally ignore them. If you looked you would have seen the most dangerous drug is cocaine. But that doesn't make morphine safe.

And most accidental morphine deaths, and there are thousands every year, just in the US, are from prescription morphine.

And as I said, most heroin deaths are really morphine deaths.

I agree, if we totally ignore all the deaths from morphine we can pretend it is not an extremely dangerous drug.

 

[tantric]

know this from wikipedia on 'therpeutic index':



morphine's therapeutic index is 400:1. street dope is VERY dangerous, but it's not because of the morphine. likewise hydrocodone - you'll OD from the tylenol in the pills before the drug will kill you, especially an addict. i researched this VERY carefully before i addicted myself to morphine so i could write like coleridge and w. burroughs - i was a scientist before that.

First you ask for death statistics, then you proceed to totally ignore them. If you looked you would have seen the most dangerous drug is cocaine. But that doesn't make morphine safe.

And most accidental morphine deaths, and there are thousands every year, just in the US, are from prescription morphine.

And as I said, most heroin deaths are really morphine deaths.

I agree, if we totally ignore all the deaths from morphine we can pretend it is not an extremely dangerous drug.

i'm explaining the therapeutic index, which tell you that a lethal dose of morphine is 400x a useful dose, giving it a much wider margin of error than many OTC drugs. yes, people die from morphine, but they die because its illegal. they don't know basic information about it, they can't determine the concentration or purity, plus, duh, addiction driving them to do more and more. tylenol isn't addictive, but by FAR nicotine is the most lethal drug, followed by alcohol. now, do you want to do this in per capita deaths among people who actually use, or totals? yet we have socially normalized nicotine, there are basically NO accidental deaths. why can't we do the same with other drugs? this is the most commonly used chart:



and that's for street heroin. yes, its dangerous, but with the stats you report, you can't factor out the illegal factor and i can't see legal morphine being worse than nicotine. furthermore, prescription deaths from morphine include suicides and undercover euthanasia cases. technically, my mother died from a morphine OD, that's what the paper said, even though her rib cage had collapsed from bone cancer.