Pharmacology - Very interesting read for those interested in poppies.

[bpilgrim70]

AFOAF is very interested in pod tea. She has been researching this topic and recently found a very interesting article related to the amount of morphine and codeine that one can extract from poppy straw. I thought many of you would be interested in this article also.
The link is here- nevermind I don't have the right to post links yet I guess. LOL

You can google this to find it yourself if you like (it will be a PDF file)-

Morphine and codeine in the water extract of poppy straw



Here is an excerpt from the most interesting part of the article if you don't wish to read the whole thing.

Study 2: Laboratory analysis of water extract of poppy
straw
Laboratory analyses were conducted on the water extract
of poppy straw as a means of verifying and estimating the
concentration of morphine and codeine in the extract. The
poppy straw was bought from the local market for chemical
analysis. Tap water was used for preparing the extract
in order to mimic the natural conditions under which drug
users prepare the extract. A high-performance liquid chromatographic
(HPLC) technique was employed to estimate
the concentration of morphine and codeine in the extract.
A glass of distilled water (200 ml) was used for overnight
(16 h) soaking of 7.5 g of poppy straw. The water extract was
collected by filtration and then washed with another 200 ml
of water. This was made ammonical with 3ml of liquor ammonia to release organic morphine and codeine from their
salt forms. The ammonical solution was extracted with 3 × 100 ml of chloroform and 3×100 ml of chloroform–ethanol
mixture (3:1). The organic extract was washed and dried
over anhydrous sodium sulphate. The chloroform extract
was collected by filtration and the sodium sulphate residue
was washed with 5×200 ml of chloroform. The chloroform
was removed by distillation to obtain the organic extract
which contained both morphine and codeine. One hundred
millilitres of 1N alkali (NaOH) was added to separate morphine
from codeine and the codeine was removed from the
alkaline solution by 3×100 ml of chloroform extraction. The
alkaline aqueous layer was acidified with dilute hydrochloric
acid. This was subsequently made ammonical to extract and
estimate quantity of morphine (3.1). To estimate codeine,
the chloroform extract was dried over anhydrous sodium
sulphate and distilled and processed as described above.
The poppy straw residue remaining in the glass was boiled
with 200 ml of distilled water for 5 minutes as practised by
the drug users. The hot water extract was processed in a similar
way to the methods described above. Table 3 provides
the results obtained from laboratory analysis which gives
the concentration of morphine and codeine in poppy straw
extract.

Table 3
Concentration of morphine and codeinea by HPLCb in the water extract
of poppy straw
Alkaloids Room
temperature
water extractd
Boiling water extract of residual
poppy straw after removal of room
temperature extract
Morphine 3.308 mg
Codeine 10.306 mg


From this Data it seems my friends friend is getting about 21mg morphine and 30mg Codeine from their dose of aprox 21g poppy pod powder. Does this seem right???

Does anybody have any other data they can add to this relating to other alkaloids extracted from pods?

Mainly I am interested to know why the effect of pods last sooo much longer than an equivalent dose of oral morphine sulfate or codeine sulfate.

I'd prefer real scientific data as I have read other posts that make guesses such as it may be the other alkaloids inhibiting metabolism or that the other alkaloids potentiate the morphine etc. But I have no REAL evidence to back this up. Just opinions. Can anybody send me a link to scientific data or point me in the right direction here? Thanks

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Very interesting information. Might help people with dosing.
	Good info here, upload the file to the archieves here and there'll be more rep in your future