Opium basics

[Alfa]

Please post info and questions on the basics ofopium use here. Ways of use, Dosage, Background, toxicity, etc...

Reputation Comments on this post:

One likes that you area for safety first.

[MrJim]

This is from the DEA website:
The poppy plant, Papaver somniferum, is the source for non-synthetic narcotics. It was grown in the Mediterranean region as early as 5000 B.C., and has since been cultivated in a number of countries throughout the world. The milky fluid that seeps from incisions in the unripe seed pod of this poppy has, since ancient times, been scraped by hand and air-dried to produce what is known as opium. A more modern method of harvesting is by the industrial poppy straw process of extracting alkaloids from the mature dried plant. The extract may be in liquid, solid, or powder form, although most poppy straw concentrate available commercially is a fine brownish powder. More than 500 tons of opium or equivalents in poppy straw concentrate are legally imported into the United States annually for legitimate medical use.

There were no legal restrictions on the importation or use of opium until the early 1900s. In the United States, the unrestricted availability of opium, the influx of opium-smoking immigrants from East Asia, and the invention of the hypodermic needle contributed to the more severe variety of compulsive drug abuse seen at the turn of the 20th century. In those days, medicines often contained opium without any warning label. Today, there are state, federal, and international laws governing the production and distribution of narcotic substances.
Although opium is used in the form of paregoric to treat diarrhea, most opium imported into the United States is broken down into its alkaloid constituents. These alkaloids are divided into two distinct chemical classes, phenanthrenes and isoquinolines. The principal phenanthrenes are morphine, codeine, and thebaine, while the isoquinolines have no significant central nervous system effects and are not regulated under the CSA.

[chronicpain247]

Originally Posted by MrJim

This is from the DEA website:
There were no legal restrictions on the importation or use of opium until the early 1900s. In the United States, the unrestricted availability of opium, the influx of opium-smoking immigrants from East Asia, and the invention of the hypodermic needle contributed to the more severe variety of compulsive drug abuse seen at the turn of the 20th century. In those days, medicines often contained opium without any warning label. Today, there are state, federal, and international laws governing the production and distribution of narcotic substances.

This is what kills me. Ultimatly Opium and Cocaine ends up being banned in the US mostly due to racism. Opium prohibition gets pushed through congress due to "claims" that Asian men in San Fran are "luring" white women in to dens and using the opium to seduce them or sedate them enough to take advantage of them. Cocaine's prohibition it passed due to similar propaganda about black men in the south getting hopped up on Cocaine and losing control of themselves in a sexual frenzy and rapping and ravaging white women.
You see the truth is that is the American war on drugs was initially fostered by the ridiculous insecurities and racist stereotypes of white men trying to preserve the sanctity of white women.
I am sure that even if this was not the case, that eventually drug prohibition would have come to pass anyway, but maybe not as soon as it did and for more legitimate reasons.

Reputation Comments on this post:

interesting piece of history on the US war on drugs

[MrJim]

con't...

Morphine is the principal constituent of opium and ranges in concentration from 4 to 21 percent. Commercial opium is standardized to contain 10-percent morphine. In the United States, a small percentage of the morphine obtained from opium is used directly (about 20 tons); the remaining is converted to codeine and other derivatives (about 110 tons). Morphine is one of the most effective drugs known for the relief of severe pain and remains the standard against which new analgesics are measured. Like most narcotics, the use of morphine has increased significantly in recent years. Since 1998, there has been about a two-fold increase in the use of morphine products in the United States.
Morphine is marketed under generic and brand name products including MS-Contin®, Oramorph SR®, MSIR®, Roxanol®, Kadian®, and RMS®. Morphine is used parenterally (by injection) for preoperative sedation, as a supplement to anesthesia, and for analgesia. It is the drug of choice for relieving the pain of myocardial infarction and for its cardiovascular effects in the treatment of acute pulmonary edema. Traditionally, morphine was almost exclusively used by injection. Today, morphine is marketed in a variety of forms, including oral solutions, immediate and sustained-release tablets and capsules, suppositories, and injectable preparations. In addition, the availability of high-concentration morphine preparations (i.e., 20-mg/ml oral solutions, 25-mg/ml injectable solutions, and 200-mg sustained-release tablets) partially reflects the use of this substance for chronic pain management in opiate-tolerant patients.



Codeine is the most widely used, naturally occurring narcotic in medical treatment in the world. This alkaloid is found in opium in concentrations ranging from 0.7 to 2.5 percent. However, most codeine used in the United States is produced from morphine. Codeine is also the starting material for the production of two other narcotics, dihydrocodeine and hydrocodone. Codeine is medically prescribed for the relief of moderate pain and cough suppression. Compared to morphine, codeine produces less analgesia, sedation, and respiratory depression, and is usually taken orally. It is made into tablets either alone (Schedule II) or in combination with aspirin or acetaminophen (i.e., Tylenol with Codeine®, Schedule III). As a cough suppressant, codeine is found in a number of liquid preparations (these products are in Schedule V). Codeine is also used to a lesser extent as an injectable solution for the treatment of pain. Codeine products are diverted from legitimate sources and are encountered on the illicit market.

Thebaine, a minor constituent of opium, is controlled in Schedule II of the CSA as well as under international law. Although chemically similar to both morphine and codeine, thebaine produces stimulatory rather than depressant effects. Thebaine is not used therapeutically, but is converted into a variety of substances including oxycodone, oxymorphone, nalbuphine, naloxone, naltrexone, and buprenorphine. The United States ranks first in the world in thebaine utilization.




Opiate-based syrups were once popular for treating children with teething and dysentery. </CENTER>

[bogumil]

You should eat 0.5 g when you use O the first time. About 2g are letal. Edited by: bogumil

[Muirner]

I have personally enjoyed smoking opium. I liked to smoke black tar because this gave me the best high. I would usually smoke about 1/2 a gram to a gram depending on how many people. If there was 5 of us 1/2a gram could work good. I know that black tar opium is synthetic but it's a good time none the less. You want to sit back and just enjoy life, I never wanted to do much as far as movement because i felt heavy and lazy.

I have smoked personlly probably about an oz or two of black tar. and i've also smoked red rock, wich is supposidly fake. But who knows


Muirner

[armatitumor]

It kind of frightens me that a good starting dose is so close to a lethal dose.

[Ketamina]

SWIM is one of those people who seems to always end up with stomach cramps and often vomits with morphine. However, that is via injection (IM) and SWIM now has some of those little grey morphine tablets. As SWIM mentioned in another similar post, SWIM would imagine taking tablets orally would induce the same symptoms.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks to avoid the stomach cramps and vomitting? SWIM read drinking milk with them to help avoid it, but while milk has an immediate soothing feeling, after a while (when the milk is being digested) it actually can worsen stomach conditions in people with ulcers or sensitive stomachs in general. SWIM doesn't have a typical sensitive stomach, but SWIM also hasn't had a drink of milk in over two years, to aide in better nutrition (a long story for another day on a more appropriate forum).

Anyway, any ideas, tips and tricks to avoid the stomach problems would add a lot to this thread.

[sands of time]

Here is some info on the neurologic effects of morphine...

The brain has what are called opiate receptors. Neurotransmitters called endorphins or endogonous (sp?) morphine fit in these receptors, thus providing pain releif and euphoria in high doses. A runners high could be an example of a high dose of endorphins. Morphine is chemically similar to endorphins so it acts on the same receptors. When the body gets used to a steady dose of morphine, the production of endorphins drops dramatically. When morphine is not available, a withdrawl occurs until the brain begins producing endorphins again.

[rachamim18]

Well, whan I was in Thailand and Mynamarr the locals used to take a pea sized piece of raw opium, roll it in various phrmaceutical opioid powder, then just plop it into an opium pipe and charge naive tourists an arm and a leg.

I am heading to Cambodia in a matter of days and expect to take a jog up to Laos. Laos is currently the oinly place on the planet where you can find an actual opium den in operation. In Laos the owner of the den will heat the raw opium over a candle just until it is pliable and able to be molded. they then rollit in headache powders [such as "Goody's"] in the belief that doing so prevents users from getting the all to common post smoking headache. After the powder is kneaded into the gum, they again heat it just a bit and fashion it into cones [such as incense cones] and let it it sit for a minute or so., they then dip the "needle" into the cone and drop it onto the "bowl" ONLY after the bowl has been thoroughly preheated over the same candle. You see, you do not apply a flame to the gum. It is like smoking freebase coke, you heat the pipe and then drop in the target.

[genaro]

some more opium production info:

Considering one capsule will yeld from 20 to 50mg raw opium when incised, and considering one plant bear some 15-20 capsules, then it's not interesting to cultivate less than 25 to 50 plants which would allow one to collect 7.5 to 50g of raw opium by incising capsules
...of course, once capsules have been incised on several occasions and all the raw opium from a plant have been collected, one can still crush the remaining capsules from that plant and extract it to get some low quality opium ('opium jam'), unfortunately, I couldn't say how much low grade opium he would be able to get by doing this (as most of it will have already been collected through incisions preceding extraction).
Now what I can say is how much low grade opium you can get by extracting all the capsules of a single plant without having incised any:
3 to 5g of 'opium jam' were extracted from 20 capsules (that hadn't been precedently incised to collect any raw opium from these, that's why the 'opium jam' yield was important).

after some experimenting with opium jam, it turned out that common oral dose is 0.5g (good dose to start with), but some people will rather eat 1g (I've seen people taking a bit more, but I think this should be avoided).
It can also be smoked but it's much less potent this way.

So when you're growing opium, you will have to decide whether you're going to incise capsules to get raw opium and then extract these to get some more remaining 'opium jam' from these, or if you're going to directly extract capsules to get 'opium jam' only (no incisions beeing made to collect raw oium first).

note that collecting raw opium will allow you to transform it into high quality refined opium (through a simple water or alcohol extraction) which is the best for smoking. While opium jam is probably more suitable for oral use rather than smoking.

[IHrtHalucingens]

SWIM recently acquired some "opium" it is brownish, and kind of soft and moist, looks alot like fresh hash. It smells a little like air freshner or something of that sort. SWIM smoked a gram of it and got the effect of maybe 40mg oxycodone, that seems like a weak high for a gram. my questions are does real opium smell sweet and fresh? And for someone with no tolerance to any drugs at all what would be a strong dose? keep in mind SWIM has done many drugs in the past so he knows what to expect and how to be safe, but he can only do drugs once a month and he wants to fully enjoy them when he can use. Oh and is this true:

Originally Posted by genaro

but some people will rather eat 1g (I've seen people taking a bit more, but I think this should be avoided).
It can also be smoked but it's much less potent this way.

.

Would swim be better off eating it than smoking it?
Thanks
04-28-2007 06:09 PM

[I'mTheGod]

Could SWIM smoke opium in an oil pipe? That's essentailly just a pipe methamphetamine is smoked out of. It vaporizes that material being smoked. Thanks for your help.

[rachamim18]

Black tar is not opium and it is not synthetic. It is simply heroin, from Mexico. Heroin is of course semi synthetic. Opium is converted into morphine, then acetylated into heroin. With tar however, there is no imtermediate conversion to morphine. the cook just acetylates the raw opium into heroin. It can be smoked due to its latex nature but is nothing at all like smoking opium. Briefly, opium has over 40 known alkaloids in it while illicit heroin might have 3 at best and usually only has 2.

[mikey york]

How do they process the raw opium taken from the plant, and turn it into the stuff you smoke ?

[anabolictrio]

you don't really need to process the raw material taken from the plant.
Just milk,collect raw opium and let it dry under a small fan for some times.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good answer

[genaro]

what would be a good (strong) ORAL dose of raw opium for someone with no tolerance to opiates ? Maybe 1/2g I guess....maybe a little more?

What would be a good SMOKED dose ?

I heard one would need more when smoking than when ingesting raw opium, is that true? I was convinced that any substance should be twice as powerful when smoked so oral dose would always be twice higher than smoked dose, but ther was this text somewhere on erowid stating that you need more when smoking.

How many times more powerful is refined opium compared to raw opium ? Twice stronger maybe?



By the way, here are some opium facts:
Usually, a single poppy capsule should yield 20 to 50mg raw opium (and one single plant will give you some 15-20 capsules) ...but once the opium has been collected by incising the capsule on several occasions, you can still use the dried plant and capsule (which still contain some morphine) to make some extraction (with water or drinkable alcohol) which will give you some kind of low grade opium (which is known as "opium jam" or "rachacha").
Note that raw opium can be turned into refined opium by a simple water (or drinkable alcohol) extraction.
Opium contains 8 to 15% morphine ...but also 4-8% noscapine, 0.8-2.5% codeine (aka methylmorphine), 0.5-2.5% papaverine , 0.5-2% thebaine (and a few other minors alkaloids)
85 to 96% alcohol (drinkable!) is probably a very good solvant for any opium refining (to be sure use 250mL for some 6g of raw opium)...using boiling alcohol would increase solubility.
According to the Merck Index, morphine melting point is 197°C (I would have thought the mp was lower, anyone can confirm it?)
So raw opium is collected from opium poppies (papaver somniferum). Morphine can be extracted from opium. And heroine (aka diacetylmorphine) is synthetised from morphine.
Avoid mixing alcohol with opium (or with any other opiates) as opiate+ alcohol = vomitting + risk of respiratory depression (which can leads to coma and death if one would drink too much alcohol with the opium, so if you really wanna drink stick to one single beer). Also don't ever mix opiates with depressants such as benzos, sedatives, tranquillizers, sleep aid and such. Also note that opium is addictive (all opiates are), regular users will devellop tolerance to the stuff and some strong mental and phsyical addiction (opium withdrawal does exist, and it's said to be a hard time) so try not using opium too regularly.

Reputation Comments on this post:

interesting facts!

[Alicia]

Swims boy suggest you place dried opium (thats scraped from pod) on foil,
start with a small matchstick sized piece heat the foil underneath not so its touching it as it sizzles suck up the vapors from a straw, I have no idea regarding eating it, and seems more risky. As for withdrawal it does hurt like hell flu like symptoms not nice.

[dokter_bob]

Papaver somniferum is the one you want....collecting the latex is a funny job but you need sooooooooooooooooooooo many poppies! I've yealt about 40/50 poppies to get as little as 2 gram raw opium....


By the way...wenn you cut the poppies and the latex is coming out in drops,They're called 'tears of demeter' (when they turned brown)
They're called like that because when demeter lost her daughter persephone to hades, she went to find releave for her pain in the cave of morpheus, where he gave her poppies to comfort her...

Mythologie learnes a great deal about the use of a lot of drugplants.

cheers

[dspacemonkey]

[QUOTE=dokter_bob;142138]Papaver somniferum is the one you want....collecting the latex is a funny job but you need sooooooooooooooooooooo many poppies! I've yealt about 40/50 poppies to get as little as 2 gram raw opium....


Although SWIM has not completely read every thread reply is this quote true?

In other places he has read that it is possible to get 1/2 gram from 1 papaver somniferum bulb when milked.

Is it possible that certain methods of cut produce better/worse yields or that for example location or other enviromental factors produce different results?

On average what is the amount of opium produced per pod when milked by a skilled worker?

[Bajeda]

To the person who asked about the smoked dose, it varies depending on the effects you want.

It depends on the opium, but 1/2 gram is good to put in a joint with some cannabis to get 5 people high and euphoric. 2 grams smoked will do a few people pretty well.

You can go even higher but swim doesn't recommend it as it goes from a nice giddy euphoric high to a mind crushing lethargy where the user is passing out and having trouble controlling their body. If you want the total narcotic high just keep smoking bowls until you feel at the level you want to be. Swim recommends just mixing fairly small amounts with marijuana for maximum enjoyment however.

[themidnite1]

does SWIY watch Deadwood? Laudanum? Real popular in the 1800's and going WAY back further. Bottle of dope? Pure opium they would use a dropper a mix with water and drink.
Bag of dope? Pure opium, put THAT in their pipe and smoke it.
Not too much info, but DW is quite historically accurate. SIGH....all that was legal and cheap back then.
SWIM has never tried opium, but would love once chance to smoke a pipe.

[Taren]

Swim wants to know what the best thing to do with poppy pods is, like, for maximum potency. He has some, and very likely a decent supply for the next couple months. He also wants to know whether he should cut them while they're still on the plant, and then come back to get the sap, or take off the seed pods and then cut them, or do something with the whole seed pods or what?

And is there anything he can do without fancy equipment or expensive chemicals that will put it into an injectable form? Swim likes needles.

[jmalanni]

This is gonna seem like a noobish question but what exactly is opium? Does it feel like oxycodone? If so how much opium would I have to eat/smoke to get the same feeling as 40mg oxycodone plugged? Assuming I have a minor tolerance.

[JarvyJarvison]

Originally Posted by jmalanni

This is gonna seem like a noobish question but what exactly is opium? Does it feel like oxycodone? If so how much opium would I have to eat/smoke to get the same feeling as 40mg oxycodone plugged? Assuming I have a minor tolerance.

Opium is the dried latex extracted from the pod of the poppy plant after it has bloomed and shed its blossoms. It contains the active alkaloids morphine, thebaine, codeine, and others. There's no way to tell how much one would have to smoke or eat to get the effects of "40 mg oxycodone plugged." SWIM doesn't put anything in his ass (other than toilet paper) so he can't take that into account but from what he tells me he'd have to smoke a lot of opium to get those kind of effects and it still wont feel the same. As always, start small and move up slowly.