China
Africa
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Catalog of Herbs
Published in James A. Duke, Handbook of Medicinal Herbs, 2018
A handsome ornamental perennial now of greater interest as a source of thebaine, a medicinally important alkaloid. Thebaine can be rather readily converted to codeine, a widely used analgesic and antitussive, but it is not so readily converted into the drug of abuse, heroin. Naloxone, an important narcotic antagonist derived from thebaine, is administered to infants borne of heroin addicts, lest the children experience withdrawal.17 Watson et al.2,6 showed that naloxone produced decreases in auditory hallucinations in some schizophrenic patients. Faden and Holaday report the use of naloxone to treat shock following acute blood loss in conscious rats.237 Perhaps even more interesting is the report of the induction of copulatory behavior in sexually inactive rats by naloxone.238 My Bihai driver in Iran told me that his grandfather, like many other shepherds, would smoke the “bracteum” (congealed latex) when he could not get opium (now a capital offense in Iran)! Whole seeds are used in the Kurdistan for baked goods and confectionary. Seeds can be used in lieu of opium poppyseed for food and as a source of oil. But in 1977, the Chemical Marketing Reporter110 stated that the Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator announced that the agency would not authorize domestic commercial production.
Historical overview
Published in G. Hussein Rassool, Alcohol and Drug Misuse, 2017
Opium is an extract of the exudates derived from seedpods of the opium poppy. The opium plant produces lots of small black seeds called poppy-seeds. Poppy-seeds can be ground into flour; used in salad-dressings; added to sauces as flavouring or thickening-agents and the oil can be expressed and used in cooking. Poppy-heads are infused to make a traditional sedative drink. Opium is a complex chemical mixture containing sugars, proteins, fats, water, meconic acid, plant wax, latex, gums, ammonia, sulphuric and lactic acids and numerous alkaloids, most notably morphine (10%–15%), codeine (1%–3%), noscapine (4%–8%), papaverine (1%–3%) and thebaine (1%–2%).
Abies Spectabilis (D. Don) G. Don (Syn. A. Webbiana Lindl.) Family: Coniferae
Published in L.D. Kapoor, Handbook of Ayurvedic Medicinal Plants, 2017
Dwarkanath692 described the properties of opium from Ayurvedic literature as tonic, antiphlegmatic, aphrodisiac, cleanses bodily impurities, binds the bowels, causes biliousness, nervous excitement, mental confusion, and promotes dryness. Poppy seeds were described as heavy, tonic, aphrodisiac, promotes luster of the body, enhances capacity to perform muscular work, allays nervous excitement, and causes the production of phlegm. Poppy capsules are reported dry, cool in potency, light, bitter and astringent in taste; promotes taste. They cause nervous excitement, garrulousness, intoxication, bind the bowels, cause dryness of the body, mental confusion, impotency, and promote the utilization of nutrition by the tissue.
Opioid exposure associated with poppy consumption reported to poison control centers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Published in Clinical Toxicology, 2021
Eva Greenthal, Peter Lurie, Suzanne Doyon
Contaminated poppy seeds can pose serious risks to consumers. Such risks are exacerbated when consumers brew large amounts of seeds into tea, adding acidic ingredients such as lemon juice that help to extract the opiates. This practice is sometimes used for the purpose of intoxication or to provide claimed health benefits including the treatment of pain, anxiety, and opioid withdrawal [6]. Recipes for poppy seed tea on Mercola.com and ChewTheWorld.com recommend combining 200–300 g of poppy seeds with 400 mL of water [7,8]. A 2018 study analyzing the opiate content of 22 samples of poppy seed tea made with poppy ingredients purchased online in the U.S. found up to 2,788 mg morphine per kg seeds after extraction, with a mean and median of 480.8 and 97.3 mg/kg morphine, respectively [1]. If prepared as poppy tea using the 200–300 g recommended online, five to eight of the 22 samples would provide doses of more than 50 mg morphine per 400 mL recipe. A dose of 50 morphine mg equivalents per day has been demonstrated to increase the risk of overdose among patients prescribed morphine for pain treatment [9].
What the lab can and cannot do: clinical interpretation of drug testing results
Published in Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, 2020
Bhushan M. Kapur, Katarina Aleksa
The interpretation of the analytical results needs to be carefully considered as there are many influencing variables, even a normal diet. For example, poppy seed ingestion [101] can result in an analytically true positive opiate result, although it is a false positive for drug use. Other variables include urine SpGr and UCr, pH, Na and Cl, temperature, glutaraldehyde, nitrite, and fingerprinting. Another important consideration is sample tampering and adulteration.