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Opium Poppy

The opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) was known to humans before the time of the Greeks. In many cultures the plant has been considered an important medicine, used to treat pain and dysentery. The time and place of the origin of the opium poppy is a mystery. It probably arose in central Europe during the late Bronze Age and was taken southward into the Mediterranean region. It then spread eastward into the Orient, likely transported by Arab traders in the seventh century.

The opium poppy has been widely grown in southeast Asia, as well as in Afghanistan and Turkey. One of the most infamous areas of the world for opium poppies is the Golden Triangle, the region in southeast Asia where Burma, Laos, and Thailand meet. The poppy grows best at about 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) elevation. The fields are cleared by the slash- and-burn technique, in which the native plants are cut, dried, and burned in order to have a clear hillside for crops. The opium plant is an annual, and must be grown from seed each year. Often it is grown as a second crop during the rainy season, with the seeds being planted between maize (corn) plants in October, which provide protection to the young poppy seedlings. The maize is harvested and the old stems removed, allowing the poppies full sunlight and making it easier to weed. They grow to a height of about 1 meter (3 feet) in about three months. Flowers appear in December, varying in color from pure white to deep reddish-purple. The flower withers and the fruit, a capsule, begins to develop. In a week or so the capsule turns from green to slightly gray-green, and the latex is ready to harvest. The capsule is tapped with a special knife consisting of three to five razor-sharp blades, which cut fine slits in the fruit wall, allowing the milklike latex to ooze out. This latex contains the alkaloids for which the opium poppy is so well known. By the next day, it has congealed somewhat into a dark yellowish-brown mass, which is carefully scraped off and placed in a container. The dried latex is packaged and sold or further processed in a laboratory.

Opium poppy latex contains more than twenty-five different alkaloids, of which six are important to humans. Morphine is a powerful painkiller, narcotic, and stimulant. It is strongly addicting but critical in modern medicine. Heroin is actually synthesized from morphine by the addition of two acetyl groups. It is a much stronger painkiller, but is also much more addicting. It is not used medically and has become a serious social problem because it has been badly abused. Papaverine, present in small amounts, is an important muscle relaxant. Codeine, the most extensively used opium alkaloid, is frequently found in cough medicines and decongestants. It is much less addicting than morphine or heroin, but may be sleep inducing. Narcotine speeds up respiration, but is used very little. Thebaine produces spasms similar to those caused by strychnine, and is sometimes used in the treatment of heroin addiction.