Could Genetic Modification of Poppies Solve Afghan Heroin Problem?

[SteveGrenard]

The current issue of The Scientist (see ref below) has an interesting article on poppy cultivation and genetic modification of the poppy plant.

With 40% of the world’s legal medicinal opium production centered in Tasmania, Australia,
plant scientists there were working on transgenic poppies for, among other things, use as a bio-diesel fuel. The article cited below points out that poppies have very oily seeds, even as much as canola. And transgenics could improve on that oil content. This is being proposed as an ideal solution to the Afghan opium crop, turning it into biodiesel fuel instead of illicit heroin.

Unfortunately the government of Tasmania in its opposition against genetic modification of plants has been stifling efforts in that direction. Tasman operations in this respect have according to the blog ground to a halt even though genetic modification of poppies holds out promise to also provide natural antimicrobials, anticancer and antimalarials.

Reference:

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54320/

[fuelair]

We don neede no dam genitic stuf we tu smart tu get on thit rode to helll!!
(sihnd) Tasmaniak

[robinson]

Most of the worlds legal opium comes form India. Now we know where the rest of it is grown.

I doubt anyone growing opium is going to switch to fuel, unless it pays as well.

[quarky]

I'd like to know, to what extent illegally grown poppies are supplying a food source for those whom grow them?
I did a bit of research on poppy seeds, and nutritionly, they are up there with sesame and sunflower seeds.
Also, honeybees work the blossoms for honey.
The immature leaves could also supply some valuable nutrients.

I've never read an account of these positive benifits of the illegal crop, but can imagine that it is considerable.
Any data on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

[BenBurch]

What a STUPID and ridiculous idea! I mean this is really worthy of one of those faux science awards that makes fun of it...

Afghani farmers could at any time have grown an oil crop!

An oil crop has a market, and they know how to sell into it.

But an oil crop pays them almost nothing compared to what you can make with opium.

And unless you can somehow remove the desire for that drug you are not going to change that equation one iota.

The only upside to the Afghani farmers might be that if the authorities THINK you are growing an oil crop, then they might never notice that most of your crop is not the GM variety and that you are still making a fortune off the drugs.

[Soapy Sam]

The irony is that Indian hospitals apparently rarely use morphine, as doctors are scared of causing addiction to opiates.
The poppy crop should be bought at guaranteed Fairtrade rates by western governments and used in real medicine, instead of which we pour aid millions into Afghanistan most of which ends up as fees for western "consultants".

[BenBurch]

They make FAR more than the fair trade rates in the illegal market.

If we really wanted to remove this revenue source for the Taliban, we would legalize opiates.

Then there would be no illegal market at all, and prices would drop to reflect what opium is; Flower sap. It's trivial to produce.

You'd solve a lot of other problems with legalization too;

Addicts would not have to resort to crime to afford their fix.

Clean disposable syringes would be legal to obtain and cheap, which would almost totally eliminate the main way HIV spreads in much of the world.

Drug gangs would be deprived of their revenue and would collapse.

Prohibition has not worked, and has actually created most of the evils we associate with that drug.

[robinson]

If just anyone could grow Poppy flowers, the drug companies would lose billions. Not going to happen.

[WildCat]

When I saw the title of this thread I thought it would be about genetically altering poppies so they no longer produce opium. Then you spray the pollen from the altered poppies over poppy fields, and eventually the gene would spread so much that you couldn't reliably expect your poppies to produce opium.

[robinson]

That would be a disaster. Poppy flowers supply the worlds painkillers.

[drkitten]

That would be a disaster. Poppy flowers supply the worlds painkillers.

My understanding is that synthesizing morphine is a piece of cake. Hell, a friend of mine managed to do it accidentally in the orgo lab.

Isn't Oxycontin a synthetic version of morphine?

[BenBurch]

If just anyone could grow Poppy flowers, the drug companies would lose billions. Not going to happen.

My neighbor grows them. Seriously, has a bunch in her flower garden that come up every August. No difference between the ornamental poppy and the drug poppy that I've ever been able to determine.

[robinson]

My understanding is that synthesizing morphine is a piece of cake. Hell, a friend of mine managed to do it accidentally in the orgo lab.

Isn't Oxycontin a synthetic version of morphine?

No, Oxy is made from Thebaine, which comes from opium. If it were possible to synthesize any opiate, the cops would be busting illegal labs making it, rather than trying to stop imports. Drug Companies would also be able to stop importing opium as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium#Legal_production

If your friend did synthesize an opiate, they might win a Nobel Prize. Or perhaps find themselves speaking to Government agents. Either way, interest would be quite high in the matter. :D

[Belz...]

Could Genetic Modification of Poppies Solve Afghan Heroin Problem?

Beagles on crack! Oh, my.

Oh, wait. Poppies.

[luchog]

My neighbor grows them. Seriously, has a bunch in her flower garden that come up every August. No difference between the ornamental poppy and the drug poppy that I've ever been able to determine.
In the US, it's perfectly legal to grow Papaver somniferum, as long as you're not "lancing" them and harvesting the sap for opium. It's a bit of work, but anyone with a decent backyard and a few working brain-cells can produce opium. Refining further into more specific components -- morphine/heroin, codine, etc. -- takes a rather more education.

[robinson]

True dat. But if you want a safe pain killer, drinking the juice with a little alcohol works better than the extracts. There is less chance of addiction as well, due to the bitter and unpleasant side effects of taking too much.

Or so medicinal text claim. I know nothing about it from personal experience.

[WildCat]

That would be a disaster. Poppy flowers supply the worlds painkillers.
It would be simple for legal growers to access genetically pure seeds, much harder for someone in the hinterlands of Afghanistan or Colombia.

[quarky]

No, Oxy is made from Thebaine, which comes from opium. If it were possible to synthesize any opiate, the cops would be busting illegal labs making it, rather than trying to stop imports. Drug Companies would also be able to stop importing opium as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium#Legal_production

If your friend did synthesize an opiate, they might win a Nobel Prize. Or perhaps find themselves speaking to Government agents. Either way, interest would be quite high in the matter. :D

Fentanyl is synthetic, and quite potent; active in sub-milligram doses. Heroin addicts seem to find it quite acceptable, as an alternative to poppy-extracted narcotics.

I'm surprised that fentanyl analogs, synthesized in black market labs, haven't put a serious dent in the illegal opium trade.Perhaps it hasn't caught on yet.

[robinson]

OXYCONTIN MIMIC TABLETS (CONTAINING FENTANYL)
NEAR ATLANTIC, IOWA
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/programs/forensicsci/microgram/mg0106/mg0106.html

In any form, fentanyl can be lethal if taken outside a prescription, experts say.

"People have died with needles in their arms," said Kurt Klein- schmidt, an associate professor of emergency medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center and a toxicologist with the North Texas Poison Center.

"What's really nasty about fentanyl [is] it's a more potent narcotic than heroin or morphine – up to 100 times," Dr. Klein- schmidt said. "People can have overdoses and not know what they've gotten themselves into."

Fentanyl has been linked in the last few years to hundreds of overdose deaths around the country, with hot spots arising in states such as Michigan, Florida and Illinois...
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/122106dnmetsmudrug.2b395050.html

The Lake County Crime Laboratory (Painesville, Ohio) recently received a plastic baggie containing an inhomogeneous white powder, suspected to be cocaine ... Analysis of the homogenized powder (total net mass 0.71 grams) by GC/MS and FTIR, however, indicated not cocaine or hydrocodone (i.e., Vicodin®) but rather 23 percent fentanyl, 0.7 percent despropionyl fentanyl, trace (0.1 percent) cocaine, and 62 percent mannitol..
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/programs/forensicsci/microgram/mg0606/mg0606.html

Obviously this is not synthetic morphine, opium, or any other analog from the Poppy. It does seem hard to believe with all our modern science we can't synthesize the most popular compounds in the world.

Those would be booze, caffeine, and nicotine.

[quarky]

not sure what the experts were talking about.
fentanyl is 1000 times more potent than morphine.

The main complaint seems to be an endorsement, in a way.
Too strong; too easy to O.D.

and a viable replacement for heroin...hence my curiosity re: the black market in opiates.

[Unalienable]

What exactly is the "Afghan Heroin Problem" ?? That they produce heroin, and heroin in itself is a problem?

This sounds like one of those stupid arguments that if you go after the producers and traffickers the drug will vanish. That approach has never worked and never will.