From: (DBroo42539)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs.chemistry
Subject: Re: extracting morphine from poppy straw/seed
Date: 1 May 1997 16:58:00 GMT

you will get a higher yield of morphine using the poppy straw
extraction method than slicing the pods for opium. the entire
plant contains alkaloids, and the roots contain nearly the same
concentration of morphine as the pods.  you can slice the pods to
get opium before you dry the plant for extraction.  To extract
the plant, dry the whole thing, leaves, roots and all and grind
it in a blender.  poppies contain a substance called meconoic
acid, and the alkaloids for the most part exist in the plant as a
salt of this acid, and so are water soluble. you should extract
the straw at least three times with warm water, and evaprate it
to a manageable amount. filter it  to remove plant solids. to
extract the morphine, heat the poppy extract in a solution of
lime water. this will precipitate most the alkaloids and the
meconoic acid as calcium mecanoate.  The morphine and codeine
will remaine in solution. raising the pH of the solution to 9
with ammonia will precipitate the morphine and codeine and you
can filter it out using very fine filter paper, and preferably
running the filtrate through a millipore filter to get any you
missed.  morphine is unusual among plant alkaloids, being
practically insoluble in most organic solvents.  the free base is
less soluble in ether than in water.  codeine base is freely
soluble in ether.  washing the morphine with ether three times
will remove most of the codeine.  you now should have a morphine
base that is better than 95% purity.  to make it souble in water,
simply dissolve it in a dilute solution of hydrochloric acid,
adding more acid untill all of the solid is dissolved.  if the
solution is still slightly brown, it can be decolred with
activated carbon. filter the carbon out and evaporate the water,
and you have nearly pure morphine hydrochloride.

if you want to make heroin, simply convert the salt back to the
base using ammonia like before and heat the base with acetic
anhydride (three parts acetic anyhydride to one part base) under
reflux at 85 degrees centigrade for six hours. distill off the
excess acetic anhydride and mix the residue with water.  raise
the pH to 9 with ammonia and heroin base will precipitate out.
filter and convert to hydrochloride the same way as morphine. 

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