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calling rachamim 18 for opioid discussion

J

jacky

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Jun 28, 2005
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northwest united states
ok, here I am to talk about this specific issue that was originally posted on the "other drug" forum.

I did notice that you were and accredited ethnobotanist, and I understand some of the multidisciniplanarian veiws that an ethnobotanist could approach different subjects with.

what about my recent post about Jonathan Otts references to morphine being found in mammals humans etc.? what about salutaridine and reticuline occuring in mammals as possible precursors to endogenous morphine production?

I have many more questions for you now that I have you "live on the line" so to speak, I love talking with people who have significant knowledge in these areas, and I have written and discussed said subjects with scientists before, and wonder if I have let myself be led down a road of over generalization?

I have a freind that owns a fine used book store, and I will order that book you suggested two posts ago on morphine stucture that was written in 1997. even if it costs over a hundred bucks............

I would also love to have you post some relevant information over at opiophile.org, I understand some peoples reservations about doing so if they are professionals, but some professionals seem to enjoy the contact between the "street junkie" chronic pain sufferers etc.

basically I am going to be involved with opioids and opioid discussion for some time to come, the way I learn outside of a college course (havnt been in two years) is by stumbling around and accepting clarifications from others. A few years ago daniel siebert allerted a contact that the lagochilus inebrians source that I thought I had found was disreputable, that was a great help, and save me alot of money in having to reimburse people that I might have passed the falsly identified material on to. In a perfect world I wouldnt have had problems with mathematical comprehension, and discipline that has held me back from taking advanced biology courses to further some of my knowledge. I know you are probably a busy person, so take your time, but try and contact me at [email protected] if you want private discussion etc.

I am stumped about some of what you say, but I notice that most of my references were written Before 1997 and the publication of the book you mentioned, perhaps these authors information is outdates? perhaps generalizations are taken to an extreme.
I look at all the references to some of the alkaloids in kratom being opioids and wonder what you mean? I can send you the information to look up info on the swiss researchers work with the diterpene fractions of the chaste tree, where they attribute activity to kappa opioid , mu opioid and dopamine stimulation........anyway, if I am grossly mistaken I have alot of threads to adjust on my website, and welcome ANY degree holding person to contact me at that website, whether it is just to set something straight, or offer advice to those who are creating some extraordinarily risky actions in their lives.

we have had a few people asking about fentynal patches, and using them in ways other than recomended. like shooting the gel up or smoking this gel, most people thought the risk was with fentynals potency, and that is correct, but what alot of us didnt know is that these patches when used chronically can cause some major kidney and liver problems, even death. the problem is some of the chemicals that are used in the mix. A registered nurse helped to set some of these people straight I hope, and tried to imply that these drugs patches are usually used on people who are at the end of their rope so to speak, and the risks associated with the patches are taken into account compared to the serious nature of their illness and pain. saying "just dont do it, it is stupid" isnt going to register with alot of junkies...saying " minimize your risks by using the medication as it is advised because................" may turn some heads. maybe. like 1%

anyway, thanks for your cool demeanor, and for not starting some flame war or other...

take care.
 
there are lots of people scientifically interested in opioids here, my self included. I've posted a 'treatise on opioid drugs' in this forum which you might want to read. It delves into some of the molecular & neuropharmacology of opioids, amongst other topics.
 
thanks for that one bil20r, so I geuss that the discovery that primates metabolize thebaine into morphine, enough that when maintaned on thebaine they exhibit tolerance and subsequenmt withdrawl when the thebaine is stopped may apply to humans as well? when I learned that, I wondered if the stimulant edge of opium and poppy seed tea might be caused in part by an amount of thebaine present, causing stimulation at first, sometimes an uncomfortable amount of stimulation, and then more "narcotic" action later......

I am curious mitogen , if you are a student or degree holding person, or just avid amatuer? I will read your treatise.....if you are interested in opioids maybe you might find something to post over at opiophile.org?

this thread was move from the other drugs forum as me and rachimim 18's conversation seemed to be moving away from the subject at hand...basically he says that I am confused about my perception of what opioids in various plants are really doing or something other, I am not too clear on it....he also claims to have information that debates the occurence of morphine in any other source other than the opium poppy. so I hope to find out just what it is he is saying.
 
That is interesting bilzor... are the endorphins, 'neuroblastoma' cells produce similar also to morphine? that would explain a lot.
 
so I geuss that the discovery that primates metabolize thebaine into morphine, enough that when maintaned on thebaine they exhibit tolerance and subsequenmt withdrawl when the thebaine is stopped may apply to humans as well?
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I would geuss so.

are the endorphins, 'neuroblastoma' cells produce similar also to morphine? that would explain a lot.
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No, if endorphin is produced by those neuroblastomas, it will be the same ednorophin produced by other neurons/cells, i.e. a short peptide.
 
Recent studies show unequivocably that humans, and probably all mammals, have the full synthetic pathway for morphine (the route is similar to P. somniferum) and that it is generally active. I believe it is unknown whether morphine is produced in significant quantities without precursor loading, but it is certainly plausible (considering that the convoluted and specialized pathway would otherwise be quite a superfluous genetic baggage). Morphine is also produced by inverterbrates such as some helminthic species (Ascaris suum, for example). As for non-opiate opioids - they're present all throghout nature.

Offtopically, I'm quite curious about the "Rachamim" handle - are you Israeli?
 
stvip just summarized what I believed all along was true about opiates and opioids, so I hope that any new information that debates this will be brought up.........
 
Not that I'm saying your wrong, but what is this unequivocal evidence stvip?
 
The article you cited which described the full biosynthesis of morphine in human cells isn't enough?

Basically, morphine has been continuously showing up in small amounts in analysis of animal tissues. There was much debate over whether it is of endogenous or exogenous nature. Many scientists believed it was due to enviornmental residues entering into the animals' diets. However, now the debate is over: giving radioactively (C18) labeled precursors shows labeled morphine, and the enzymes responsible are known. Also, I've recently discovered that there's a study showing mu3 responds to opiates, but not opioid peptides. Very interesting.
Morphine, GHB and DMT. We humans are Schedule I.

I wonder whether it would be feasible to harvest significant amounts of morphine from an Ascaris suum farm? (or some friendlier crawly)
 
some mammals have been shown to contain reticuline and salutaridine, morphine precursors, there are plenty of sources for these compounds in nature, some plants that are already used as analgesics have been known to contain these compounds, certian croton species, various species of papaver etc, I have been interested in extracts of these plants for years considering the possibility that morphine may be a by product of consumption. what remains is to find a species that is edible , and contains enough of said compounds that extraction is worth it....I know I promised to go get the information from a library, and I will, reticuline that is fed to tobacco plants can be metabolized into morphine, this was shown to be true years ago. I would take a low nicotine containing species like nicotania allata and use it for a reticuline fed study.

there are possibly hundreds more examples of this bioconversion waiting to be found in nature................
 
Yes, I've long wondered about the difference in effects of morphine and opium. I've heard it claimed that other alkaloids in opium potentiate morphine, but have never seen scientific corroboration, and indeed, have found some studies casting doubt about that conjecture. So, I tentatively speculate it might be due to delayed metabolism of thebaine and/or reticuline into morphine, prolonging the effect. However, I am not aware of any studies showing oral reticuline ingestion leads to opiate effects. Neither for berberine.

some plants that are already used as analgesics have been known to contain these compounds
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Reference? I've been researching plants with central opioid activity, and have found a few promising candidates, but I don't recall reticuline-rich species were amongst them. Separately, I made a short list of plant species with high contents of reticuline. I have it on paper, so I can't find it right now, but I'll post it later if you're interested. Personally, I think other leads are more interesting, but it's worth investigatng.
This is somewhat off-topic, but here's an idea I've been wondering about: germinating poppy seeds, eating the whole seedlings (roots included) when the first set of true leaves appear. Apparently, laticifers are present from a very early stage, and I've seen references to an article claiming poppy seedling roots have relatively high amounts of morphine, though I don't have access (barring interlibrary loans) to the article itself. The impediment right now for me is germinating the seeds in a sterile but nutrient-rich medium, but that can be easily achieved. The idea is to avoid washing the roots with water, since morphine would likely be lost, so using soil can be problematic.
 
wow neat shit here...so basically, without taking something like codiene or thebaine(which metabolizes into morphine), our bodies still produce morphine on their own??
 
 
The article you cited which described the full biosynthesis of morphine in human cells isn't enough?
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Not at all. Even primary cultured neurons (i.e. neurons chopped straight out of an animals brain) don't behave like real neurons, completely fucked neurobastoma cells that have been cultured for 100s of generations, and probably subjected to viral insults? Hell no... I'm not saying it's not right, just that its not conclusive proof
 
yeah stvip I have heard the same about young papaver seedlings, the data I saw was written by scientists working with commercial production . the idea I came up with is similiar to yours, harvest the plants right as they start to flower, digging up and using the ROOTS as well as the rest of the plant. this would benefit some people that want to keep a low profile, no scoring, no big fat pods advertising themselves, perhaps a sacrifice of total yeild for increased security and two crops a year instead of one in some areas...........
 
Even primary cultured neurons (i.e. neurons chopped straight out of an animals brain) don't behave like real neurons
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Yes, that's why you treat findings from such in vitro models on a case by case basis. In this case, it's not like culturing cells is going to magically cause them to acquire a whole set of functioning genes from a plant, that would be slightly more than not behaving like real cells.
This comes on top of the radiolabeling study.
(remember - morphine is already well-known to be present, the only question was whether it was of endogenous or exogenous origin)

...

the idea I came up with is similiar to yours, harvest the plants right as they start to flower
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That's not quite what I had in mind. The idea is to harvest the seedlings when very young - no more than 1-2 weeks old. I.e: plant a good amount of seeds in a tray, allow to grow until first set of leaves, harvest entire seedling. I wouldn't use roots of mature plants anyhow (but discarding leaves is wasteful).
 
I have read that the highest amounts of alkaloids in the plants are right before the flowers drop, located in the roots of the plants are much of the alkaloids before they move to the upper parts of the plant.

harvesting at a very young age is an interesting approach, almost like harvesting sprouts. I would think that with some poppy seeds the alkaloid content might be higher in the seed material than the sprouted? I have seen reports of anywhere from 50 migrograms per gram of M and C up to 249 milligrams of M and C per KILO.
 
Alkaloid distribution in P. somniferum is unfortunately much more complex than that (and there are quite a few present).
For a primer on that, and why I believe mature roots are not desirable, see:

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/article.cgi/jnprdf/2005/68/i05/html/np0496643.html
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/38/13957
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=113780

From the latter:
"... However, morphine is preponderant in young roots of plants of opium poppy in field [18]"

This is a reference to

Williams RD, Ellis BE. Age and tissues distribution of alkaloids in Papaver somniferum . Phytochemistry. 1989;28(8):2085–2088.

Which my library doesn't carry.

harvesting at a very young age is an interesting approach, almost like harvesting sprouts.
Click to expand...

It is, in fact, harvesting sprouts. Whatever methods works for germinating and harvesting, say, broccoli sprouts (whose seeds, I think, are comparably small), should work for poppies. Though I think it would be better if the poppy seeds were sprouted in a nutrient carrying media. Perhaps just plain ol' sterilized soil would work best, with a quick ethanol treatment after harvesting.

Hmm. Perhaps a moderator should branch this discussion into a new thread, it's interesting in itself, but quite distinct from the topic.
 
Hi Jacky, you asked:
"
I am curious mitogen , if you are a student or degree holding person, or just avid amatuer? I will read your treatise.....if you are interested in opioids maybe you might find something to post over at opiophile.org?"

I did my bachelors in pharmacology, and am currently studying for a masters in protein engineering.
I had a look at opiophile.com the other day - i've been there before but never made it a regular thing. I'll consider joining.
 
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