Throughout history, opium has been used as a base for the opioid class of drugs used to suppress the central nervous system. Opium is a substance extracted from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.). Its consumption and medicinal application date back to antiquity. In the medieval period, Avicenna, a famous Persian scholar (980-1037 AD) described poppy under the entry Afion of his medical enc...

Drawing on long-term fieldwork in Badakhshan, a borderland province the northeast of Afghanistan, paper explores role that opium poppy cultivation has played marginal high-altitude economy. Framed by analytic ‘narco-frontiers’ and puzzle persistence small farmers uneven agrarian transitions, investigates diversity market non-market institutions operate across means production opium. Rather than...

Opium poppy produces a diverse array of pharmaceutical alkaloids, including the narcotic analgesics morphine and codeine. The benzylisoquinoline alkaloids of opium poppy accumulate in the cytoplasm, or latex, of specialized laticifers that accompany vascular tissues throughout the plant. However, immunofluorescence labeling using affinity-purified antibodies showed that three key enzymes, (S)-N...

A spontaneous true breeding homeotic gene mutant Pps-1 with distinct partial petaloid sepals was detected in the population of downy mildew (DM)-resistant elite accession I-14 during our studies for the identification of disease resistance sources in opium poppy. The trait was found to be stable and inherited truly in the subsequent generations. Genetic studies were carried out through systemat...

before the start of modern era in iran, opium had a particular importance in daily lives, medicine and, leisure of iranians. this trend even continued up to early years of the twentieth century and iran was a major producer of opium; almost 100 tons annually (karimi;2000). by administrating new tax rules regarding opium production, to determine governmental production and distribution only and ...

There are several different DNA analysis procedures that have been used to identify and characterize plant Amplified restriction fragment length polymorphic (AFLP) DNA cultivars to determine genetic diversity. Each procedure analysis was performed on leaf samples of 40 accessions of opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) and two other control genera (Pahas it own requirements, sensitivity, and rel...

opium poppy (papaver somniferum l.) has two major products: alkaloids in the capsules and the seeds. it is known that opium poppy today contains alkaloid in great quantities. opiate alkaloids and their synthetic derivatives are widely used in medicines which are produced in hundreds of tons for the medicine industry. the study aimed to screen the capsules of six turkish opium poppy lines to eva...

The alkaloid content in industrial opium poppies (Papaver somniferum L.) has been studied by numerous authors, but not in ornamental cultivars.The aim of the study was to investigate the content of morphine, codeine, and papaverine in P. somniferum cultivars by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE). The studied poppy capsules were either grown from the...

Morphine biosynthesis was genetically engineered in an industrial elite line of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.), to modify the production of alkaloids in plants. The cytochrome P-450-dependent monooxygenase (S)-N-methylcoclaurine 3'-hydroxylase (CYP80B3) lies on the pathway to the benzylisoquinoline alkaloid branch point intermediate (S)-reticuline. Overexpression of cyp80b3 cDNA result...

It is hard to decide when and where the opium poppy was first cultivated. It may have been grown for its seeds before people discovered how to prepare mekonion from the leaves and fruits of the plant or opium (from "opos," the Greek word for juice) from the liquid that appears on the unripe seed capsule when it is notched. The use of written records to decipher the early history of opium use an...