Discovery opens the door for do-it-yourself morphine, painkillers

[TexasTowelie]

LOS ANGELES — Scientists have figured out all the steps to make morphine and similar painkillers without using opium poppies, opening the door for home-brewed drugs and even wider abuse.

While no one has yet reported making morphine in the laboratory from scratch, some experts are calling for regulations to prevent garage tinkerers from making do-it-yourself morphine, which can be converted into heroin.

Society needs to “think this through now before it becomes a reality,” said bioengineer John Dueber of the University of California, Berkeley, who led a team that discovered the final missing link of the process.

Poppy plants have been farmed for centuries for opium, from which morphine is derived. The controlled substance is often used before and after surgeries to relieve severe pain.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/lifestyles/health-and-fitness/health/20150518-discovery-opens-the-door-for-do-it-yourself-morphine-painkillers.ece

[Warpy]

1. Bullshit on needing to "think this through."

Best thing to happen would be a complete end to the drug war, home production forcing the DEA to throw in the towel forever.

Opiates were OTC until the 1890s, allowing people to treat their own pain. The per capita addiction rate has remained the same up until today.

While addiction is sad and the stories wrenching, treatment instead of prison is the way to approach it. Most addicts reach a point where they want to get off the merry go round of needing a substance in order to live and most need help, although the UK experiment with supplying addicts their drug of choice at a stable dosage saw 50% taper off the drug within 10 years, a better record than any rehab clinic.

What we need to "think this through" over is the damned drug war. It has been an expensive boondoggle, a dismal failure that has made enemies abroad and destroyed lives at home while allowing criminal gangs worldwide to flourish. End it, already.

[F4lconF16]

2. You said it all. nt

[TexasTowelie]

4. I tend to think of rehab clinics as a financial racket used to milk the insurance companies.

I did a one month stint at a rehab clinic more than a decade ago. I was fortunate to have a good counselor, but most of the counselors at the clinic I went to had more severe issues than I ever did.

[elehhhhna]

5. never! too much payola involved

The narcos are in charge. Like in Mexico but more under the radar.

[MADem]

3. Well, it would really break the grip of some of the warlords in Afghanistan....

If people can make their own, then they don't need to grow poppies, save for beauty. The price of opium will plummet. The farmers will make more money growing (gasp) FOOD. They can start growing cabbages and corn and melons and onions and eggplants instead.

I think that there's a lot to like in this news. Eventually, "the secret" will out, no matter how much people try to hide it.

[Thor_MN]

6. GMO morphine...

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Please clarify how this is new ?

The first morphine total synthesis, devised by Marshall D. Gates, Jr. in 1952 remains a widely used example of total synthesis.[3] This synthesis took a total of 31 steps and proceeded in 0.06% over all yield. The dihydrocodeinone synthesis of Rice is one of the most efficient and proceeds in 30% overall yield in 14 steps.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_synthesis_of_morphine_and_related_alkaloids