"Poppies..."
Posted on 06/27/2015 5:04:42 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The development, reported in the journal Science, fills a gap in researchers' understanding of the biochemistry of poppies that could help scientists fine-tune and manufacture painkillers and other useful poppy-derived compounds.
That could lead to safer and more effective therapies. But it could also smooth the way for people to start producing morphine on their own -- perhaps even at home, much as hobbyists use yeast to brew beer or make wine -- expanding and localizing opiate production and getting more people hooked on drugs like heroin.
...
Before the release of the new study, said senior author and University of York biochemist Ian Graham, researchers had already catalogued the genes driving the multistep process of converting glucose to morphine in poppies -- except for one intermediate link in the chain: the gene that directs conversion of a chemical called (S)-reticuline into another called (R)-reticuline.
To identify that gene, Graham and colleagues from the University of York and GlaxoSmithKline in Australia introduced random mutations into hundreds of poppy plants, eventually finding three plants that did not produce morphine but did accumulate (S)-reticuline, suggesting that they might have mutations in the gene that allows the crucial conversion to (R)-reticuline to take place.
The three plants all turned out to have mutations in one particular gene, which the scientists later confirmed to be the one they were seeking. They named the gene "STORR," for (S)- to (R)-reticuline
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
What could possibly go wrong with this development?
It could put the Taliban out of business — along with everyone else who takes their cut between Afghanistan and the needles of the West.
"Poppies..."
I myself cannot wait for the mom and pop microheroin distilleries to pop up.
Well, it already exists in the form of Krokodil. It’s just a lot more direct in being lethal.
That’s what got us into trouble in the first place, doctors saying you couldn’t get addicted to Oxy.
This is really interesting. It could make legal drugs cheaper, I guess. ?? I’m not knowledgeable enough to know, but if it takes away money from drug lords, I am fine with that.
But I may have accidentally stepped into an incoming thread war about drug legalization.... *insert worried smiley*
....*steps quietly back*... :)
...I’m still reeling from yesterday’s ruling and had to check FR (the first time I had the computer all day)....
I look forward to reading what people say here.
OMG, I just looked that up (Krokodil). What won’t people ingest??? How horrible.
http://time.com/3398086/the-worlds-deadliest-drug-inside-a-krokodil-cookhouse/
Well, I believe that the Russians invented it as a cure for drug addiction. The article says that addicts stop taking it after about three years - because they are dead!
Won’t the Taliban be tickled by this science, huh.
Timothy Leary used to suggest LSD for alcoholics.
Of course Mr. Leary remained a substance abuser for the rest of his life. He boasted of sampling virtually every drug known to man as it came down the pike (well into the 1990s).
Dan Rather went through such self-experimentation (reportedly under the guidance of the HPD) making particular note of heroin and LSD experimentation.
Must be the season of the witch.
Oh God yeah, that stuff is absolutely insane. It basically kills your body while you are still alive, makes people look literally like the walking dead.
Look at this...Warning, it is VERY graphic..........
that crap is truly the stuff of nightmares... at what point do you no longer care about what your eyes see simply to get high???
I’m a traditionalist.
Re-open the opium dens!
Broomhillary....????
But I may have accidentally stepped into an incoming thread war about drug legalization.... *insert worried smiley*
'fraid so - supporters of the War on Drugs persist in the fantasy that we can take away money from drug lords if we just do more of what gave them the money in the first place ... very much like how libs say the answer to the failures of the War on Poverty is to do more of what's failed.
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