Poppy Seed Extraction

Reprogammed said:
I wouldn't be surprised if that there contains many opiates, and I'm sure morphine is in it, but not in any significant range (but if I understand correctly, he's just chemically experimenting).

My fiancee actually has a fairly large opium poppy patch she tends and occasionally makes opium from (God only knows what our first child-planning on next year-will grow), and the one time she tried to snatch morphine from the opium residue it came out horrible. What your friend will come out with, at best, is what is called crude morphine. But in order to get that, he must isolate it from the opium (what it appears you may have there). To refine the morphine, you have to heat it together with acetic anhyidride. Then there's a bunch of steps you have to do in order to purify the morphine into the traditional hydrochloride salt.

All in all, though, I do think there's a distinct potential, and I think your friend is worth his weight in salt, given his use of lime to precipitate.

Keep up the good work, and definitely keep us posted!
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When you mix what you are suggesting you no longer have morphine base, you have heroin. You would have to turn the morphine base into morphine HCL, then do the procedure you are talking about to end up with heroin. He is not going to take it that far, he is probably going to stop after the lime and ammonium chloride are added, since he believes nothing will be left.
 
aattocchi said:
When you mix what you are suggesting you no longer have morphine base, you have heroin. You would have to turn the morphine base into morphine HCL, then do the procedure you are talking about to end up with heroin. He is not going to take it that far, he is probably going to stop after the lime and ammonium chloride are added, since he believes nothing will be left.
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Oh, okay. I was wondering if he was going for heroin-grade morphine/codeine, or if he was just trying to isolate it.
 
Reprogammed said:
Oh, okay. I was wondering if he was going for heroin-grade morphine/codeine, or if he was just trying to isolate it.
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Heroin grade morphine is less pure then the isolated morphine alkaloid, so I guess you can say he is shoting for a heroin grade morphine. This is really just a test. You see, his kids enjoy eating poppy seeds for their nutty flavor(sunflower like taste). He read from a person on this site that poppy seeds contain morphine. Now I don't know about you, but he doesn't want his young ones eating morphine as a snack. He also read a coroners report at poppyseedtea.com or poppyseedteakills.com that seemed convincing. Here in America the poppy seeds are washed before sale as a spice, in some countries they have a white residue/opium covering the seeds, or are unwashed. If you have ever grown poppies you probably know what I am talking about. This is what I think caused the young man to overdose from the poppy seed tea. However there is still a chance he overdosed on washed seeds, since no one actually seen the seeds the young man consumed. I have also searched endlessly about this subject and all I could find were speculations. No one has tried this method and posted about it anywhere, or at least I have not found anything similar yet.
 
Interesting.

(I meant isolate it from the opium residue. If he can amateur isolate the morphine alkaloid, then I think he found his calling in life.)
 
Reprogrammed said:
Without the aid of professional laboratory equipment.
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He has tons of glass wear, He worked at a factory called Chase Scientific Glass. He made all kind of equipment, and borrowed some before he stoped working there, lol.:peace:

He also, owns a digital hot plate, a ph meter, thermometer, and a few other things helpfull to this experiment.

He is not doing this with pots and pans, lmfao!:mrgreen:
 
aattocchi said:
I hope this picture is clear enough, my buddy let me take this picture. However, the substance is not fully dry, it is still a little oily. I guess it doesn't really matter. He plans on taking this substance and purifying it. No heat has been used thus far.
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The crude extract when dried was 12.63 grams. He presed it into a block and is letting it sit until he has the time for the rest of the experiment, probably in a week or 2 he will be finished.:mrgreen:

There are more alkaloids left in the seeds, which he will be extracting in distilled water and lemon juice heated to 160F
 
aattocchi said:
He has tons of glass wear, He worked at a factory called Chase Scientific Glass. He made all kind of equipment, and borrowed some before he stoped working there, lol.:peace:

He also, owns a digital hot plate, a ph meter, thermometer, and a few other things helpfull to this experiment.

He is not doing this with pots and pans, lmfao!:mrgreen:
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Haha point taken. I was thinking he was doing this with some of those things, but the fact that he has the good glassware...really makes me want to try this stuff. :mrgreen: Eh? Eh?
 
Ethnobotanist said:
Maybe I missed this, but how is he going to test the alkaloidal contents aside from bioassay?

~Ethno
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He's not trying to find an exact alkaloid content, or what the exact alkaloids are. He will be using a test kit like the police use, only to varify if the precipitate contains opiates.

There are only a few alkaloids in poppies that will form a precipitate when Ammonium chloride is added to the hot solution(that is, after you react the solution with Calcium hydroxide), to the best of my knowledge.

Do you have any suggestions Ethno?:peace:
 
I tried this experiment recently with 1 kilo of seeds. The seeds innards contain absolutely no alkaloids. I knew this going into the experiment. The alkaloids are covering the seeds, it is the left over "opium" that the manufacturer may or may not have washed off before using the opium for medicine and the seeds for culinary purposes. I ran into problems like heating the liquid up too much and destroying the alkaloids... This is what happens when you heat most opiates, they are then useless. I tried taking all the opiates I could from the seeds using a couple different techniques and then letting it evaporate on a large piece of glass under heating lamps. I then scraped the remains with a razor blade. I got about 3 grams of powder and 4 grams of goo from this and I then went on to ingest these concoctions. It was like a very low grade opiate high and thats all. If anyone can find a way to sucessfully get the alkaloids off the seeds inform me please. Until then I'll let the pros do it the right way.
 
Ganzy1003 said:
I tried this experiment recently with 1 kilo of seeds. The seeds innards contain absolutely no alkaloids. I knew this going into the experiment. The alkaloids are covering the seeds, it is the left over "opium" that the manufacturer may or may not have washed off before using the opium for medicine and the seeds for culinary purposes. I ran into problems like heating the liquid up too much and destroying the alkaloids... This is what happens when you heat most opiates, they are then useless. I tried taking all the opiates I could from the seeds using a couple different techniques and then letting it evaporate on a large piece of glass under heating lamps. I then scraped the remains with a razor blade. I got about 3 grams of powder and 4 grams of goo from this and I then went on to ingest these concoctions. It was like a very low grade opiate high and thats all. If anyone can find a way to sucessfully get the alkaloids off the seeds inform me please. Until then I'll let the pros do it the right way.
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No doubt, If you are looking for opium grow the seeds. This is not being done so some one can get high though. Would you care to explain in further detail what exactly you did with the seeds, did you do the same exact thing being done here? Maybe you can shed some light with your experiences?:peace:
 
aattocchi said:
Some one I know is going to attempt to extract Morphine base from poppy seeds. No telling what he will really end up with. He is starting by soaking the crushed seeds in Everclear/95%Alc. for 5 days. Then, he will filter the Alcohol and let it evaporate. He will be repeating this process again, and then he will set the seeds out to dry for later use. The filtered liquid will be evaporated in a dish to leave behind a residue. He said when the seeds dry he will take a glass pot and heat some water to 150 F and add some lemon juice to lower PH levels to 6 or 5. He will then add the seeds from before and let soak in 150 F for 2 hours. After 2 hours he will filter the water and discard the seeds. He will take the water and add the residue from the seed extract and heat at 150 F until fully dissolved. He will then add pickling lime to the solution and filter, saving the liquid and discarding the goo or whatever may be in the filter. Now, If poppy seeds contain any Morphine base when he does the final step and adds some Ammonium cloride to the mixture a precipitate should form. That will be Morphine base, he will let the liquid cool to room temperature and filter out the Morphine base. I will keep you all informed on his endeavor!

He read a site that sparked his interest called poppyseedtea, I think. Some kid drank poppy seed tea and died from Morphine overdose. It was in the coroner report.
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1 part has been changed, due to the crushed seeds were blowen all over the place and had to be vacumed up. He did a grain alcohol extraction 2 times from the seeds. The 3rd extraction will be cut, he will just skip to the next step. This might effect the yield, if any!
 
In the end this experiment is pointless once you realize you will yield nothing of interest. Its a good idea though.
 
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