Papaver Somniferum Research Paper

The plant Papaver somniferum, better known as opium poppy, is a species of plant from which poppy seeds are grown and opium is made. Opium is one of the main ingredients in drugs, including heroin. The plant produces white and red flowers growing on a central bulbous pod, but with other subspecies in the family, color on the flowers varies. The pod produces a milky latex that is processed to make psychoactive phytochemical. Incisions are made on the green seed pods, the latex which oozes from the incisions is collected, and dried to produce "raw opium". Opium is about 8-14% morphine by dry weight, although specially bred cultivars reach 26% (Wiki.) Latex collected, contains alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce morphine, heroine and other drugs. The harvesting of liquid phytochemical is done in a few steps. First, once the flowers is preparing to seed, scrape the seed pods all around the pod. As this is done, milky white liquid will start oozing out. After few hours, most of the substance has come out, once out the latex changes colors to black tar. After that, many different types of psychoactive drugs are made.

The opioid molecules inhibit neurotransmitters to be released from the presynaptic cleft (Wiki). The way it does this is because the presynaptic cleft has three different types of opioid receptors that are all coupled to intracellular mechanisms through G-proteins (Wiki). This way if a person has pain, neurotransmitters will not be released to the synaptic receptors which would send a signal to the nervous system telling the person that there is pain. The opioids work best in the spinal cord of the central nervous system, where it prevents signals to reach the brain