Opium Regie
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Opium Regie
Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. Opium's main psychoactive alkaloids, primarily morphine, act on μ-opioid receptors, causing analgesia and addiction with long-term use leading to tolerance, dependence, and increased cancer risk. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated. The English word for opium is loan word, borrowed from Latin, which i ...
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Papaver Somniferum
''Papaver somniferum'', commonly known as the opium poppy or breadseed poppy, is a species of flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae. It is the species of plant from which both opium and poppy seeds are derived and is also a valuable ornamental plant grown in gardens. Its native range was the eastern Mediterranean region, but has since been obscured by widespread introduced species, introduction and Horticulture, cultivation since ancient times to the present day. It is now Naturalisation (biology), naturalized across much of the world with temperate climates. This poppy is grown as an agricultural crop on a large scale, for one of three primary purposes: to produce poppy seeds, to produce opium (for use mainly by the pharmaceutical industry), and to produce other alkaloids (mainly thebaine and oripavine) that are processed by pharmaceutical companies into drugs such as hydrocodone and oxycodone. Each of these goals has special breeds that are targeted at one of these busine ...
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