Topic 1: Origins & Manufacture of addictive drugs (I)

PSYC1022
The Psychology of Addiction
Lectures: A/P Lee Hogarth
Updates: Helena Pacitti

Timeline of human knowledge

Outline

• Drug Classifications
• Depressants:
• Alcohol
• Opium
• Morphine
• Laudanum
• Codeine
• Heroin
Drug Classification

• Drugs can be classified in many different ways

• One method involves classification based on the drug’s CNS effects
1. Depressants:
• Slow down CNS activity
2. Stimulants:
• Speed up CNS activity
3. Hallucinogens:
• Alter sensory perceptions (psychotogenic) by interfering with CNS signalling
4. Other:
• Do not fit neatly into other categories
• Fit into several categories
• Different experiences between individuals
• http://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/drugtreat-pubs-
front6-wk-toc~drugtreat-pubs-front6-wk-secb~drugtreat-pubs-front6-wk-secb-3~drugtreat-
pubs-front6-wk-secb-3-1
Depressants
Alcohol

• Can be made simply by leaving fruit in a

container for some time
• Paleolithic humans may have consumed
alcohol but there is little direct evidence
• 7000-5800BC: first direct evidence of
alcohol production
• Jiahu, China
• Archeological site (Neolithic era)
• pots were found to contain the residue of an alcoholic
liquid made from fermented rice, honey & hawthorn
• ‘Chateau Jiahu’: reverse engineered from molecular
archaeology
• rice flakes, wildflower honey, muscat grapes, hawthorn fruit
with barley malt & fermented with a sake yeast.
Alcohol

• 4100BC: Areni-1 cave,

Armenia
• one of the earliest known sites
of wine production
• The press sits inside the cave &
is slanted downwards towards
the mouth of a large jar
inserted in the platform's edge
to catch the crushed grape
juice.
• This same design of wine press
was common throughout the
Mediterranean till 1900.

Areni-1 cave wine press

Alcohol
• Alcohol is globally available
• Worldwide consumption: 6.2 litres of
pure alcohol per 15+ person
• Higher economic wealth of a country
the higher the consumption of
alcohol
• Highest rates in Europe, Russian Federation,
Australia, Canada
• Unrecorded (i.e. home-brewed liquor) is
thought to account for almost 25% of
worldwide consumption
• 3.3 million deaths worldwide are attributable
to alcohol consumption
WHO, 2014
• http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/public
ations/global_alcohol_report/msb_gsr_2014_
1.pdf
Opium
• Opium is derived from the sap produced by
the opium poppy seed head
• released following tissue damage
• acts as an anti-herbivore chemical

• Rain, wind & dew can spoilt the sap, so

weather cosiderations are important for
choosing when to make incisions
• sap is collected
• opium brick is typically sold by the farmer to a broker.

• In antiquity, opium was the end product

• more recently brokers typically supply the opium to
refiners who convert it into more transportable
morphine bricks or heroin powder.

• Selective breeding has yielded an opium poppy that

has substantially higher concentrations of opioids
than the wild variant.
Opium
• 10,000-2000 BC: used broadly
throughout Europe, Asia, Middle
East & North Africa
• numerous archaeological sites of opium
poppy seed pods buried in a ritual or sacred
context.
• 4200 BC: Brittany, France
• ceramic bowls found in a sacred site
• Southern Spain:
• globular grass bags of opium capsules were
found in a burial site
Rudgley, R. (1995). Addiction 90, 163
Opium
• 1500 BC: the Ebers papyrus
• is believed to have been copied from earlier texts (Circa
3400 BC)
• found between the legs of a mummy in a tomb near
Luxor, Egypt
• 1872: Purchased by Professor Ebers
• describes a mixture of opium & another material which The Ebers Papyrus
was found effective in quietening crying children.
• some time ago children in Egypt, India & Europe were
being soothed with opium. It is said that mothers often
laced their nipples with poppy juice so that the child
would immediately stop crying upon sucking the
‘drugged’ milk
(Aggrawal, A. 1995. Narcotic Drugs).

• 1332-1323BC: Cultivation & trade of opium was in full

operation during the reign of King Tutankhamun
• contributed to the wealth of the Egyptian Pharaohs.
Opium
• 700 BC: Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’
• opium’s recreational use is described:
• Telemachus is depressed after failing to
find his father Odysseus. But then Helen...

• "...had a happy thought. Into the bowl in

which their wine was mixed, she slipped a
drug that had the power of robbing grief
and anger of their sting and banishing all
painful memories. No one who swallowed
this dissolved in their wine could shed a
single tear that day, even for the death of
his mother or father, or if they put his
brother or his own son to the sword and he
were there to see it done..."
Morphine
• 1803: Morphine was isolated by the
German pharmacist, Friedrich Sertürner
• named it after Morphius, Greek god of dreams
• added the morphine crystals to food to kill unwanted
rats & dogs in the town
• observed that morphine evoked sleep & ultimately death
• He suffered from gout in his later life & quelled his
pain with the very morphine he had isolated. Friedrich Sertürner
• The alkaloid morphine is generally 8 to 14% of 1783-1841
the dry weight of opium.
Morphine
• Sertürner’s Morphine extraction method still used in
illicit labs:
• Boil thirty gallons of water in a 55-gallon oil drum.
• Add 10 to 15 kilograms of raw opium. Allow to dissolve & scoop out
soil, leaves, twigs, & other non-soluble materials to leave a dark
brown “liquid opium” solution.
• Add slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) or more readily available
chemical fertilizer with a high lime content, which converts the
water-insoluble morphine alkaloid into water-soluble calcium
morphenate. The other opium alkaloids do not react with lime to
form water-soluble calcium salts, & so can be removed as sludge by
straining the liquid once cooled.
• Reheat the calcium morphenate liquid but do not boil.
• Add ammonium chloride until the alkalinity is adjusted to a pH of 8
to 9.
• Cool solution & within 1 or 2 hours morphine base (solids) will Typical jungle drug lab being
precipitate & settle to the bottom of the pot.
raided by the military
• Filter to extract morphine base & dry in the sun.
• The coffee-coloured coarse powder typically contains 50 to 70%
morphine. To further purify, dissolve the solids in hot water & add
hydrochloric acid, then add activated charcoal, reheat & filter.
• Upon cooling morphine hydrochloride will precipitate out of the
solution & settle to the bottom. Extract by filtration & form into a
roughly 3 pound block.
• It takes a full day to extract ‘pure’ morphine from opium.
Laudanum
1493-1541: Paracelsus, a Swiss-German occultist
• discovered that opium could be better dissolved into a
solution of alcohol than water.
• named solution Laudanum (AKA tincture of
opium)
• added a variety of ingredients such as garlic & frog
spawn
• Although useful for pain reduction, the compound was
largely ignored.
1624-1689: Thomas Sydenham, English physician
• produced & promoted his own Laudanum recipe
• 1 Pt Canary Island wine, 2 Oz strained opium, 1 Oz
saffron
• cure for a range of medical conditions.
 Laudanum

1837-1901: use continued in Victorian England & USA

• especially by women Advert for Laudanum & Paregoric
• Laudanum remains available by prescription (weaker, camphorated tincture) c. 1897.
in these countries although therapeutic
applications are generally restricted to pain
relief & alleviating withdrawal symptoms in
babies born to heroin or opiate addicted
mothers
• 1910 onwards: increasingly restrictive laws
established which regulated the production & sale
of addictive compounds including Laudanum.

Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, c. 1849.

 Codeine

• another alkaloid (like morphine) present in opium at a

concentration of about 1-3%.
• 1821: Pierre Robiquet (French chemist)
• Isolated from morphine using the process of O-
methylation (substitution of an atom by a methyl group.
• It is the most widely used opiate in the world Pierre Robiquet
• excellent safety record
• used as an analgesic (pain), antitussive (coughing),
antidiarrheal, antihypertensive (blood pressure),
antianxiety, sedative, to suppress premature labor
contractions & myocardial infarction (heart attack).
• It does have addictive potential but is less potent than
morphine or heroin.
 Heroin
• 1874: diacetylmorphine, first synthesised by English chemist, Charles
Wright
• he accidently boiled morphine & acetic acid, over a stove for
several hours.
• This process of acetylation introduces an acetyl group into
the compound.
• The modern technique entails a complicated series of steps in a good
laboratory (Booth, 1999):

1. equal quantities of morphine & acetic acid are heated in a glass or

enamel-lined container for six hours at 85C. The morphine & the
acid combine to form impure diacetylmorphine.
2. water & chloroform are added to the solution to precipitate
impurities. The solution is drained & sodium carbonate added to
make the heroin solidify & sink.
3. heroin is filtered out of the sodium carbonate solution with Charles Wright
activated charcoal & purified with alcohol. This solution is gently
heated to evaporate the alcohol & leave heroin, which may be
purified further.
4. Purification in the fourth stage, involving ether & hydrochloric
acid, is notoriously risky as the volatile ether gas may ignite &
produce a violent explosion. The final product is a fluffy, white
powder known in the trade as number four (pure) heroin.
Heroin
• 1898: Felix Hoffmann, German chemist
• Discovered the same process 23 years
later.
• He worked at Bayer & discovered aspirin
by subjecting salicylic acid to the same
acetylation process that Charles Wright
had applied to morphine.
• Hoffmann replicated this procedure &
named the resulting diacetylmorphine, Felix Hoffmann
heroin, in reference to its heroic effects 1868-1946
• Bayer marketed heroin as an effective
sedative for coughs, like morphine, but
without the addictive potential
• sales rocketed & widespread
dependence followed
• 1913: Bayer ceased production with the
introduction of widespread legislation to
control the production & sale of such
compounds.