Opium

From Ganfyd

The crude preparation of sap from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum.

Opium poppy

Drugs extracted from opium are opiates; synthetic drugs similarly active are Category:opioids. Heroin is semi-synthetic and therefore somewhere between an opiate and an opioid. The distinction is partly historical, but opiate drugs are prepared from the minority of opium whch is legally produced and processed.

The opiates found in opium are morphine, codeine, noscapine, thebaine and papaverine.

Papaveretum is an old injectable preparation of the principal opiates, in the proportions in which they are found in opium, standardised to a particular content of morphine. It was introduced after morphine had become a standard drug, and has no advantages whatsoever over it.