Codeine (INN) or methylmorphine is an opiate used for its analgesic, antitussive, and antidiarrheal properties.
Codeine is an alkaloid found in opium and other poppy saps like Papaver bracteatum, the Iranian poppy, in concentrations ranging from 0.3 to 3.0 percent. While codeine can be extracted from opium, most codeine is synthesized from morphine through the process of O-methylation. It was first isolated in 1832 in France by Jean-Pierre Robiqu...
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Codeine (INN) or methylmorphine is an opiate used for its analgesic, antitussive, and antidiarrheal properties.
Codeine is an alkaloid found in opium and other poppy saps like Papaver bracteatum, the Iranian poppy, in concentrations ranging from 0.3 to 3.0 percent. While codeine can be extracted from opium, most codeine is synthesized from morphine through the process of O-methylation. It was first isolated in 1832 in France by Jean-Pierre Robiquet.
The effects of the Nixon War On Drugs by 1972 or so had caused across-the-board shortages of illicit and licit opiates because of a scarcity of natural opium, poppy straw and other sources of opium alkaloids, and the geopolitical situation was getting less helpful for the United States. After a large percentage of the opium and morphine in the US National Stockpile of Strategic & Critical Materials had to be tapped in order to ease severe shortages of medicinal opiates—the codeine-based antitussives in particular—in late 1973, researchers...
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