Differentiation of opium and poppy straw using capillary electrophoresis and pattern recognition techniques.

Opium samples from four different locations and poppy straw from different plant varieties have been assayed using micellar capillary electrophoresis incorporating a sweeping technique. Individual alkaloids (morphine, codeine, papaverine, noscapine, thebaine, oripavine, reticuline and narceine) were quantitatively determined in the different samples by a validated capillary electrophoresis method. Unsupervised pattern recognition of the opium samples and the poppy straw samples using hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA), showed distinct clusters. Supervised pattern recognition using soft independent modelling of class analogy (SIMCA) was performed to show individual groupings and allow unknown samples to be classified according to the models built using the CZE assay results.

Quantitative evaluation of 28 mineral elements by inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry and its application in source identification of Indian opium.

An analytical method based on inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (ICP/MS) was developed for the determination of 28 mineral elements (Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Sr, Cd, Ag, Ba, Pb, Bi Y, La, Ce, Nd, Pr, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu) in Indian opium samples. The detection limits were found to be in the range of 0.0008-0.45 ng/mL. The recoveries of spiked samples for each element were found to be in the range of 83-106%, with a precision of less than 9%. A total of 124 opium samples from India were analyzed for the distribution pattern of the 28 mineral elements. Quantitative elemental data were subjected to chemometric analysis in order to determine an optimal classifier to evaluate the source of Indian opium. The study indicated that mineral elements might not be the suitable discriminators for the discrimination of licit opium-growing divisions of India. However, the methodology developed and the analytical data on elemental profile may find important forensic application in discriminating Indian opium with that of licit and illicit opium originating from different geographical regions of world.

Opium: una visión desde la medicina veterinaria / Opium: a vision from the veterinary medicine

En el presente trabajo, se desarrollan los aspectos generales del medicamento Opium, y sus particulares aplicaciones en la clínica veterinaria. Se destacan los rubros repertorizables donde el medicamento ofrece características distintivas (AU)

Fifty years of development of opium characterization methods.

In view of the recent call by the Sub-Commission on Illicit Drug Traffic and Related Matters in the Near and Middle East, for the "development of mechanisms to identify, with more precision and through laboratory analysis, the sources of opium seized from the illicit traffic" [1], the present paper reviews the rationale and preconditions for any practical and reliable characterization and origin-correlated classification of opium. In that context, the results of the early international efforts under the aegis of the United Nations from 1951 to 1967, as well as the rather sporadic investigations in this direction since 1968, are described. Finally, it is demonstrated that in spite of the application of modern computer-based technology, the main obstacle to comprehensive opium characterization and typology is still the lack of an extensive reference collection of opium samples of known origin.