The anti-addictive poppy

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33061, 31 October 1972, Page 13

The anti-addictive poppy

(By

RALPH JOSEPH)

TEHERAN. On the thickly wooded slopes of the Alborz Mountains, facing the Caspian Sea, Iranian scientists have begun preserving, and largescale cultivation of two different species of wild poppy that were formerly being destroyed. This is being done with full approval of several Western countries currently plagued with addiction problems, and of the United Nations.

These pampered species of a genus otherwise treated as a pariah are not being preserved to boost production of opium, from which comes morphine and the deadly fluffy white powder called heroin — but is rather part of an effort to fight addiction. They are two species of the black poppy which scientists call Papaver oriental e and Papaver bracteatum, and which have been found to contain a high percentage of a drug which has the magic effect of making a heroin addict turn away from heroin.

The plant was discovered quite by accident in the area in 1967 when a scientist from the faculty of pharmacy at the Teheran University, Dr N. Sharghi, was travelling with his wife and some

friends in a car through the mountains to the Caspian coast On the way he stopped to buy a handful of black poppies from a boy for 10 rials (about 12 cents), and continued his journey. After a while the occupants of the car began to feel strangely dizzy. They decided the black poppies were to blame and threw them out. Laboratory tests Curious, Dr Sharghi however returned a few days later for more samples of the plant and took them back to his laboratory at the university for tests. Together with a colleague, Dr Iraj Lalezari, he found that the juices of the plant contained as much as 30 per cent of a chemical called tabain, from which another chemical, naloxone, is derived. Naloxone is said to be the only known cure for heroin addiction, but so far has been available oniy in very small quantities. In fact ordinary poppy plants are known to contain tabain also, but only to the extent of 0.3 per cent Of the juice. This makes its extraction difficult and expensive, and would also call for the cultivation of dangerously large quantities of ordinary poppy, which could only have the adverse effect of encouraging addiction.

After the two scientists made their discovery, Dr Lalezari published their findings in the scientific journal "Nature,” in 1967. Soon after, inquiries from scientists and officials ghting drug addiction in other parts of the world came in thick and fast. The Iranian monarch, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, is also reported to have received the news with enthusiasm ..nd ordered further research into it The experiments and surveys went on with encouragement from all around. World demand

Officials here now estimate they can collect from 10 to 20 tons a year of the plant from the Alborz slopes and make the extract available to authorities elsewhere. But world demand is several times more than this. Dr Lalezari, in fact, estimates it at 100 times as much. Experiments were therefore started this summer to find out whether the black poppy can be produced in greater quantity and whether doing so would upset its chemical contents. These experiments are being assisted by the United

States and carefully watched by several Western countries. Efforts at growing black poppies in other parts of the globe have so far failed, though it is reported to have been found growing wild in Turkey and Soviet Azerbaijan. If the experiments prove successful it could mean a breakthrough in the antiaddiction drive in several Western countries, including the United States, Britain, France and West Germany, and some observers here have speculated it may also

lend the need to grow ordinary poppy “for medicinal purposes.” The United Nations would then ban the growing of other species of poppy, and the world requirements for medicinal purposes would come from Iran—-or any other country able to produce Papaver orientale and Papaver bracteatum. Capital offence Iran also has an addiction problem, and would have gone ahead with the investigations whether or not she had received encouragement from outside. But her antiaddiction struggle does not extend to scientific experiments alone. The government has over the last two and a half years executed close to 150 persons found guilty of smuggling, peddling or possessing either opium or heroin in the country. Perhaps a score of smugglers have also died in gun battles with gendarmes near the border areas, especially on the Iran-Afghan frontier, where some of the most desperate smugglers have been encountered. The executions are being carried out under strict antinarcotics laws passed in 1969, the year in which Iran also decided to resume opium production in limited quantities, as a form of protest against the production of opium in neighbouring countries, particularly Turkey and Afghanistan. Since then Turkey has taken measures, under pressure from the United States, to end opium production in her provinces, but there are no indications that Afghanistan has, or is about to, do the same. Iran therefore is unlikely to stop her own limited production of opium, for which about 5000 acres, spread over various parts of tne country, have been set apart. This is apart from the production of black poppies for the anti-narcotics juices they contain.