Codeine - What Is It Made Of?

What Is It Made Of?

Codeine is a controlled substance in the United States. This means that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) supervise its manufacture and distribution. Opium is sometimes harvested by slicing the plant's seed pods and extracting the sap. In 2005, however, machines were available to slice the entire mature poppy plant into bits and grind those bits into powder. According to Gahlinger, "Each year, more than 600 tons of opium powder are legally imported into the United States for legitimate medical use."

Pure opium can be separated into three different drugs: morphine, codeine, and thebaine. Most of the codeine used in the United States is synthesizedMade in a laboratory. from morphine by a process called methylation (pronounced meh-thuh-LAY-shun). Codeine is an organicA term used to describe chemical compounds that contain carbon., or naturally occurring, compound that contains carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Its chemical formula is C18H21NO3. Codeine is also an alkaloidA nitrogen-containing substance found in plants.. Curiously, while most of the prescription codeine is derived from morphine, when the drug is ingested, the human liver turns the codeine back into morphine. Therefore, the compound works on the brain in the same way morphine does.