Drugs: route from botany to chemistry

2002/05/12 Mendiburu, Joana - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Osasuna

There are many ways to classify drugs: depending on how they are used, from the legal point of view, from the current point of view… As it is not possible to cite all, the article will be limited to illegal drugs, distinguishing between those based on plants and synthetic drugs.

From plants to drugs

Until they know the advances of chemistry, drugs have been based on substances extracted from plants. Specifically, they are extracted from the plants composed of the alkaloid family, much toxic. The best known are cocaine, morphine, diamorphine or heroin and lysergic acid. Caffeine and nicotine also belong to this family.

Cocaine comes from the coca leaf and opium heroin extracted from the green fruit of opium grass. Before turning opium into heroin, you get morphine and then heroin. LSD (lysergic diethylamide acid) is a compound formed by a parasitic barley fungus. However, a product with the same chemical composition as natural LSD is currently manufactured in laboratories. Therefore, LSD can be both natural and synthetic. There are other alkaloids, such as mescaline that comes out of a Mexican cactus and the psilocivina of some species of fungi, both hallucinating.

As is known, these plants are consumed since remote times in different countries. However, it is not comparable to the consumption of the plant (chewing coca leaves, for example) with the consumption of drugs extracted from the plant, since the degree of concentration of the active substance is very different.

The concentration of the active substance in plants is only 5%, while in refined preparations the concentration can be 100%. In the coca leaf, for example, the concentration of coca is less than 2% and can reach 90% of the cocaine.

In addition, the plant is normally consumed by mouth, so the active ingredients degrade in the stomach. On the contrary, the refined product reaches the blood in much more direct ways (burned, snorted or injected), so its effect is much greater.

Design drugs extracted from the laboratory

Design drugs are laboratory products and, as is known, are obtained from chemicals present in the legal trade, rather than from plants. Its objective is to produce the same or similar psychoactive effect as conventional drugs. It can produce as many drugs as the desired effect: tranquilizers, stimulants or that cause perceptive or conscious alterations.

Synthetic drugs, although in recent years their use has increased considerably, are not new products. The first are amphetamines that came out in the 1960s. Currently, the best known are grouped into three large groups: amphetamine derivatives, synthetic opios and drug derivatives called PCP.

The drugs in the first group use the most, including ecstasy and speed.

Ecstasy is pills or capsules that contain MDMA. MDMA is the chemical derivative of amphetamine, which was first obtained by the pharmaceutical company Merck in 1912. Patented two years later, it was used to increase the level of military and civil performance during World War II. Later, by eliminating appetite, they thought it could be useful as a medicine to maintain slender bodies, but it was totally ruled out for not getting good results and for its side effects.

As a psychoactive drug it was first used in the United States in the 1960s, but it is in the 1990s that it has most spread. According to the Spanish National Drug Plan, 20% of the pills or capsules sold as ecstasy do not contain MDMA or other derivatives similar to amphetamine. Instead, they have been made with caffeine or antibiotics.

Speed is also a methamphetamine, discovered at the beginning of the century, and its crystallized form is known as ICE (or ice). Having a more stimulating effect than cocaine and also being much cheaper, it is one of the most consumed drugs.

In addition to the two amphetamine derivatives mentioned, simply replace the methyl group with another chemical element (e.g., bromine) to produce new drugs. Drugs like ‘Adam’, ‘Eve’ or ‘Barbies’ are like that. The main novelty of these drugs is the incorporation into the stimulating effect of amphetamine of the hallucinating effect of mescaline.

Synthetic opios have effects similar to morphine and heroin, but they seem to be stronger. The effect is very fast, but they last less time. In addition, they offer a level of safety much lower than that of natural opios. There is only the number of overdose deaths.

The drug PCP (phenylcyclidine) has not been as successful as the previous ones, but more than 30 drugs are known of all shapes and colors that depart from the PCP. PCP began to be used as an anesthetic in the 1950s, but in 1965 they realized that patients were agitated and awakened with hallucinations and abandoned the use of this substance. They are usually inhaled, burned, or eaten mixed with other herbs.

Sulfuric acid in drugs

Sulfuric acid is part of most designer drugs. Sulfuric acid is a colorless viscous liquid. It dissolves in water, but the reaction that occurs in contact with water gives off great heat and if not used carefully, when making the mixture can be boiled and produce projections.

In industry, sulfuric acid is used as an oxidizer and to remove water from various materials, including paper. It also produces dehydration in the consumer of drugs designed with sulfuric acid.

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