Modified poppy opens up new frontiers

While the opium poppy is the source for compounds needed to make potent painkillers such as oxycodone and other medicines, it is also the source for the &to=http://english.pravda.ru/cis/2003/03/13/44352.html' target=_blank>illegal drug heroin.

Australian researchers say they have solved that problem by creating a plant that does not produce morphine, but only the compounds thebaine and oripavine, which can be developed synthetically into nonaddictive painkillers. Their report appears in the Sept. 24 issue of Nature.