Subject: Morphine analog candidate for blotter distribution?
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 10:41:25 -0600

In the course of my reading for my drug design class, I came across a
drug, etorphine, listed as ~1000 times more potent than morphine.  Now, it
doesn't look particularly simple to make so it's probably an impractical
target for the underground chemist, but I was reminded of the thread a few
months ago about just what drugs could be found on blotter paper.  I have
no idea what a typical dose of morphine is, but I imagine that a
thousandth of it is pretty small.  Assuming that etorphine is orally or
sublingually active, and a good substitute for popular opiates, this would
seem to be a particularly convenient analog.

If anyone is interested, the text references K.W. Bentley and D.G. Hardy,
J. Am. Chem. Soc. _89_, 3267 (1967) and a second article appearing on p
3273 of the same.  My Merck isn't handy but the drug is used to immobilize
large animals, so I imagine good production techniques could be found in
the literature or patents.

Comments?


