Lettuce Opium

Lactucarium

COMMON NAMES

• Lettuce Opium

Consisting of the dried milky juice or latex of several species of lettuce, it is collected from the stem of the plant which is cut off at the time of flowering. The source most commonly utilized is the so-called wild lettuce, Lactuca virosa L., but garden lettuce, L. sativa L., as well as the related species L. serriola L. and L. sagittata Waldst. & Kit., all members of the family Asteraceae, also yield the product. Lettuce opium is also known by the Latin title, lactucarium.

Taken as a medication by the ancient Egyptians, lettuce opium was long thought to possess soporific (sleep-producing) properties; however, this was probably based on the similar appearance of the white milky juice exuded by the cut lettuce plant and that yielded by the opium poppy. The odor, taste, and general appearance of lactucarium also resemble those of opium. As early as 1892, hyoscyamine was reported in extracts of various lettuce species but not in commercial lactucarium. These observations have not been verified by subsequent investigations. An evaluation of lettuce opium in 1944 caused Fulton to reach the following conclusion: "Modern medicine considers its sleep producing qualities a superstition, its therapeutic action doubtful or nil." More recently, Brown and Malone examined one of the modern lettuce opium preparations and concluded, "The analgesic, sedative and other attributes of lettuce opium lactucarium, seem to be based on fiction rather than fact". Although these conclusions are certainly factual, a rather startling revelation regarding the constituents of lettuce was made in 1981. Scientists reported that studies using an extremely sensitive radioimmunoassay technique detected minute amounts of morphine (2 to 10 nanograms per gram, dry weight) in both hay and lettuce. However, before getting too excited over this discovery, remember that a nanogram is a billionth of a gram; also, similar small quantities of morphine were found in such unlikely natural sources as cow's milk and human milk. The amounts involved in either lettuce or milk would be far too small to exert any obvious physiological effect. Sensible people may continue to eat lettuce in their bacon and tomato sandwiches, but they will not smoke it in their pipes.

PARTS USED

Milky juice or latex.

USES

Introduced into conventional American medicine in 1799 by J. R. Coxe, a Philadelphia physician, the use of lettuce opium as a sedative and painkiller flourished for a century or so and then gradually lost favor. By the mid-twentieth century, the medication had fallen into obscurity. Then suddenly, in the mid-1970s it was resurrected as a legal psychotropic or mind-altering medication by members of the American hippie movement. Various lettuce opium preparations were widely advertised in counterculture publications, either as the pure material or combined with "potency enhancers" such as catnip and damiana. The products were intended to be smoked in order to produce a feeling of euphoria and well-being (a "high "). Over the years, repeated attempts have been made to demonstrate sedative and painkilling effects in lettuce opium and to identify active principles which might be responsible for them.

CONSTITUENTS

An extensive pharmacological study of lettuce opium published in 1940 showed that the fresh milky juice contained two bitter principles, lactucin and lactucopicrin, which had definite depressant or sedative effects on the central nervous system in small animals. However, these compounds were found to be quite unstable, and commercial lactucarium had little, if any, activity.

COMMENTS