Word Narcotic has its origin from the Greek word for stupor. It is regarded as the type of substances that numbs the senses and thus the pain is relieved. With the passage of time the term has developed a number of senses. Narcotics is defined as the term that binds the opiate receptors or any illicit substance.

If we look into the legal context then narcotic refers to opium and it’s derivatives as well as semi-synthetic substitutes of opium. In the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) Coca leaves and cocaine are categorized as narcotics.

Source for non-synthetic narcotics is poppy Papaver somniferum. Since the time of it’s growth before 5000B.C in the Mediterranean region it has been cultivated in several countries. In order to produce opium the milky liquid that oozes from slits in the unripe seedpod of poppy is scrapped by hand and then dried in the air. This process continued from the ancient times.  However, the modern technique of harvesting is by making use of the industrial poppy straw procedure of taking out the alkaloids from the plants that are matured. This extract may be in solid, liquid or powder form; usually the poppy straw concentrate that is commercially available is a powder that is brownish in color.