Results and discussions From the results in Table 1 it may be seen that Indian opium contains 5.62 to 7.68 per cent of narcotine. The narcotine content the opium grown in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan is not the same. Opium originating from Madhya Pradesh has higher narcotine than the opium from other regions in India. Opium of first and subsequent lancing has practically the same narcotine content. The narcotine content in opium marc and crude narcotine in Tables 2 and 3 also confirms that Malwa opium has a higher narcotine content than Banaras opium.
Indian opium has a lower narcotine content than Russian opium.
According to the geographical origin of opium, the codeine and narcotine content in opium generally increases from the Macedonian region in the West, as we proceed towards the East. Narcotine being a weakly basic alkaloid remains insoluble during extraction of opium with water at pH 5.5. Some of the resins and colouring matters in the opium marc being amphoteric in nature are soluble in acidic solution and they are reprecipitated along with narcotine when made alkaline. Hence the crude narcotine obtained from opium marc contained much resins, gums and other impurities and it was found not possible to purify the crude narcotine without adopting solvent extraction. The narcotine content in the crude narcotine varied from batch to batch, depending upon the quality of the opium marc used, temperature of extraction and the pH of the acid extract.