Morphine gene discovery could lead to more painkillers, more illegal drugs...

I think this discovery is an amazing step forward, and hopefully, scientists will continue to unlock the secrets of plants' genomes in order to better our medicines.

I do not believe that this will lead to increased availability of illegal opiates. Morphine and codeine are not illegal drugs, unfortunately, they can be abused by certain individuals. To obtain these pharmaceuticals, one must have a presciption for them. So this discovery may ultimately just lower the cost to the people who require them.

The only way this technology could be used to increase the availability of illegal opiates, is if the drug dealers had a way to synthesize these chemicals using this recombinant DNA. However, I personally think drug dealers are not intelligent enough to do this.

I agree with calcguy in that I don't think it will cause an illegal increased sale of the opiates because they are not illegal here in Canada. I also think that this is a great step forward and hopefully it does prove to be successful, so that it will hopefully lower the costs for those who do require opiates. There are many people in Canada that do already abuse these drugs but just like calcguy said, I don't think that drug dealers are capable of performing recombinant DNA technology to produce the opiates.

Yes, I don't think it will make a big issue. I think in a way making cheaper pain killers will only help the public especially cancer patients etc. And I don't think drug dealers will be capable of developing something like this. But I guess researchers can put some sort restrictions to the methods for not disclosing it or make it too available for everybody.

isn't this a good thing that they're coming up with more drugs to battle certain medical conditions??? i dun get it

I think the only fear is that Opiates are used to make Morphine and Heroin - which can become habit-forming drugs.