Romania To Introduce Oripavine On Illegal Narcotics List

Romania’s Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform, or MIRA, on Wednesday launched for public debates a draft law banning the use of the oripavine, a high-toxicity opiate.

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The draft is available on the ministry’s website www.mira.gov.ro.

Oripavine is an opiate and the major metabolite of thebaine. Although its analgesic potency is comparable to morphine, it is not used clinically due to its severe toxicity and low therapeutic index.

Due to the relative ease of synthetic modification of oripavine to produce other narcotics (by either direct or indirect routes via thebaine), the World Health Organization recommended in 2003 that oripavine be controlled under Schedule I of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. On March 2007, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs formally decided to accept these recommendations, and placed oripavine in the Schedule I.

The United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon informed the Romanian authorities on the decision and recommended that officials take proper steps in amending the internal legislation.

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