Locikové opium
Lettuce opium

Summary/Abstract: The dried milky juice of wild lettuce, lactucarium (lettuce opium), was once considered a narcotic and was used as a sedative and analgesic. The effect of the substance was weaker than that of opium but without side effects, and medical practice confirmed that lactucarium had better healing effects in some cases than opium. However, more recent studies that were supposed to confirm the medicinal effects of lactucarium and find the substance responsible for these effects did not bring the expected results, and the component responsible for the medicinal properties of lactucarium was not identified. Only later works demonstrated several bioactive substances in lettuce opium, such as lactucin and lactucopicrin, which showed analgesic effects. In the case of the recreational use of lettuce opium as a recreational drug, there is little reliable information about the psychopharmacological properties of the drug and its individual components.

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