flowering and maturity, while the fruits were green. This had several disadvantages: the immature poppy seeds could not be winnowed, so not only was the seed crop lost but their poppyseed oil interfered with the process; the abundant chlorophyll in the green plants also interfered; and an entire year's crop had to be processed in two months, as it reached the fruit stage. Kabay soon found that the process could be applied to poppy straw residue from the poppy seed harvest, and thereby eliminate all these disadvantages. Poppy straw is first pulverized, then washed as many as six to ten or more times in water which may have an acid added to increase solubility, to produce poppy straw concentrate (PSC, also known as concentrate of poppy straw, CPS). Dried, the concentrate is a beige to brown powder. It contains salts of various alkaloids, and can range from nine to 30 times the morphine concentration of poppy straw. Opium concentrates using solvents other than acidifed or plain water are often but not necessarily called PSC. Poppies of the Norman and Przemko strains contain much higher amounts of thebaine and oripavine and have morphine concentrations down to under 1 per cent. versus up to 26 per cent in high-morphine strains. At least one manufacturer, Tasmanian Alkaloids, produces both high-morphine and high-thebaine/oripavine types of poppy straw concentrate; the latter is used by pharmaceutical manufacturers to make semi-synthetic and synthetic opioids such as hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxycodone, oxymorphone, nalbuphine, naloxone, naltrexone, buprenorphine, butorphanol and etorphine. PSC is an alternative to bricks of opium, as an alkaloid source in most but not all of the production methods to isolate natural alkaloids from the opium poppy. A notable exception is thebaine, which is present in far larger fractions in opium than in poppy straw. Morphine, being a large fraction of the alkaloids found in mature poppy capsules, is produced commercially from either opium or concentrated poppy straw. To extract morphine, PSC is dissolved in water and treated with other chemicals to obtain the next intermediate, calcium morphenate or less frequently sodium morphenate, which is then further treated to purify the drug and convert it to the desired morphine salt or base. Processes for extracting other alkaloids, such as codeine and noscapine, use other chemicals and/or optimal solution pH. Poppy straw crops Annual world production of opium and poppy straw, both legal and illegal, is tabulated by the