Within a year, the poppy will no longer be the only way to produce heroin’s raw ingredient, and may even be brewed at home, according to a new study.

Morphine, the raw ingredient in heroin, is an opiate used to treat moderate to severe pain, but the rampant morphine addiction problem in the United States commonly stems from abusers either incorrectly using their doctor-prescribed morphine supply or using other people’s morphine even though they weren’t prescribed it, according to the National Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Information Center.

“It’s a double edged sword when it comes to treating pain,” said Cary Quashen from Action Family Counseling, a drug rehabilitation center in Santa Clarita. “We don’t want people to hurt, but it puts the drug addicts more at risk.”

Almost all of the steps needed to manufacture the morphine from yeast has been successfully achieved over the last seven years, and the final step needed was published recently in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

Now that scientists have genetically modified yeast in order to perform the complicated chemistry needed to convert sugar to morphine, it raises some concerns about its accessibility.

A spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration said his agency “does not perceive an imminent threat” because no modified yeast strain is commonly available yet, according to a recent New York Times article. If that happens, he said, D.E.A. laboratories would be able to identify heroin made from it.

“When it comes to drug addicts, if there is a way to figure it out, they will,” Quashen said.

Brewed morphine could, eventually, be easier to produce, but it could also allow scientists to change each of the steps to develop new types of painkillers, according to experts.

“Doctors will continue to do what they do, drug companies will continue to do what they do, and we’ll keep doing what we do — and that’s treating people,” Quashen said.

About Action Family Counseling

Action Family Counseling has drug and alcohol residential treatment locations in Santa Clarita, Piru, and Bakersfield; Intensive Drug and Alcohol Outpatient in Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, Ventura, Pasadena, and Bakersfield, Action Family Counseling is here to help you.

Action Family Counseling’s primary goals are to maintain abstinence, stabilize co-occurring illnesses, and increase quality of life. We support and reinforce change in behavior patterns so that adolescents and adults, or clients and their families can fully indoctrinate the philosophies and principles needed to remain abstinent and stabilized for life.

Action Family Counseling accomplishes this by providing an effective treatment approach developed by the Department of Health and Human Services that includes a multi-disciplinarian personalized approach by a treatment team. Once a patient is identified, we provide an initial screening and assessment, which allows us to properly diagnose and place patients in the appropriate treatment setting.

Once a patient completes our intake process to our residential program he or she receives 24-hour crisis management, individual counseling, group therapy, family education and counseling, treatment planning, routine and random toxicology screening, pharmacotherapy and medication management, education about Alcohol and Other Drugs and mental health issues, self-help and support group orientation, case management services, and discharge service planning with a transitional service plan to our Intensive Outpatient treatment program to ensure a continuum of care.