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Sounds Like: MOR.feen
Classification: opioid analgesic
Controlled Substance Act Schedule: II & III
Other names for Morphine
Morphine is an alkaloid substance that’s organically derived from the opium poppy plant. Morphine is the drug that gave birth to the class of drugs that includes heroin, codeine, morphine, opium and thebaine.
Opium poppies for morphine-like substances have been used since 1500 BC, and they have been used medicinally and recreationally ever since. During the mid-20th-century, many people were addicted to morphine before the opioid addiction was recognized. Heroin, one refined extract from morphine/opium is normally seen in a powder form that can be heated and injected by the user. Users can be at severe risk for HIV due to needle sharing in the recreational drug community.
This class of drugs is described as sedative narcotics. Opiates depress activity in the CNS (central nervous system), and they also reduce pain. According to the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 948,000 Americans used heroin in the previous year. Among these, 170,000 were first-time users, almost double the number of first-time heroin users in 2006. As a result, 626,000 people were diagnosed with dependence or heroin use disorder. Morphine binds to the opioid receptors in your brain and changes the way pain is interpreted. While morphine is highly effective as an analgesic, it doesn’t cure any ailments directly.
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As an opioid analgesic, morphine is used in some instances under medical supervision. Other drugs are more effective through targeting specific issues or do what morphine does more effectively in a general sense.
One can take morphine through a wide variety of methods; injecting it, ingesting it, smoking it, or snorting it are common ways non-medical use is carried out. Some doctors will prescribe morphine pills to those who need something stronger than a regular non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug like acetaminophen or ibuprofen.
A morphine overdose happens when the breathing and heart rate are reduced to a fatal degree. Usually, respiratory arrest is the killer of overdosing individuals. Nausea and vomiting happen commonly with morphine due to the location of some of the receptors in the brain. Constipation can occur with morphine use, regardless of whether the drug is being administered at proper therapeutic doses or being abused. Side effects include:
If someone develops an addiction to morphine, they will likely seek the drugs on the street if they have a prescription that’s no longer valid. It’s very easy to become addicted to morphine if not careful and therefore withdrawal symptoms may happen in those who take the drug at higher doses. Withdrawal symptoms include:
Nausea
Abdominal pain
Sweating
Shaking
Nervousness
Agitation
Depression
Muscle spasms
Over 107,000 people died from an opioid overdose between Summer 2020 and Summer 2021.
Much of the world’s supply of heroin base materials originates in Afghanistan from poppy plants that also give rise to illegal morphine supplies around the world.