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Morphine Relief Without Addiction?
Roland Piquepaille writes "Morphine has been used as a painkiller for decades, if not centuries. Unfortunately for patients, morphine is also an addictive substance. Now, Brigham Young University (BYU) chemists are using a vine plant that grows in Australia to develop a new painkilling molecule, but with fewer side effects. The Deseret Morning News reports that the BYU chemists hope to ease pain with hasubanonine, the synthetic compound they created and which has a similar molecular structure as morphine. Still, more tests need to be done before this natural drug can replace morphine."
How is a drug derived from a vine any more/less natural than a drug derived from a flower?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
If I recall correctly, Heroin was originally designed the same way, or at least to help people get off of a morphine addiction.
Oops! It turned out to be even more addictive, oh well, let's try again. hehe
Rinse and repeat with methadone.
When you live with a terminally ill person, the idea of addiction quickly becomes asinine. Yet, they still won't prescribe it for addiction reasons. Lo, let this comment get relegated to the depths of un-moderation. And you Slashdot libertarians can wait until your family member has chronic pain - so you can wonder why republicans don't want them addicted. Ooo, I know, blame it on democrats.
I would like to suggest that Roland Piquepailles submissions be placed in a seperate blog.
/. to get real news and facts, and see discussions from people with insight.
I read
Roland Piquepailles submissions are usually vague quasiscience or fiction.
It seems this last one "Morphine Relief Without Addiction?", is just some graduate students learning to synthsize a compound with no empirical data it is any more useful than sand. I quote: "The *idea* is that we *can* send it to NIH to test to see if it kills pain"
You should mod this up if you agree or mod away as flamebait/offtopic/troll if you dont agree, but at least mod it.
"Fix it"
So doctors underprescribe. And that leaves many chronic pain sufferers with no alternatives but ongoing excruciating pain, suicide, or recourse to illegal drugs (with their uncertain strengths, and high cost requiring IV administration with its sudden onset, leading to dose spikes and addiction).
The really sad thing is that for those in chronic pain, addiction isn't really much of a risk considering that the pain itself will make sure that they NEED to take whatever painkiller they have regularly anyway. Reluctance (on the government's part anyway) to give terminal patients all they want is also baffling to me.
The side effects of nicotine don't seem that bad. (Although inhaling burning hot gasses and all the other particulate crud that are in the typical nicotine delivery system sure don't appeal to me very much.
Morphine's side-effects seem pretty nasty, though.
Morphine is grossly underprescribed, like most pain killers
Agree with you there.
because of the DEA terror campaign against people with chronic pain.
No, the DEA "remembers" that 400,000 Civil War vets came down with the "Soldier's Disease" (addiction to morphine).
They really shouldn't be so anal about it, but it's difficult for bureaucracies to find a happy medium when setting policy.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The reason is that suffering is supposed to build character, which makes these drugs evil. God wants you to suffer for your own good. Now do you understand? Of course not, it doesn't make sense, but there it is. Someone once said that a Puritan is a person who lies awake at night terrified that somebody, somewhere, is enjoying themselves.
I wish it were only Puritans, but this kind of lunacy seems to permeate most of Christianity. Christoper Hitchens wrote a book entitled The Missionary Position which included eyewitness accounts of people who worked with Mother Theresa. Apparently, Mother Theresa refused to use pain killers stronger than aspirin, even for terminal patients who were writhing with pain from cancer. It's not like she couldn't afford them; her order had fifty million in the bank, and she wasn't far from Afghanistan--morphine would have been dirt cheap. Her rationale was that suffering brought you closer to Christ who suffered on the cross. So hey, pain is good, painkillers are evil, got it?
At some point, a religious consolation which was supposed to make people feel better about their pain (I'm sorry we can't help your pain, but something good may come of it) became twisted into a message that pain was good for the soul (which is why the Inquisitor needs all these implements of torture.) But don't try to understand it, it's a mystery...
I used to the the webmaster for the BYU Chemistry Department. I just had a few thoughts. First, you really should read the official press release from BYU about this if you want more information or if you want high resolution photos. One of the things that makes this particular story more interesting than others I've dealt with is that the primary researcher is an undergraduate student. I'm told that it is fairly uncommon for undergraduates to be involved so deeply with this type of research. Oh, and by the way, the BYU Chemistry Department is a big supporter of open source software.
I wish we could post pictures on /. Please check out this old Doonsbury cartoon I saved at :
HTTP://Ron.Dotson.org/pic/Doonesbury.gif
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
The fear of addiction to morphine is an odd US thing. It was noted on this side of the pond along time ago, that people who use morphine for pain relief do not get addicted, ever!
I am angered that in the US, that the fear that people, even the terminally ill, will develop addiction is so strong that the US has become one of the worst countries in the world for elevating pain. Doctors are so fearfull of being arrested, they reduce doses so low, it has no effect.
What are they scared of, terminally ill wrinklies going on a robbery spree to feed their morphine habit? Not likely. People who need morphine are generally aged - well past turning to crime.
Japan has its scandal over sexism in medicine. There, women are often not told that they are terminally ill or are given terribly callous treatment. Literally knocked on the head with a hammer so save on anaesthetic. And in the US, people can get pain relief encase they become junkies.
Ever come into close contact with nicotine? It's deadly at ~40mg, and horribly corrosive, whilst morphine is a nice bitter powder that's safe up to 100mg for first time users.
As for morphines side effects, is being constipated considered that "nasty", or would the euphoria be considered bad?
Furthermore, the"soldier's disease" is a myth, which should be rather obvious considering the DEA was formed 100 years after the civil war.
As other people have said, the stigma assoicated with drugs is far more due to puritanical ideas about suffering and politics than any real problems.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.