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Morphine Relief Without Addiction?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the plop-plop-fizz-fizz dept.

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."

9 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. Heroin by snowgirl · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

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    WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
    1. Re:Heroin by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If I recall correctly, Heroin was originally designed the same way, or at least to help people get off of a morphine addiction.

      you might be thinking of methadone to treat a heroin addiction.

      No, he WAS thinking of Herion.

      The drug chemists were trying minor modifications on the morphine molecule, trying to find something with the pain relief but without the addition. This new one had all the pain killing power, so they tried it on a number of the lab personnel and it didn't give any of them withdrawal symptoms.

      So they marketed it as the "Heroine" that would rescue the world from addiction by killing pain without hooking. Only to discover that it hooked at least as well as it cured pain.

      Turns out:
        a) The body jut converts it back to morphine.
        b) There is a small fraction of the population that doesn't get hooked on morphine and its derivatives. And it happened that all the people in the lab they tried it on were members of that subset - a statistically unlikely occurrence.

      (There was a theory that such people also gravitate toward research science fields, such as chemistry and medicine, for unknown reasons, though I haven't heard whether this was ever checked out.)

      = = = =

      One of the most tragic parts of the whole additction / drug war / underprescription of painkillers by doctors for fear of prosecution is that morphine and derivatives, given in appropriate doses for relief from actual severe or chronic pain, apparently DON'T addict. It's a dose spike far above the pain-relief level that sets the hook. (Not that it's easy to tell in chronic pain cases, since the return of the underlying pain is a fine substitute for withdrawal symptoms. But for acute pain tapering the dose - even (especially) by self-administration, also tends to avoid the hook.

      But DEA scrutinizes doctor dosing habits and sporadicly prosecutes doctors who prescribe "too much" narcotics. And they don't adequately take into account whether the doctor is a specialist in pain treatment or treatment of illnesses with a lot of associated pain, and thus have an atypical patient mix biased toward need for pain medication and high doses.

      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).

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    2. Re:Heroin by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. Next up: Fire that doesn't burn you! by user9918277462 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Painkillers (opioid painkillers, specifically) are addictive precisely because of their analgesic effects. Addiction and analgesia are not separate traits, but rather two aspects of the same action. Anything that provides strong central pain relief (as opposed to peripheral analgesia as in NSAIDs) has at least some risk of causing psychological or physical dependence.

  3. I see addicts. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I love how all the low number slashdot users all appear to be addicts/former addicts.

  4. chronic pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Relief by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Funny

    Boy, am I glad that tribal Australians will be reimbursed for all the R&D they invested in breeding that vine for thousands of years. That their prior art will prevent some pharmaco from patenting the vine, that the pharmaco lobbyists won't be able to prevent Australians from using the cheap original plant.

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    make install -not war

  6. not only that... by Quadraginta · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you read TFA instead of the completely misleading summary, you'll note that...

    (1) The BYU chemists don't know if the compound has painkilling properties at all. It's the mirror image of another molecule which is known not to be a painkiller. The mirror image is similar to morphine, so they hope it might have the painkilling properties of morphine. But it's painkilling properties are at this point entirely theoretical.

    (2) They have no clue whatsoever whether, if it has painkilling properties, it is less addictive than morphine. It just as easily be more addictive. All they know is, while it looks like morphine, it isn't exactly morphine, so it will probably have slightly different properties.

    (3) And of course, they have no idea whether the new molecule would have other, less desirable differences from morphine -- like being a deadly poison to the kidneys. Whether the stuff could even be safely taken by humans is still unknown.

    In short, the summary on this article wildly exaggerates its content.

  7. Actually, Most People Don't Become Addicted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is a small fraction of the population that doesn't get hooked on morphine and its derivatives.

    This is misleading. Actually, the vast majority of individuals who use opioids do not develop addiction. Everyone develops physical dependence and it's important to understand the difference. While physical dependence requires that long term opiate users taper thier dose of a long period of time, addiction (psychological dependence) occurs in only a few percent of opiate users.

    Opiate addiction is similar to alcoholism. The vast majority of alcohol users will never experience addiction disorder.

    For two years I took 60mg of time release morphine (Avinza) for fibromyalgia. Personally, it was much more difficult to quit drinking coffee than it was to taper off morphine (using oxycodone to taper).