The Morphine Addict

Morphine in initial doses may abolish more recently learned behavior patterns and release more firmly established patterns regardless of whether the patterns are normal or neurotic. In some individuals, morphine is apt to release fantasies of omnipotence and grandiosity with a corresponding feeling of unusual well-being and with a behavior characterized by 

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The medical addict usually confines himseK to morphine, but criminal addicts more frequently employ heroin and cocaine when available (Simon, 76). The danger of heroin lies in the ease ivith which addiction occurs, the intense euphoria which often supplants subjective depression, and the absence of unpleasant effects such as vomiting and constipation. The heroin addict is difficult to treat, usually relapses after apparent cure, and often represents a dangerous, asocial, and criminal type of personality. The morphine addict takes morphine in order to feel normal and prevent the appearances of withdrawal symptoms but the heroin addict continues his drug for the euphoric excitation it affords (69). 

A second group of states that enacted criminal laws against the use of marijuana were in the northeastern part of the country. In these states there were few Mexicans, but northeastern residents had heard about the influx of Mexican immigrants out west and about the drug marijuana. These states had just begun to get the morphine addiction problem under control and feared that addicts, cut off from morphine, would substitute some other drug that was not yet controlled. In the absence of any research or medical information, marijuana seemed like a possible candidate for this substitution. So even though marijuana use was virtually unknown in the Northeast at that time, these states also outlawed it. 

These early observations on the correlation of structure and pharmacological action in the morphine group have been greatly extended as a result of chemical, pharmacological and clinical work done under the auspices of the American National Committee on Drug Addiction. In addition to numerous papers, contributed by experts serving this Committee, to chemical and pharmacological journals, two important reports have been published —... 

More radical dissection of the morphine molecule was in progress concurrently with the work above. The chemistry of the series of analgesics that rely on an acyclic skeleton, the compounds related to methadone, is discussed earlier. Suffice it to say that this series of agents, with the possible exception of propoxyphene, seem to share abuse and addiction potential with their polycyclic counterparts. 

Opium has been used as a medicine for hundreds of years, inevitably creating countless addicts. Scientists have conducted a never-ending search for effective cures for opium addiction, morphine addiction (morphinism), and heroin addiction. For most of its history, opium addiction was treated as a disease with no cure, and doctors concerned themseives with treating the symptoms of addiction rather than the root cause. As a result, other opiates were used to lessen the effects of withdrawal. The addict is placed on a regimen of opiates that slowly decrease over time, weaning the addict from his or her addiction. This process of treatment is still used today. 

Many addicts, however, report that weaning themseives off of methadone is just as bad as coming off of heroin or morphine addiction. Ultimately, primary treatments for opiate addiction rely on replacing one drug for another and are essentially palliative treatments. The user is never cured and will always be tormented by the specter of addiction. 

Many of these nostrums were advertised to cure a myriad of diseases, but probably failed to cure any. However, they certainly created countless alcoholics and morphine addicts. By the early 1900s, concern regarding patent medicines was on the rise and the medical profession soon formally discredited their production. These measures unfortunately came too late to curb the infiltration of opium into American society. 

Molecular modifications in the form of simplifications of the morphine ring system have been undertaken for many years, and have resulted in the development of some spectacularly successful compounds devoid of addictive properties. 

It is inactive orally because of high first pass metabolism in liver. Metabolised by glucuronidation in liver. The main use of naloxone is in the treatment of acute opioid overdose (acute morphine poisoning). It also precipitates withdrawal syndrome when administered to morphine addicts. The constricted pupils of addicts dilate after administration of naloxone. This has been used as a diagnostic tool for opioid addiction. 

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