A report on Morphine and Codeine

Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects.

The weak opioid codeine, in low doses and combined with one or more other drugs, is commonly available without a prescription and can be used to treat mild pain.

Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade.

The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine.

Black tar heroin is a variable admixture of morphine derivatives—predominantly 6-MAM (6-monoacetylmorphine), which is the result of crude acetylation during clandestine production of street heroin.

Most commercial opiate screening tests cross-react appreciably with these metabolites, as well as with other biotransformation products likely to be present following usage of street-grade diamorphine such as 6-acetylcholine and codeine.

Those allergic to codeine may also be allergic to oxycodone.

When taken by mouth, it has roughly 1.5 times the effect of the equivalent amount of morphine.

A minor constituent of opium, thebaine is chemically similar to both morphine and codeine, but has stimulatory rather than depressant effects.

Hydrocodone 10 mg is equivalent to about 10 mg of morphine by mouth.

Hydrocodone is a semisynthetic opioid, converted from codeine or less often from thebaine.

The psychoactive compounds found in the opium plant include morphine, codeine, and thebaine.

Earlier treaties had only controlled opium, coca, and derivatives such as morphine, heroin, and cocaine.

codeine – alkaloid contained in opium and poppy straw

Heroin, is the brand name for diacetylmorphine or morphine diacetate, which is an inactive prodrug that exerts its effects after being converted into the major active metabolite morphine, and the minor metabolite 6-MAM - which itself is also rapidly converted to morphine. Some European countries still use it as a potent pain reliever in terminal cancer patients, and as second option, after morphine sulfate; it is about twice as potent, by weight, as morphine and, indeed, becomes morphine upon injection into the bloodstream. The two acetyl groups attached to the morphine make a prodrug which delivers morphine to the opioid receptors twice as fast as morphine can.

Codeine (pure) and any drug for non-parenteral administration containing the equivalent of more than 90 mg of codeine per dosage unit;

2) Codeine (methylmorphine)

3) Morphine (7,8-didehydro-4,5-epoxy-17-methylmorphinan-3,6-diol)