Question

How are morphine and heroin related? Mention the effect each one of them has on the human body.

Answer 1

• The most notorious derivative of morphine is heroin. Morphine is an opioid analgesic drug. It is the main psychoactive chemical in opium. In medicine, morphine is regarded as the gold standard in management of severe pain. Like other opioids, such as oxycodone, hydromorphone, and heroin, morphine acts directly on the central nervous system (CNS) to relieve pain.
• Morphine has a high potential for addiction; tolerance and psychological dependence develop rapidly, although physiological dependence may take several months to develop. Tolerance to respiratory depression and euphoria develops more rapidly than tolerance to analgesia, and many chronic pain patients are therefore maintained on a stable dose for years.
• However, its effects can also reverse fairly rapidly, worsening pain through hyperalgesia. Morphine is primarily used to treat both acute and chronic severe pain. It is also used for pain due to myocardial infarction and for labor pains.
• Heroin commonly known by its street names of H, smack, boy, horse, brown, black, tar, and others is an opioid analgesic originally synthesized by C.R. Alder Wright in 1874 by adding two acetyl groups to the molecule morphine, which is found naturally in the opium poppy. It is the 3,6-diacetyl ester of morphine. Administered intravenously by injection, heroin is two to four times more potent than morphine and is faster in its onset of action.
• Under the chemical name diamorphine, diacetylmorphine is prescribed as a strong analgesic in the United Kingdom, where it is given via subcutaneous, intramuscular, intrathecal or intravenous route.
• Its use includes treatment for acute pain, such as in severe physical trauma, myocardial infarction, post-surgical pain and chronic pain, including end-stage cancer and other terminal illnesses. In other countries, it is more common to use morphine or other strong opioids in these situations.