Drug Counselors Overdose at Addiction Facility

[mr_lebowski]

51. Sadly I can tell you off the top of my head ...

Opiates straight from the poppy: Codeine, Morphine, Thebaine (not an effective analgesic in natural form, more on this later)

Opiates (under the traditional definition, which means derived directly from a fully-natural opiate, with very minimal processing): The aforementioned Codeine & Morphine and Di-Acetyl Morphine (Heroin), and various other drugs with -codeine or -morphine at the end of their name. Note that ApoMorphine is actually an opioid-receptor antagonist, not fun stuff

Semi-Synthetic Opiates/Opioids (these are made with a feedstock from the opium plant. Often thebaine is used to make them these days, but almost all can be made with morphine and/or codeine, that's how they were originally made, but now they often aren't because it's cheaper to make from thebaine ... which is a something of by-product of codeine/morphine extraction and not particularly psycho-active in natural form, so it's a bit cheaper and less tightly controlled): Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Lortab), HydroMorphone(Dilaudid), OxyCodone (Percocet, Oxycontin), OxyMorphone (Opana), Methadone, Buprenorphine (Subutex/Suboxone).

Synthetic Opioids (are not made directly from any product of the opium poppy, but possess the general opioid characteristics of being mu and/or kappa opioid-receptor agonists): Meperidine (Demerol), Fentanyl

Nowadays, they're ALL called 'opioids' by most professionals, as the distinction of being directly derived from opium poppies is basically irrelevant. This is because all 'act upon' neural receptors called our 'opioid receptors' in a manner that's called an 'agonist', i.e. they 'stimulate' the receptors. Opioid ANTagonists, OTOH, are drugs that occupy our receptors but do NOT stimulate them. Naloxone, Naltrexone, and to a small extent, Buprenorphine (a partial agonist w/antagonist properties) ... all these possess the additional 'quality' of having a high binding affinity for the receptors.