Morphine Addiction & Abuse

Morphine is a federally designated schedule II drug and it’s prescribed for pain that requires daily, around-the-clock treatment, including cancer-related pain and post-surgery pain. However, this substance runs a high risk of morphine addiction and abuse because it’s relatively easy to access and it gives a feeling of euphoria.

A solution was thus urgently needed to mitigate the addictive effects of opium, while maintaining its positive medicinal properties. Between 1805 and 1816, a pharmacist assistant named Friedrich Wilhelm Serturner managed to isolate a yellowish-white crystalline compound from crude opium. After testing very small doses of the compound on himself, he discovered that it had the effects of pain relief and euphoria. He named this compound morphine after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus.

By the mid 19th century, morphine was commercially produced and highly praised as a miracle drug that doctors could prescribe to injured soldiers during the American Civil War. It was effective in its job, but after the war, it was discovered that veterans who had used morphine had developed morphine addiction.

The drug was also gaining traction as an alternative to opium in pain relief and as a substitute for opium to treat opium addiction. The perfection of the first hypodermic needle in 1853 provided a new way of introducing morphine directly into the bloodstream. Due to the refined form of the drug, morphine proved to be 10 times more effective in comparison to opium in relieving pain. However, one major problem arose. Its addictive properties also turned out to be exponentially enhanced, posing a new challenge that needed to be mitigated: morphine addiction.

Morphine sulfate tablets were thus developed and introduced to address the risk of dependence observed among individuals who needed morphine for pain relief. These tablets released morphine into the body in smaller doses at a time and were seen as a solution to the stubborn stain of morphine addiction and dependence. Today, morphine sulfate tablets are prescribed for the management of pain which is severe enough to require an opioid analgesic, but for which alternative treatments are inadequate.

Morphine sulfate pills are manufactured in different shapes, sizes and colors. Some tablets are round in shape, while others take an oval/elliptical shape. There are also capsule-shaped morphine sulfate tablets. The color and shape notwithstanding, one common feature of all morphine sulfate tablets is that they must indicate their dosage content in milligrams on the face of the tablet.

Morphine goes by a varied number of names, both in terms of brand names and slang names applied in the streets. Some of the common brand names under which morphine is produced and marketed are:

• Roxanol
• Kadian ER
• Morphine Sulfate ER
• MS Contin
• Morphabond
• Embeda

In the streets, it is impossible to list all the names that are used in reference to a drug. However, some of the names that are commonly used in reference to morphine include:

• Monkey
• Dreamer
• White Stuff
• Aunti Em
• Aunti
• Morph
• Drone
• TNT
• Tango and Cash
• Dance Fever
• Murder 8
• Goodfella