Half Life of Morphine

Morphine has truly stood the test of time. Few medicines can claim such a lengthy tenure in the world of medicine, let alone one that fundamentally changed the way we approach pain. The concept of pain has alluded the greatest scientific and medical minds for centuries. It is difficult to quantify something that almost everyone feels to some extent. Everyone feels pain differently, depending on a number of factors, from genetics to personal experience. Morphine has created a benchmark from which pain management and treatment can branch out. This has been the case for hundreds of years, and plenty of drugs have diverged from its family tree — or opium plant. Codeine for coughs, hydrocodone and oxycodone for cancer, and heroin for illicit uses all come from the foundation morphine laid out as the foremost opioid.  

In recent years, this term has become as much a buzzword as a dirty word. The world cannot seem to stop talking about opioids and opiates, and the reasoning behind this is clear. Opioids have brought drug-related deaths to epidemic levels. More than 54,000 individuals lost their lives to opioids in 2016, and the numbers aren’t declining. In fact, despite attempts to quell prescription numbers and implementing billions of dollars in relief efforts, the crisis is trending upward.

Morphine is generally considered on the lower end of dangerous opioids, especially considering that new variants such as carfentanil are 10,000 times more potent. Still, morphine dependence and substance use disorders are a very real problem. In addition, converting from an expensive and largely unavailable opioid like morphine to something stronger, cheaper, and virtually everywhere, is more commonplace than ever.

As ironic as it may be, morphine was, at first, the stepping stone to the creation of other painkillers, and now it has become the stepping stone to their misuse. This issue of transitioning to other opioids from morphine can be traced back to tolerances. Chemically speaking, morphine only lasts a short amount of time in the body. After just a few hours, pain will return, and if the individual has been taking the drug for months, withdrawal symptoms may also begin to develop. This often results in continued use of the drug to alleviate the pain, which usually requires larger doses that previous times.