Morphine

To understand why we do what we do from a sociology perspective, my government class tried to research why people take drugs. To do that, we had to have a thorough understanding of what the drugs we chose are, how they work, and how they effect people. This is my research paper on Morphine.

Paper:
Although the poppy plan looks lovely and innocent, it is the creator of a powerful narcotic analgesic drug called opium. It was first cultivated by humans around 3400 B.C. in Lower Mesopotamia. In the next 2,000 years, it traveled to the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians (Berger). (At the time, not much was understood about the drug.) Over the centuries, it traveled farther and farther east, ending up in China in 400 A.D. For the most part, it was taken for recreational uses, but in the 1300’s during the Holy Inquisition, it became taboo in Europe. “In the eyes of the Inquisition, anything from the East was linked to the Devil” (“Opium”). However, it was reintroduced to Europe during the Renaissance for medicinal purposes for treating pain, and during the reign of Elizabeth I, it became a highly valued commodity from India. Then, in 1804, morphine, an opiate and a member of the opioid family of drugs, was first isolated from opium by a German physicist named Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner. He named it morphium after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams (“Morphine”). Because morphine has been used for medical purposes since its discovery, the risky and potentially unsafe drug as remained on the market, and dependency, one of its side effects, has caused many patients to abuse the drug and become addicted to it.
With the creation of the hypodermic needle in 1853, morphine’s use spread, and it was used to “cure” opium and alcohol addiction, as well as to relieve pain (“Opium”). During the American Civil War, it was used so extensively that more than 400,000 men suffered from “soldier’s disease” (addiction) (“Morphine”). After that, a tax was imposed on morphine for the first time as a means of law enforcement. Following this, the U.S. Congress first passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required all food products to be labeled with their contents. This resulted in a considerable decline of opiate sales. It wasn’t until 1923 that “the U.S. Treasury Department's Narcotics Division (the first federal drug agency) ban[ned] all legal narcotics sales” (“Opium”). However, this action also, paradoxically, created the first real illegal morphine trafficking.
Through scientific study, it is now understood that all opioids, including morphine, act on certain receptors in the nervous system. Morphine specifically acts on protein-lipid receptors in the cell membranes called mu. The interaction effectively changes the molecular composition of the cells. This change is then what causes “the spinal cord to decrease the transmission of painful stimuli from body to brain, and its action within the brain itself” (Kestin). Today, pain that is treated with morphine is divided into two categories: persistent pain, and breakthrough pain. Persistent pain, pain that lasts a long time, is treated with long-acting morphine that releases the medication over a twelve hour period, while breakthrough pain, pain that is caused by an increase in an activity, emotion or other medication, is treated with immediate release morphine that becomes effective with 30 minutes of taking it orally and lasts for four hours (Pain). These doses can be taken orally, rectally, under the tongue, on the skin, or injected into the skin, muscles, or veins (Kestin).
Apart from treating pain, morphine has many other side effects. The most dangerous are respiratory repression, sedation and tolerance (Kestin). The first two do not always cause harm themselves, but they have been the cause of many fatal accidents when people taking morphine were unaware of how it affected them (Pain). Other minor side effects include constipation, nausea, and itching (caused by histamine release) (Kestin). Morphine also “relieves fear and anxiety, and produces euphoria,” which is part of the reason why it is so addictive (“Morphine”). The principal cause of morphine addiction, however, is tolerance. The use of morphine, like other addictive drugs, alters the chemical balances in the brain. As the levels of certain chemicals in the drug increase, the amount needed to produce the same effect also intensifies, which in turn creates an ever increasing dependency. Another reason patients feel that they need to increase their dosage is because morphine acts on the brain’s reward system. “The promise of reward is very intense, causing the individual to crave Morphine and to focus his or her activities around the taking of Morphine” (“Morphine”). Because of this active dependency, withdrawal causes severe nausea, sweating, chills and tearing for about three days. The most common method for rehabilitation from an opiate drug is to have the patient gradually switch to another drug that is supposedly less addictive. However, this is rarely successful, and usually results in the patient transferring the addiction to the new drug, and still needing the opiate (“Morphine”).
A large part of morphine’s deadliness is the fact that it is so heavily used for medicinal purposes, and therefore a lot of people have access to it. Also, the dosage is not usually certain and is not always correctly proscribed. These factors, along with the human desire to be happy and comfortable makes morphine a very risky drug to take, and once you start using, it is very hard to stop.


Works Cited
Berger, Jeremy. “History of Heroin, Opium and Morphine Addiction.” Associated Content. 17 June, 2008. Associated Content, Inc. 8 Mar. 2009. .
Kestin, Dr. I. “Morphine.” NDA Web Team, Oxford. World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists. .
“Morphine.” Narconon. 13 Mar. 2009. .
“Morphine.” Pain Management. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. 14 Sept. 2001. 8 Mar., 2009. .
“Opium Throughout History.” FRONTLINE. PBS. 13 Mar. 2009. .