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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
| Last Updated: 3/02/20 | 26 sources Two hundred years after its discovery, morphine remains one of the most popular opioid painkillers in use — but it’s far from the strongest. Synthetic opioids hundreds to thousands of times stronger than morphine are now turning up on America’s streets and contributing to a wave of overdoses and deaths.Opioid abuse is not a new phenomenon, but it has become a worsening epidemic. Opioid-related overdose deaths have doubled since 2000, making drug overdose the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50.Among the factors fueling this deadly epidemic is the exploding popularity of potent synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, and its chemical cousin carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer that is 10,000 times more powerful than morphine.Every day, 91 Americans die from an opioid overdose and more than 1,000 people are treated in emergency departments for not using prescription opioids as directed.Source: Centers for Disease Control and PreventionMost opioids work in roughly the same way. They attach to receptors in the brain that send signals to block pain, slow breathing and create a sense of euphoria. But what makes one drug more powerful or euphoric than another is its unique chemical structure — and how quickly and tightly it binds to those pain receptors.As one of the faster prescription opioids, fentanyl zooms through the blood-brain barrier to the brain’s opioid receptors with remarkable efficiency and hugs those receptors more tightly than many other drugs. These characteristics make fentanyl particularly deadly among opioids.Of the 60,000 drug overdose deaths recorded in 2016 in the United States, 20,000 involved fentanyl. The death rate increased more than fivefold since 2013, when fentanyl was implicated in 3,105 fatalities.In medical literature, the analgesic strength, or potency, of most painkillers is measured as a comparison to morphine. For example, oxycodone is roughly 50 percent stronger than morphine. Therefore, researchers might say the drug is 1.5 times as strong as morphine. A single dose of Tylenol or aspirin is about 360 times weaker than a dose of morphine.Opioids Weaker than MorphineWhile morphine is the pharmacologic standard bearer in the lineup of prescription opioids, there are several milder prescription painkillers on the market. These range from codeine, a common ingredient in many cough syrups, to tapentadol, a relatively new drug that is being marketed to patients requiring long-term opioid treatment, such as those suffering from diabetic leg pain.CodeineLike morphine and heroin, codeine comes directly from the opium poppy plant. The drug is an ingredient in many cough syrups and is also prescribed to treat mild to moderate pain and diarrhea. Codeine, which is seven to 14 times less potent than morphine, comes
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