Codeine | What Kind of Drug Is It?
What Kind of Drug Is It?
Codeine is an opiate analgesic, meaning it is a pain reliever derived from the opium poppy plant. Its powers of pain relief—and its side effects—are many times weaker than the related opiates morphineAn addictive opiate that is used to kill pain and bring on relaxation and sleep. and heroin. (An entry for each of these drugs is available in this encyclopedia.)
Doctors sometimes prescribe pills containing combinations of codeine and over-the-counter (OTC) analgesics, such as Tylenol (acetaminophen) or aspirin, for pain relief after minor surgery, or for bone breaks and sprains, migraine headaches, or other pain that is expected to pass fairly quickly. The other most common use for codeine is in cough syrup. The drug acts on the part of the brain that controls coughing.
In the United States and many other countries, a prescription is necessary to obtain products containing codeine. This is because the drug is addictive, or habit-forming. It also can produce unpleasant side effects such as constipationAn inability to have a bowel movement. and nauseaUpset stomach, sometimes with vomiting.. When codeine is abused, it is either ingested in its cough syrup form at greater-than-prescribed doses or extracted from prescription pills through chemical "cooking." In either case, taking a large dose of codeine can be fatal, because it can cause the user to stop breathing.
According to Paul M. Gahlinger in Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse, codeine "is by far the most commonly used narcoticA painkiller that may become habit-forming; in a broader sense, any illegally purchased drug. in the world," especially in the form of cough syrup. Codeine's qualities as a pain reliever have been recognized since the early 1800s. Chemically speaking, opiate medications such as codeine mimic the brain's own natural mechanisms for suppressing pain. Codeine actually reduces the ability of the brain's nerve cells to transmit pain signals. The reason it works better than the body's own mechanisms is because it floods the brain with chemical messages in a more powerful way than the brain's chemistry can on its own.
recreational useUsing a drug solely to achieve a high, not to treat a medical condition. of codeine, in the absence of pain, can produce feelings of euphoria (pronounced yu-FOR-ee-yuh). Such feelings bring on a state of extreme happiness and well-being in users. However, when the effects of the drug wear off, the user is often
left with a sensation of depression or nervousness. This leads to a desire to take more of the drug. This is how the cycle of addiction begins. For this reason, doctors and pharmacists use caution when prescribing or dispensing medications containing codeine. Still, codeine abusers have found ways to obtain the drug illegally. In some parts of the United States, cough syrup abuse has contributed to growing numbers of emergency room visits for drug overdoses.