One of the most serious consequences of a heroin or morphine addiction is the long-term profile a person creates for his or her future health care. Doctors are reluctant to prescribe powerful painkillers to people who have no history of drug abuse. They are much less likely to prescribe these drugs to people who have abused opiates in the past.
Morphine Chronology
4000 BCE Opium poppies are cultivated in the Fertile Crescent (now Iran and Iraq) by the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia.
1552 BCE An ancient Egyptian papyrus text from the city of Thebes lists 700 uses for opium.
600-900 CE Arabic traders introduce opium to China.
1524 Swiss doctor Paracelsus mixes opium with alcohol and names the product laudanum.
1803 German scientist Friedrich Sertürner isolates morphine as the most active ingredient in the opium poppy.
1848 The hypodermic needle is invented, allowing for quicker delivery of morphine to the brain.
1861–1865 An estimated 400,000 soldiers return home from the American Civil War with addictions to morphine.
1874 British chemist Alder Wright uses morphine to create diacetylmorphine (heroin), in an effort to produce a less addictive painkiller.
1914 The Harrison Narcotics Act ends over-thecounter purchases of medicines that do not have a full list of ingredients on the label.
1970 The Controlled Substances Act names morphine as a Schedule II controlled substance, recognizing its uses in pain relief and surgical settings.
1974 The first hospice facility opens in the United States.
2005 Terri Schiavo receives injections of morphine as her feeding tube is removed and she is allowed to die, after spending fifteen years in what doctors called a persistent vegetative state.
Advocates for the terminally ill point to another consequence of recreational opiate use. Some people in pain view prescription painkillers as dangerous and addictive, products that will make them crazy, or make them sleep all the time, or turn them into criminals. Such people suffer needlessly because of the negative perception attached to opiates. Doctors feel this too. They feel they are being monitored by the government and their jobs may be in jeopardy if they prescribe too much pain medication. As a consequence, they under-prescribe, even for dying patients. The bottom line: Many people suffer pain because other people abuse painkillers.
