Opioid Identification

Prescription Labels

Drug identification is crucial for keeping yourself safe from unintentionally taking the wrong medication. One way to know what a drug is is to look at the label, which clearly spells out the medication’s active ingredients. A quick Google search of the drug’s name will immediately reveal the type of drug you’re dealing with. In the attached label, the drug’s active ingredient is spelled out here on the label. A large majority of opioids will have the words codeine or morphine somewhere in the active ingredients name, or a name that in -one, such as methadone or hydromorphone.  

In this mock drug label, the active ingredients are hydrocodone and acetaminophen. Hydrocodone is an opioid.

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Opioids Vs. Non-Opioids By Name

This is a simple list of common opioids next to a list of drugs commonly mistaken as opioids.

Are opioids: Heroin, Fentanyl, Morphine, Codeine, Demerol, OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet, Norco, Methadone, and Opana. There are others of course but these opioids are some of the most common ones.

Aren’t opioids: Alcohol, Marijuana, Cocaine, Methamphetamine, MDMA, Valium, Xanax, Ketamine, LSD, and Mushrooms. These are all very dangerous, however, are not opioids, which are even more dangerous.