What Are Opioids and the Opioid Crisis?

What Are Opioids?

Opioids are a large class of synthetic medications containing ingredients similar to those found in opium. Opium is harvested from the opium poppy, a flowering plant that originates in the Middle East. The poppy holds a milky substance, latex, that contains morphine and codeine. Opium processors extract the latex, dry, boil, dry, and boil again to refine it to modern, medicinal opium. Opium is a depressant drug, meaning it slows many biological systems in the human body, particularly the nervous system. Opium’s effects differ from user to user, but its high typically evokes euphoria, an inability to feel pain, shallow and slow breathing, a reduced heart rate, and impaired reflexes. Opioids are extremely addictive because they hijack the brain’s natural reward process. The brain is trained to release chemicals that make humans “happy” when it experiences something it deems positive. Opioids restrict and replace this chemical process by rewiring the brain so that it no longer releases “happy” chemicals during day-to-day pleasures. Gradually, the only way an opioid addict is able to feel pleasure is by taking more and more opioids to stimulate his or her chemical receptors, a slippery slope that commonly yields overdose.

Opium’s immense power has been understood for centuries. Estimates state that the Sumerian people began using it as early as 3400 BCE, and the Minoans used it in 1500 BCE. Opium’s analgesic effects established it as one of history’s most used medicines, given its immense strength and simple use.  The demand for opium internationally was so great by the 1800s that it was a major factor in the Opium Wars of 1839-1842 and 1856-1860. By the 20th century, opioids were a staple in medicine, used solely for treating immense pain, such as that from cancer or post-surgery. Due to its narrow use, recreational opioid abuse was essentially non-existent.

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What is the opioid crisis?

The modern opioid crisis has its roots in 1966 when Purdue Pharma created new technology allowing for drugs containing higher doses of opium. Purdue had created a kind of sugar-like seal, allowing the contents inside pills to slowly diffuse into the users' bloodstream for up to twelve hours, allowing for higher, previously lethal doses of opium to be contained within a single pill. With so much raw potential within each pill, they were rapidly abused, leading to what is now known as the modern opioid epidemic.

The opioid crisis is a national epidemic that affects all demographics, it cuts across age, race, and socioeconomic status, nobody is spared.  Opioids are a special class of drugs that are highly addictive because they rewire the brain’s natural reward system so that users of opioids can only get pleasure from using more opioids.  Drug overdoses are currently the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, with opioid overdoses making up the majority of those deaths.  In fact, Americans are statistically more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car crash.  

Here’s a video clip of Sam Quinones, award-winning author of the novel Dreamland, a book that deals with the multifactorial nature of the opioid epidemic.  Dreamland is studied all across the country in both high school and college classrooms.  Mr. Quinones was kind enough to sit down with us and share his thoughts about opioid addiction and the opioid crisis.