Morphine (MSIR)

Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic drug that is used to relieve severe pain. In clinical medicine, morphine is regarded as the gold standard, or benchmark, of opioid analgesics used to relieve intense or agonizing pain and suffering. Like other opioids, such as oxycodone, hydromorphone, and diacetylmorphine (heroin), morphine acts directly on the central nervous system (CNS) to relieve pain. Morphine has a high potential for addiction; tolerance and psychological dependence develop rapidly, although physiological dependence may take several months to develop. Tolerance to respiratory depression and euphoria develops more rapidly than tolerance to analgesia, and many chronic pain patients are being maintained on a stable dose, for many years. Morphine is the most abundant opiate found in opium and may be extracted from the dried latex from the unripe seedpods of the Papaver somniferum poppy.