Opiate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses see Opiate (disambiguation), or for the class of drugs see Opioid.
In medicine, the term opiate describes any of the narcotic alkaloids found in opium.
[edit] Overview
The main opiates derived from opium are morphine (10%), codeine (0.5%), and thebaine (0.2%). Papaverine, noscapine and approximately 25 other alkaloids are also present, but have essentially no effect on the central nervous system, and are not usually considered to be opiates.
[edit] Terminology
Opiate has traditionally referred to not only the alkaloids in opium, but also natural and semi-synthetic derivatives of morphine (itself an opiate). The term is often incorrectly used to refer to all drugs with opium- or morphine-like pharmacological action, which are more properly classified under the broader term opioid.
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