9781422279663

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Preventing and Treating Addiction

resemble endorphins, or opioids that our bodies make natural- ly in order to relieve pain. Opioid drugs are able to reduce feel- ings of pain by reducing the sending of the brain’s pain mes- sages. Effects of Opioids How quickly opioids affect a person has to do with how they consume it. Taking opioids in pill or tablet form causes them to travel through the digestive system. The drug is absorbed slow- ly because of this. Smoking causes quicker absorption of the

An Afghan farmer holds the seed pod of an opium poppy. Juice from the seed pod can be refined into pain-killing opiates like morphine and codeine. A separate class of drugs, called opioids, are synthetic compounds that mimic the effects of opiates. These drugs include substances that are currently illegal in the United States because they have no medicinal value, such as heroin, as well as drugs that are prescribed as painkillers such as hydrocodone and oxycodone.