5 ms·

Oxycodone aka Eukodal is not a "preform" of heroin, period. Hydrocodone, aka Vicodin, has nothing to do with heroin either. This is seriously bad drug informati

by oxide 11y ago

Oxycodone aka Eukodal is not a "preform" of heroin, period. Hydrocodone, aka Vicodin, has nothing to do with heroin either. This is seriously bad drug information. they're just opiates. If you don't know, now you know. Nothing I dislike more than bad drug information being passed off as researched fact.

6stringmerc 11y ago
While you're spot on with "they're all just opiates" in nature, can you explain to me why Oxycodone isn't simply called Morphine?
- S_A_P 11y ago
  Because it's not morphine. Where hydrocodone is a synthetic equivalent to the natural opiate codeine, oxycodone is a synthetic opiate roughly as strong as the natural opiate morphine. There are many different synthetic opiates of various strengths but oxycodone is not "heroin" or "morphine." edit: remove spurious iPhone capitalizations..
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    I follow you. The formulations are indeed areas of distinction. As I'm not educated beyond layman's terms, do they work on different receptors?
    - pygy_ 11y ago
      No, they all target the mu opioid receptor. I don't know if they all bind the same site of said receptors, though.
jobu 11y ago
What is Enkodal? Google only turned up a few German pages that didn't seem to translate well. From the article: “After World War II, the Americans who captured Morell translated the word ‘Eukodal’ as ‘Enkodal.’ They thought it was a legitimate medical treatment and dosage.”
- vilhelm_s 11y ago
  Eukodal was apparently a trade name for oxycodone. I guess someone misread a handwritten u as an n when transcribing Morells records? Googling "enkodal" finds a bunch of OCR misses from Google Books, where "eukodal" is mistranscribed with an n, and also an article[0] about how Hermann Göring was admitted to a hospital in 1924 to treat his opioid addiction. The article states that he was addicted to Eukodal, and among other things quotes a medical journal where it is mispelled as "Enkodal". [0] http://langbrosjukhus.se/hermann-goring/ http://langbrosjukhus.se/hermann-goring/
acqq 11y ago
The author probably based it on the fact that oxycodone is a (semi-?) synthetic opiate produced from one opioid found in poppy, just like heroin is. They are of course not the same. But heroin was synthesized in 19th century in England and oxycodone in 20th century in Germany, therefore it can't be considered "pre-" heroin, at least not globally. But maybe heroin wasn't common in Germany and therefore oxycodone was pre- in Germany?
- palmer_eldritch 11y ago
  > But maybe heroin wasn't common in Germany and therefore oxycodone was pre- in Germany? Heroin was first marketed by Bayer, a German pharmaceutical company in 1898. That's where the name 'heroin' comes from so oxycodone was definitely not pre- in Germany. Now, in nazi Germany, opium and products derived from it might have been harder to come by because of import sanctions (that's why methadone, a fully synthetic opioid, was developed in Germany in 1937). But that would apply to oxycodone just as much as heroin. So no, the author is just full of shit and trying to impress his uninformed readers.
  - acqq 11y ago
    Wow, thanks for that, I've never read the Wikipedia article on Heroin and I didn't know: "The head of Bayer's research department reputedly coined the drug's new name, "heroin," based on the German heroisch, which means "heroic, strong.""
hebdo 11y ago
Yes, that's correct. Only codeine can be considered a preform (of morphine), because it is metabolized in human livers into morphine. Having said that it's worth to remember that opiates are really very similar one to each other.
MichaelGG 11y ago
Press seems to love screwing this up. Look at mainstream sites and how they love to say "Synthetic Heroin" when referring to other opiates. Purely for the scare value against the ignorant. "OMG it's like Heroin...BUT WORSE". Not to mention, we should actually want more powerful opiates, as less would be required. It's like those idiots that say "hey the pot today, it's not like when I was a kid, it's got MORE THC". Uh, doesn't that just mean you need to smoke less, making it better for your lungs? (The only real issue with "synthetic heroin" is when people cut heroin or other drugs with more powerful ones, like fentanyl, leading to overdoses. Once again, the illegality introduces these dangers.) Same people probably don't know that Methamphetamine (the evil devil drug) is Schedule II and legally available to be prescribed in the US. And that speed is amphetamines, very similar to meth, and prescribed to 6 yr olds. Or that when your 7-yr-old gets a small surgery, they likely hit her with fentanyl (much, much, stronger than Heroin). It's just throwing around words to scare and promote ignorance and fear of actual science/medicine.

by oxide 11y ago

6stringmerc 11y ago

While you're spot on with "they're all just opiates" in nature, can you explain to me why Oxycodone isn't simply called Morphine?

S_A_P 11y ago
Because it's not morphine. Where hydrocodone is a synthetic equivalent to the natural opiate codeine, oxycodone is a synthetic opiate roughly as strong as the natural opiate morphine. There are many different synthetic opiates of various strengths but oxycodone is not "heroin" or "morphine." edit: remove spurious iPhone capitalizations..
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  I follow you. The formulations are indeed areas of distinction. As I'm not educated beyond layman's terms, do they work on different receptors?
  - pygy_ 11y ago
    No, they all target the mu opioid receptor. I don't know if they all bind the same site of said receptors, though.

jobu 11y ago

What is Enkodal? Google only turned up a few German pages that didn't seem to translate well. From the article: “After World War II, the Americans who captured Morell translated the word ‘Eukodal’ as ‘Enkodal.’ They thought it was a legitimate medical treatment and dosage.”

vilhelm_s 11y ago
Eukodal was apparently a trade name for oxycodone. I guess someone misread a handwritten u as an n when transcribing Morells records? Googling "enkodal" finds a bunch of OCR misses from Google Books, where "eukodal" is mistranscribed with an n, and also an article[0] about how Hermann Göring was admitted to a hospital in 1924 to treat his opioid addiction. The article states that he was addicted to Eukodal, and among other things quotes a medical journal where it is mispelled as "Enkodal". [0] http://langbrosjukhus.se/hermann-goring/ http://langbrosjukhus.se/hermann-goring/

acqq 11y ago

The author probably based it on the fact that oxycodone is a (semi-?) synthetic opiate produced from one opioid found in poppy, just like heroin is. They are of course not the same. But heroin was synthesized in 19th century in England and oxycodone in 20th century in Germany, therefore it can't be considered "pre-" heroin, at least not globally. But maybe heroin wasn't common in Germany and therefore oxycodone was pre- in Germany?

palmer_eldritch 11y ago
> But maybe heroin wasn't common in Germany and therefore oxycodone was pre- in Germany? Heroin was first marketed by Bayer, a German pharmaceutical company in 1898. That's where the name 'heroin' comes from so oxycodone was definitely not pre- in Germany. Now, in nazi Germany, opium and products derived from it might have been harder to come by because of import sanctions (that's why methadone, a fully synthetic opioid, was developed in Germany in 1937). But that would apply to oxycodone just as much as heroin. So no, the author is just full of shit and trying to impress his uninformed readers.
- acqq 11y ago
  Wow, thanks for that, I've never read the Wikipedia article on Heroin and I didn't know: "The head of Bayer's research department reputedly coined the drug's new name, "heroin," based on the German heroisch, which means "heroic, strong.""

hebdo 11y ago

Yes, that's correct. Only codeine can be considered a preform (of morphine), because it is metabolized in human livers into morphine. Having said that it's worth to remember that opiates are really very similar one to each other.

MichaelGG 11y ago

Press seems to love screwing this up. Look at mainstream sites and how they love to say "Synthetic Heroin" when referring to other opiates. Purely for the scare value against the ignorant. "OMG it's like Heroin...BUT WORSE". Not to mention, we should actually want more powerful opiates, as less would be required. It's like those idiots that say "hey the pot today, it's not like when I was a kid, it's got MORE THC". Uh, doesn't that just mean you need to smoke less, making it better for your lungs? (The only real issue with "synthetic heroin" is when people cut heroin or other drugs with more powerful ones, like fentanyl, leading to overdoses. Once again, the illegality introduces these dangers.) Same people probably don't know that Methamphetamine (the evil devil drug) is Schedule II and legally available to be prescribed in the US. And that speed is amphetamines, very similar to meth, and prescribed to 6 yr olds. Or that when your 7-yr-old gets a small surgery, they likely hit her with fentanyl (much, much, stronger than Heroin). It's just throwing around words to scare and promote ignorance and fear of actual science/medicine.