>Perhaps there is a difference between Opium overdose and Opioid overdose? Opium has three primary constituents, morphine, codeine, thebaine. An opioid, roughl

>Perhaps there is a difference between Opium overdose and Opioid overdose? Opium has three primary constituents, morphine, codeine, thebaine. An opioid, roughly, is anything which agonizes opioid receptors, which are mu, delta, and kappa. mu-receptor agonists specifically are usually what people are referring to when they use the term 'opioid'. Morphine, which is an opiate (an opioid, but one that is derived from opium), is what usually produces death during an opium overdose (it also happens to be alkaloid which produces most of the desirable effect). You can look up morphine ld50 numbers to get an idea of how much morphine it would take to kill somebody. While morphine is the principal opioid at work in opium, it is still only a tiny % of the opium's total volume. >When I think consuming opium, I conjure images of old chinese artwork where they are smoking it in a hookah type instrument. It being smoked also makes it considerably safer. Users pass out before overdose. >The Opioid overdoses are mostly Fentanyl and other extracts from opium. Correct. Morphine is a somewhat strong opioid in its own right, but it doesn't even hold a candle to the more powerful opioids science has discovered. Not even close. The strength of an opioid is often described in morphine equivalents, that is how much of x is comparable to the same amount of morphine. Fentanyl is roughly 50x as powerful as morphine, which makes it a rather dangerous compound for untrained people to handle, especially to inject. That being said, as long as the dosages are measured correctly, fentanyl is not significantly more dangerous than any other commonly used opioid. It's the black market dynamics which make it particularly prone to kill users. Fentanyl is also nowhere near the most powerful opioid being sold on the street either. The literature has opioids that are, roughly, several thousand times as powerful as morphine. Meaning if it takes on average 1g of pure morphine to kill a human, less than a single mg of some of the stronger fentanyl analogs can be sufficient enough to kill. Much lower if injected. This is what is killing everybody. Some fentanyl analogs are close to chemical weapons in terms of potency, and drug dealers with a 3rd grade equivalent education are handling it like they would cocaine or similar.