What are opioids?
Opioids are naturally found in the opium poppy plant. Some opioid medications are made from this plant while others are made by scientists in labs. Opioids have been used for hundreds of years to treat pain, cough, and diarrhea.
What are the most commonly used opioids?
The most commonly used prescription opioids are oxycodone (OxyContin®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), codeine, and morphine. Heroin is an opioid, but it is not a medication. Fentanyl is a powerful prescription pain reliever, but it is sometimes added to heroin by drug dealers, causing doses so strong that people are dying from overdoses.
How do Opioids Work?
Your brain is full of molecules called receptors that receive signals from other parts of the body. Opioids attach to receptors on nerve cells in the brain, spinal cord, and other organs. This allows them to block pain messages sent from the body to the brain, which is why they are prescribed for serious injuries or illnesses.
When the opioids attach to the receptors, they also cause a large amount of dopamine to be released in the pleasure centers of the brain. Dopamine is the chemical responsible for making us feel reward and motivates our actions. The dopamine release caused by the opioids sends a rush of extreme pleasure and well-being throughout the body.
What are Benzodiazepines?
Benzodiazepines, a type of prescription sedative commonly prescribed for anxiety or to help with insomnia. Benzodiazepines (sometimes called "benzos") work to calm or sedate a person, by raising the level of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA in the brain. Common benzodiazepines include diazepam (Valium), alprazolam (Xanax), and clonazepam (Klonopin), among others.
Some Typical Street Names:
Z-Bars
Handlebars
Bicycle Part
Football
School Bus
Yellow Boys
White Boys / Girls
What are Amphetamines?
Amphetamine is a powerful central nervous system stimulant and sympathomimetic. Amphetamine [a drug used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy, a sleep disorder].
Some Typical Street Names:
Beans
Black Beauties
Dexies
Pep Pills
Speed
Uppers
Prescription opioid use is a risk factor for heroin use
Pooling data from 2002 to 2012, the incidence of heroin initiation was 19 times higher among those who reported prior non-medical pain reliever use than among those who did not (0.39 vs. 0.02 percent) (Muhuri et al., 2013).
A study of young, urban injection drug users interviewed in 2008 and 2009 found that 86 percent had used opioid pain relievers non-medically prior to using heroin, and their initiation into non-medical use was characterized by three main sources of opioids: family, friends, or personal prescriptions (Lankenau et al., 2012).
This rate represents a shift from historical trends. Of people entering treatment for heroin addiction who began abusing opioids in the 1960s, more than 80 percent started with heroin. Of those who began abusing opioids in the 2000s, 75 percent reported that their first opioid was a prescription drug (Cicero et al., 2014).
Examining national-level general population heroin data (including those in and not in treatment), nearly 80 percent of heroin users reported using prescription opioids prior to heroin (Jones, 2013; Muhuri et al., 2013).
What is heroin?
Heroin is an opioid drug made from morphine, a natural substance taken from the seed pod of the various opium poppy plants grown in Southeast and Southwest Asia, Mexico, and Colombia.
Heroin can be a white or brown powder, or a black sticky substance known as black tar heroin.
Some Typical Street Names:
big H,
horse,
hell dust
smack
Brown Sugar
Junk
Mud
Dragon
Dope
Black Tar
Boy, He
Chiba or Chiva
What is fentanyl?
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. It is a prescription drug that is also made and used illegally. Like morphine, it is a medicine that is typically used to treat patients with severe pain, especially after surgery. It is also sometimes used to treat patients with chronic pain who are physically tolerant to other opioids. Tolerance occurs when you need a higher and/or more frequent amount of a drug to get the desired effects.
In its prescription form, fentanyl is known by such names as Actiq®, Duragesic®, and Sublimaze®.
Some Typical Street Names:
Apache
China Girl
China White
Dance Fever
Friend,
Goodfellas
Jackpot
Murder 8
Tango & Cash
Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, are now the most common drugs involved in drug overdose deaths in the United States. In 2017, 59 percent of opioid-related deaths involved fentanyl compared to 14.3 percent in 2010.
What is Carfentanil?
What is carfentanil? Previously known by the trade-name Wildnil, this drug is a clone of fentanyl, another synthetic opioid analgesic. It was first synthesized by Janssen Pharmaceutical’s team of chemists in 1974. Because of its high potency, it was manufactured to be a large animal tranquilizer, which could immobilize large animals very quickly.
Think of a 15,000-pound wild African elephant, which is as much as 75 times the weight of a 200-pound adult man. It only takes very small quantities, as little as a 10-milligram dose of this animal tranquilizer to sedate, or even kill, an animal of this size. This is what zoo veterinarians use.
Street Name:
Serial Killer
What Is Cocaine?
Cocaine is a powerfully addictive stimulant drug made from the leaves of the coca plant native to South America. Although health care providers can use it for valid medical purposes, such as local anesthesia for some surgeries, recreational cocaine use is illegal. As a street drug, cocaine looks like a fine, white, crystal powder. Street dealers often mix it with things like cornstarch, talcum powder, or flour to increase profits.
They may also mix it with other drugs such as the stimulant amphetamine, or synthetic opioids, including fentanyl. Adding synthetic opioids to cocaine is especially risky when people using cocaine don’t realize it contains this dangerous additive. Increasing numbers of overdose deaths among cocaine users might be related to this tampered cocaine.
Some Typical Street Names:
Bernie's Flakes
Big Bloke
Bernie's Gold Dust
Big Flake
Blanca
Crack
Flake
Gold Dust
Haven Dust
Have A Dust
Icing
What is Methamphetamine?
Methamphetamine is a stimulant drug usually used as a white, bitter-tasting powder or a pill. Crystal methamphetamine is a form of the drug that looks like glass fragments or shiny, bluish-white rocks. It is chemically similar to amphetamine [a drug used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy, a sleep disorder].
Some Typical Street Names:
Speed
Crank
Tweak
Chalk
Tina
Gak
