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From: stanton@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Scott Stanton)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Article in Scientific American - Feb '90
Keywords: Pain morphine addictive non-addictive
Message-ID: <9663@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jan 90 04:41:22 GMT
References: <9645@bunker.UUCP>
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Reply-To: stanton@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Scott Stanton)
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In-Reply-To: rudy@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (avram.r.vener)

Index Number: 6314

In article <9645@bunker.UUCP>, rudy@cbnewsj (avram.r.vener) writes:
>Index Number: 6299
>
>There is an interesting article in Scientific American (Feb 1990)
>concerning pain and morphine.   The thrust of the article was that
>morphine, when taken solely to relieve pain is not addictive but 
>care givers are afraid to dispense it adequately because they 
>are afraid the victim will become addicted regardless.

One of the other items mentioned in that article was that many of the
deleterious effects of morphine result from the way it is
administered.  Since the drug is normally administered in response to
pain, it is often given in massive quantities that result in
disorientation, hallucinations, etc.  The article claimed that it is
possible to avoid these effects if the drug is given in smaller doses
more frequently, and before the pain really gets going so that the
patient doesn't have the wild swings of drug levels.  Along with
giving smaller doses, the author suggested the drug be administered
orally.  I have no idea how true all of this is, but it made sense
intuitively.
-- 
--Scott (stanton@cs.stanford.EDU)