What is Opium?

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Opium comes from the poppy plant and it is the substance in which opiates are made from. Opiates have important medical benefits as they are powerful painkillers and they are commonly found in prescription pain pills, cough medicine and are sometimes prescribed to control severe diarrhea. Drugs such as morphine, Vicodin, or codeine are all opiates and when they are used properly they can be very helpful. Adversely, when opiates are abused or used illicitly, they can be dangerous and addictive.

Opium is the substance that all opiates and opioid drugs derive from. This includes drugs like heroin, morphine, codeine, and prescription pills like Percocet, Vicodin and Oxycontin.  Opium itself has been used for centuries to help people deal with pain and it has been extremely beneficial to the medical field in regards to helping people get through surgeries and stopping too much pain from occurring. However, throughout the years opium based drugs have begun to be extremely abused causing a drug addiction epidemic to occur.

Stopping smoking opium is the first step in overcoming the dangerous effects of the drug.

When prescribed and taken as directed, opiates help people out and people are not at a high chance for becoming addicted. Adversely, when opiate drugs are abused or taken illegally people put themselves in danger of becoming addicted or forming dependencies to the drug.

Dangerous Opium Effects

People abuse opium based drugs because they enjoy the feeling the drugs provide. However there are numerous dangers that occur from opiate abuse. For starters, a person abusing an opiate will develop a tolerance to the drug over time, and this will cause them to need to take more of the drug to receive the effects they want. This tolerance can lead to a person overdosing on the drug, and overdoses can occur suddenly and can be fatal. Furthermore, long term opiate abuse can lead to liver or kidney failure and it can lead to permanent brain damage.

In addition, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, some other long-term effects of abuse of opium made drugs include, constipation, irregular menstrual cycles, loss of sex drive and infertility. Long term opiate abusers might also suffer from mental illnesses and feelings of sadness or depression.

Opium made drugs are highly addictive and addiction is a chronic brain disease that can result in a person losing everything they care about it their life, because the disease will be their main focus. In addition to addiction, many people also form dependencies to opiates, which means that they will need the drug in their body in order for them to function normally. This will result in them going through painful withdrawal symptoms every time they do not have enough of the drug in their body.