Relative Opiid

Relative Opioid Strengths

This page gives information on the generic and brand names of the major opioids along with the relative strengths of the drugs when administered intramuscularly and orally. Finally, the half-life of the drugs in the human body are given.
"Generic" is the generic name of the drug and "Brand" is the brand name of the drug. Often, a drug will be sold under more than onebrand name; in this case, the most common brand name was selected. "IM" is the number of milligrams of the drug administered intramuscularly to be equivalent to 10 mg of morphine administered intramuscularly. "Oral" is the number of milligrams of the drug administered orally to be equivalent to 10 mg of morphine administered intramuscularly. "Half-life is the half-life of the drug, measured inhours. This information is taken from The Little Book of Opium.

Generic Brand                                            IM Oral Half-life
Buprenorphine Buprenex®n.       0.3 1.2         2.2
Codeine Tylenol® III.                  130 200 3
Diacetylmorphine Heroin                   5     30/60 2
Dihydrocodeine Synalgos®-DC          65 100 3
Fentanyl Duragesic®                 0.1        NA            2
Hydrocodone Vidodin®.               20  25-30 4
Hydromorphone Dilaudid®.       1.5       7.5        3
Levorphanol Levo-Dromoran® 2        4     12
Meperidine Demerol®.             60-80 150-250 1.5
Methadone Dolophine®                            10 20 24
Morphine MS Contin®                    10 30/60 2
Oxycodone Percocet®                            10 15-30    3
Oxymorphone Numorphan®                  1 10 1.5
Propoxyphene Darvon®            NA 200-300 9
Notes

Heroin metabolizes to morphine very quickly--with a half-life of roughly 3 minutes. The half-life of morphine is reported.
The most quoted figure for the half-life of Fentanyl is 2 hours. This seems to be taken from the Drug Information Handbook. I have seen numbers aslow as 0.5 hours. The effective half-life of Fentanyl delivered through transdermal and transmucosal systems is roughly 7 hours.
The 30 mg value is for the treatment of chronic pain, the 60 mg value is for the treatment of acute pain.

Only recently, with the high purity levels of street heroin, has it become well reported that heroin may be ingested in a manner other than injection. This has,in fact, caused those leading the Drug War no end of consternation. First, their vicious war seems to have made matters worse (from their perspective): heroin is cheaper and more available than when they started. Second, they have to fight the propaganda portion of their war on a whole new level. This brings us the current wave of Partnership for a Drug Free America anti-snorting heroin ads: "Thisis your brain. This is what happens to your brain when you snort heroin." (Check out "Why Purity Has Increased" for a history lesson on the unexpected results of the Drug War.)
It is true that one reason that heroin has traditionally been injected is that the street heroin purity levels have been so low. It reached its nadir in 1970 at about 3%. But even at this low level of purity, a novicecould certainly have gotten high smoking without mortgaging the house. This is not to say that price and quality do not have an effect on the administration route; they do; but they are not the only factors.
As an example, let's look at the situation during the first few years of this century, when heroin could be bought over the counter--just like aspirin. At that time, it was mostly administeredorally. This usually took the form of heroin cough drops. (Imagine that: cough drops that actually work!) The point is that people weren't dissolving these things and injecting them--just like people don't inject alcohol or nicotine today.
But there is a reason that heroin is naturally associated with intravenous injection. Heroin is the least stable of all the opioids. Whereas morphine and...