Selling opioids as targeted painkillers

This chapter describes how the discovery of an endogenous opioid system in humans in the mid-1970s radically changed our understanding of opioids. Whereas opioids had long been known as drugs that could produce pain relief or addiction, depending on circumstances, endogenous opioid systems revealed a role for opioids that extended far beyond simple pain relief or addiction. These systems, we now know, are critical in stress responses, and in learning protective actions and behaviors to allow the individual to function in a hostile world and in society. For humans, socialization is critical for survival. One of the greatest harms of opioid drugs, which commandeer endogenous opioid systems, is the attenuation of natural survival behaviors, including socialization. Here we describe how the discovery of an endogenous opioid system opened up a new understanding of pain itself, how the individual has power over pain, and how opioid drugs compromise the individual’s ability to self-manage pain.