Oxy - Stimulating, Heroin - Sedating, Why?

[qwe]

well different alkaloids of the papavar poppy plant produce different effects. i know that morphine is a very sedating drug. when making h, morphine is extracted from the raw opium (morphine is responsible for roughly 10% of the weight), and then converted to heroin (diacetylmorphine).

oxycodone is formed by the oxidation of codeine to codeinone, and then a few other steps which finally produce oxycodone. codeine in nature is a very stimulating drug too.

yep, codeine is codeine, no conversions...Oxycodone comes from thebaine, thebaine is used to make semi-syntehtic narcotics(oxycodone, hydrocodone, Dilaudid, oxymorphone)...Thebaine is known to have more stimulant qualities than morphine, which explains probably why oxycodone has more a speedy type opiate feel and not that knockout nod morphine/heroin type feel...although quite a good nod can come from oxy, most definatly...

Its very simple, oxycodone has some of the characteristics of thebaine, from which it is derived, which includes CNS-stimulation.....

Heroin is made from morphine, and its effects are similar.

you guys just changed her question from

'why is heroin sedating while oxycodone is stimulating when they both bind to opiate receptors?'

to

'why is morphine sedating while thebaine is stimulating when they both bind to opiate receptors?'

 

[fastandbulbous]

It's mainly to do with the degree of dopaminergic activity of the drug. All opiates increase levels of dopamine (in the reward centres - nuculus accumbens etc; in the CTZ - chemoreceptor trigger zone/vomit central in your brain and so on). This is also the neurotransmitter stimulants like cocaine & amphetamine act on to give a lot of their effects.

As a generalization (which is not a hard & fast rule), the more stimulating the opiate, chances are it also causes more nausea - that's just me thinking out loud though