Codeine
Pronunciation:KOH-deen
Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number:76-57-3. (Phosphate hemihydrate
form 41444-62-6)
Formal Names:BRON, Methylmorphine
Informal Names:AC/DC, Barr, C, Captain Cody, Co-Dine, Cody, Coties, Cough
Syrup, Down, Homebake, Karo, Lean, Lean & Dean, Nods, Schoolboy, Syrup,
T-3s.Withglutethimide: Doors & 4, 4 Doors, Hits, Loads, Packets, Pancakes &
Syrup, Sets, 3s & 8s
Type:Depressant (opiate class).Seepage 22
Federal Schedule Listing:Schedule II, III, V controlled substance, depending on
product formulation (DEA no. 9050)
USA Availability:Prescription and nonprescription
Pregnancy Category:C
Uses.Codeine was discovered in 1832 by French chemist Pierre-Jean Robi-
quet. Typically it is derived from the more potent drugmorphine, which,
depending on dosage route (oral, injection), is considered about 3 to 12 times
stronger than codeine. After codeine is administered, body chemistry trans-
forms it back into morphine; thus employer drug screens on someone who
used a codeine cough remedy can be positive for morphine. Basically codeine
is a prodrug, a substance having little medicinal effect itself but that the body
transforms into a useful drug—in this case, morphine. Although scientists
have long believed that codeine’s therapeutic effects come from morphine, as
the twenty-first century began, one group of researchers reported that persons
whose bodies cannot properly convert codeine into morphine can nonetheless
experience medical benefit from codeine itself.
Codeine is administered for sedation and to stop diarrhea, coughs, and pain.
The substance is considered one of the best cough medicines, although re-
search in the 1990s indicated the drug has little ability to control coughs from
colds. Some people take the drug regularly to diminish chronic pain. One
study of the drug’s ability to ease pain after tonsillectomy found its effective-
ness comparable to morphine, but another tonsillectomy study found codeine
no more effective than acetaminophen (Tylenol and similar products). Re-
search examining pain from a wide variety of causes, ranging from cancer to
backache, found no more discomfort relief from a combination dose of codeine