ISSUE:

Good morning,
I have come across the issue of fenantyl, for those who do not know, it is considered an opiate that is causing havoc in the US.
It was prescribed as a pain reliever to people and turned them into heroin addicts, I have seen horrendous images, entire streets with people like zombies. Let's get down to chemistry, I've been studying the chemical structure of the molecules of opium-based opiates and I've been looking at the structure of phenanthyl and I just can't find any similarities. So I don't understand why fenantyl is considered an opiate, does anyone know more about it? All the best

Hello Meric! I leave you a video about fentanyl.

Hello, someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm already a little late 1 year after the post was created, but even so I will answer, I think

that "it is more correct" to call it an opioid, rather than an opioid.

Opiates are the naturally occurring alkaloids present in opium, opioids are molecules "analogous" or with similar effects, the suffix "oid" refers to "similar to", as in the word "android" similar to man. I believe, and here I am speculating a bit, that to classify it as an opioid, they do not look so much at the structure of the molecule but rather on what receptors it acts on and the cascade of neurotransmitters it produces.

It sounds to me that there are several different receptors and not all of them cause narcotic effects. Without going any further, I believe that naloxone is also considered an opioid and I believe that it does not cause narcotic effects, on the contrary, it blocks the entry of other opioids, which is why it is used for overdoses, also methadone, which is used for detoxification and has no narcotic effects. I think yes painkillers.

Greetings

In the end it is just a label and it depends more on the receptors on which it acts and the neurotransmitter cascade than on the molecular structure