Recovery of morphine from a controlled‐release preparation: A source of opioid abuse

Abstract

MS‐Contin (Purdue‐Fredrick, Norwalk, CT) is a controlled‐release preparation of morphine sulfate that has demonstrated efficacy in the management of chronic cancer pain problems. It has recently come to the attention of the authors that MS‐Contin represents a potential source of opioid abuse through the extraction and intravenous injection of the morphine from this preparation. the authors describe a simple aqueous extraction method that was used to quantitatively determine the extent to which morphine could be obtained from MS‐Contin tablets. Copyright © 1990 American Cancer Society