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About narcotics How do they work? |
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Narcotics (opioids) relieve pain by blocking delivery of the message of pain. They bind to specific pain receptor sites in the central nervous system (the brain and the spinal cord).
The pain receptors which can be blocked by opioids are called opioid receptors, and there are several different categories of them.
Different opioids affect different subgroups of receptors, which explains their slightly different effects.
How strongly they are attracted to the receptor sites affects how powerful they are at relieving pain.
