Thanks to Parker for informing me about this. From what I can tell, the man contributing the most to this new painkiller is Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, who has a Ph.D from The School of Pharmacy at The University of London. Here is his academic profile:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/pharmacy/people/academic-research-staff-profiles/ijeoma-uchegbuBelow is a quote from Professor Uchegbu on the new painkilling nasal spray, taken from the UK based Guardian of London:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/01/natural-painkiller-nasal-spray-could-replace-addictive-opioids-trial-indicates"If people don’t develop tolerance, you don’t have them always having to up the dose. And if they don’t have to up the dose, they won’t get closer and closer to overdose," said Ijeoma Uchegbu, a professor of pharmaceutical nanoscience who is leading the research through Nanomerics, a UCL startup.
So according to Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, this nasal spray may offer some of the same benefits of opiates, with fewer side effects. With that said, I have made my support of opiates public many times in the past, both here on Getbig and on my Facebook page, and I firmly believe that opiates are the least toxic drug out of any drug available - including alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. I honestly believe that human beings co-evolved with poppies, and hence the human body and brain are remarkably resilient to opiates as a result.
HOWEVER, there are major problems with opiates for those who go down the road - addiction and overdose. Addition will occur to ANY person who uses opiates for more than seven days in a row, and will be firmly established at the 90 mark, if not much sooner. A person could probably orally ingest opiates for seven days in a row and experience minimal withdrawal, but it NEEDS to be clear that all mammals will become addicted to opiates at the 7-day mark. I think the max you can use opiates and expect minimal withdrawal would be around four days, even though one can still possibly feel withdrawal symptoms in as little as three days / 72 hours.
So space between consumption MUST happen to skirt addiction. Even those with pain due to chronic disease would be wise to do a program such as three days on and one day off in order to skirt addiction, increased tolerance, and...
...RECEPTOR BURNOUT.
Yes, I do believe receptor burnout is a thing. And hey, it makes sense, right? As we use things, they tend to work less efficiently, right? If the batteries in our remote controls can decline in power, why can't the same be true of the receptors in the pleasure centres of our brains? Hmm...?
The other problem with opiates would be overdose deaths, HOWEVER, it is important to note that the majority of deaths by overdose are caused by either intravenous use or combination of opiates with other drugs - think about the deaths of John Belushi and Chris Farley - they combined cocaine with opiates, and they used the drugs intravenously. Food for thought.
I am of the impression that most oral use of opiates or nasal use of cocaine does not result in overdose. Not OFTEN anyway - and not nearly as often as the aforementioned intravenous + combination drug deaths mentioned.
I'm just making a guess of the Nigerian ancestry of Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, based on Wikipedia entries of his first name and surname. It would be my guess that he is Nigerian. If this is wrong, please let me know.
I do agree with the first comment here by MeoMao555:
"I'm suspicious whenever I see the word "natural" repeated twice. Poppy flowers are perfectly natural, and so are coca leaves..."
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/7uhscy/natural_painkiller_nasal_spray_could_replace/?st=jep9pci1&sh=ec4a0cbaAgreed. Just because something is "natural" doesn't mean it is automatically safe.
