Apomorphine- does it really work?

[englishkid]

A few people swim has come across swear by it as does William Burroughs the author of junkie etc. SWIM believes that in the book junkie, Burroughs states that it is the closest thing to a cure.

Does any one know of this.

[msmogadon]

Hey SWIEnglish

Can u explain for SWIMogadon what this involves it something shes never heard of. SWIM realises she could look it up but would rather hear some personal experiences

[englishkid]

I'm not too sure yet, just hang on........

[Ellis D.]

The closest thing to a cure is a cure. Most people don't know there is a cure for opiate addiction, it's called Tabernanthe Iboga(Ibogaine).

[englishkid]

thankyou for input. there are excellent discussions on ibogaine in this forum. Try to keep this thread on apomorphine. thnx

[msmogadon]

please someSWIY explain WTF apomorphine is. Please please please please please. My thirst for knowledge is dry za bone

please

[nibble]

It is apparently a dopaminergic agonist and is derived from morphine but does not bind to opiate receptors. This is according to wikipedia anyway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apomorphine.

[scuzzbagz]

apomorphine is used in the uk at least for parkinsons disease,and as an injection into the dick to get a hard on for those who cant,i dont think its ever been officially used to treat addiction,or if it has the trials cant have been very successful,as its not been used for that purpose.Although its made from morphine,it isnt psychoactive,and wether it was successfull for burroughs,or he'd have got off heroin whatever he'd used is debatable,as the fact is,if your motivated enough and really do want to quit,you will wether you use methadone,subutex,or do it cold turkey,

[Dickon]

Caveat Lector. I am working with memory only so please verify any information in this post before believing/acting on it.

Just to fill in a few of the blanks. I think I'm right in saying that a man called Dr Dent was the real champion of apomorphine as an anti-addiction agent. He was a UK doctor who treated, most famously, W.S. Burroughs author of Naked Lunch and Junky.

What is apomorphine (why the morphine in there)? Can't gainsay the above answer, but it is created by boiling morphine in sulphuric(?) acid. Hence the morphine in the name. It has no opiate effects at all. It's original use was as an emetic. I believe Dr Dent or someone prior to him stumbled into the anti-addictive properties because they were engaging in aversion therapy for alcoholism. So whenever someone took a drink they were given a shot of apomorphine to make them sick. Pretty brutal, but that's the "olden days". I think Dent or whoever realized that after a shot of apomorphine the desire to drink reduced significantly more than it "should" because of the aversion therapy itself. This effect seemed to him at least to carry over to opiate addiction.

Burroughs describes the stuff as a "metabolic regulator", and in one book (I'm fairly sure it's Naked Lunch or Junky) claimed it cured him of addiction. He relapsed and sought out a further apomorphine cure, successfully. But W.S.B. died with a methadone habit, so it seems a pretty poor "cure" to me.

I simply don't believe that this is the wonder cure that's been covered up by the powers that be, as W.S.B. claimed. Surely recently when the stuff was available as Uprima (a sublingual erectile-dysfunction version of apomorphine) some Burroughs devotees would have tried it to cure addiction, and there would be a flood of anecdotes on the internet about this "miracle cure". I'm just not sure why it worked for W.S.B. that time, but I've heard stories of remarkable painless withdrawals without any drugs. If the mind whole-heartedly believes this possible, it might be possible, and that might have been the reason for Dent's success with apomorphine on W.S.B.

I'm sorry to be so negative, but I don't think this is the get-out-of-jail-free card that W.S.B. claimed it was. I'd love to be proven totally wrong of course.

Happy trails

Dr D.

P.S. Ibogaine is no cure for addiction either. What it does in some users is temporarilly interupt addiction. The trouble with any self-revelation under psychedelics, is that it tends to be short lived, and old patterns of behaviour tend to reestablish themselves. I think it could prove a very useful agent when combined with a serious desire to turn a life around, and may even allow an addict to get through a week or two without using fairly painlessly. But I hear unending stories of "miracle 'cure' followed by relapse 3/6-months later". Don't let the existence of a "miracle cure" let you drift into heroin or any other opiate addiction!! There's no miracle except one and that's shear-bloody-force-of-will.