Originally posted by: halik
Aaah, yeah the best explanation google pulled up was that you'll get liver failure before you get high... that didn't seem to make much sense.
So basically the idea is that you'll overdose on acetaminopen part efore you overdose on the opiod?
Yeah. That's exactly it.
If you mix an opioid with another drug, then it drastically reduces the abuse potential. If you take more than the normal dose you poison yourself with the other drug.
The problem with pure opioids, is that they all have roughly the same effect. So an addict could easily substitute heroin for oxycodone - and due to tolerance to the drugs, may need 10 oxycodone tabs for a good hit. As a result, pure opioids are highly desired by drug abusers, and are very easily sold on the black market.
Because mixtures will cause unacceptable side effects before reaching a psychoactive dose, they are very limited in abuse potential. Most people involved in drugs to this extent will know that acetaminophen mixtures are fatal in overdose, and will neither steal them nor buy them.
At least, that's the intention. There are occasional serious acetaminophen/paracetamol poisonings presumably because of people carelessly abusing these mixtures.
That said, there are a number of prominent physicans who disagree with these mixtures being available. Their argument has 2 parts:
1) in these mixtures, the amount of opioid is so small, that it is essentially worthless. E.g. the 10mg of oxycodone in 2 5/325 tablets, is a relatively small dose, with limited analgesic effect. Additionally, the combination of 2 drugs in one tablet makes adjusting doses more complicated.
2) Most overdoses are taken impulsively, and later regretted. In the case of acetaminophen, there are virtually no long-term effects if an overdose, even a very large overdose, is treated within 12 hours. However, the addition of opioids converts the overdose into an opioid overdose, which is rapidly incapacitating and fatal.
