OPIATE ADDICTION

For the class of drugs, see Opioid. For other uses, see Opiate (disambiguation).

Harvesting the poppy pod.

In medicine, the term opiate describes any of the narcotic opioid alkaloids found as natural products in the opium poppy plant, Papaver somniferum.[1]

The term opiate is often incorrectly used to describe all drugs with opium- or morphine-like pharmacological action, which are more properly classified under the broader term opioid. Semi-synthetic opioids such as hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxycodone, and oxymorphone, while derived from opiates, are not opiates themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opiate