A Critical Review of Pentazocine Abuse

FOR almost a century, medical science has sought an anal- gesic with the relative effective- ness of morphine, yet one which would not expose the patient to the possibilities of addiction.The early reports on pentazocine, a benzomorphan analgesic, sug- gested that such a drug had been developed.Unfortunately, subse- quent reports indicated otherwise.The development of pentazo- cine can be traced to the early 1950's, when various researchers demonstrated that the morphine antagonist, nalorphine, had anal- gesic effects in man (1,2).Al- though the use of nalorphine as an analgesic was abandoned al- most immediately because of its