Side Effects and Tolerance
Side effects increase with dosage and include drowsiness, mild stomach ache, lethargy, urinary retention, bradypnea, constipation, and nausea. Nausea can be attributed to the presence of noscapine and is more common in first-time or inexperienced users. At high doses, the side effects are dangerous and can cause death through respiratory arrest or inhalation of vomit. Constipation often results from use (as with any opiate).
Additionally, frequent use results in high tolerance and dependence. Chemical dependency builds in relation to the frequency of use, dose used, age, gender, weight, and medical condition. Once chemical dependency has developed, abrupt cessation of use will cause withdrawal; symptoms include leg and abdominal cramps, mydriasis, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, insomnia, cravings, lethargy, and anxiety. As users are addicted to all the different alkaloids found in the opium poppy, withdrawal symptoms can be worse and/or more prolonged than those experienced by users of just one opioid. Symptoms of withdrawal usually fade after 4–10 days but cravings and psychological dependence may continue for longer, in some cases up to a year. Treatment methods for addiction are generally the same for any opioid.
Read more about this topic: Poppy Tea
Famous quotes containing the words side, effects and/or tolerance:
“I’m not a military man, Captain. War holds no romance for me. The side effects are repulsive.”
—Richard Bluel, and Henry Hathaway. Major Hugh Tarkington (Clinton Greyn)
“Each of us, even the lowliest and most insignificant among us, was uprooted from his innermost existence by the almost constant volcanic upheavals visited upon our European soil and, as one of countless human beings, I can’t claim any special place for myself except that, as an Austrian, a Jew, writer, humanist and pacifist, I have always been precisely in those places where the effects of the thrusts were most violent.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.”
—New Yorker (April 23, 1990)