alt Hacker NewsI wonder if this modification brings it closer to the mitragynine from kratom, which has opiate like pain dulling effects with very minor or no effect on breathing.
I hope so because the administration is looking to really fuck over medical research by making the 7-OH stuff a schedule 1 narcotic, when it has so much potential for improving anesthesia and pain management by removing respiratory depression from the pain killing element of the anesthetic cocktail.
My understanding is that mitragynine is an mu-opioid partial agonist which limits its impact even in high doses. This is sort of in the same realm as Buprenorphine. Google claims it also doesn't recruit beta-arrestin but admittedly I'm out of my depth here. Presumably this proposed fentanyl replacement is still a full mu-opioid agonist for efficacy.