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Thanks for so much great info! Where did you come from, Virola? We need more posts from you!

I come from a chemistry perspective and feel like adding something for the other chemistry geeks - dihydrocodeine basically IS codeine. It's the codeine molecule with a single bond between two carbons, whereas codeine has a double bond. The term "dihydro" comes from this - carbons need 4 bonds to be happy, and in the codeine molecule the double bond helps to do this. But with the single bond, the 2 carbons need to bind hydrogens to fill the 4-bond rule, hence "dihydro".

Like Virola said, it's not as special as people may think. In the 1930s, for reasons still not clear but maybe having to do with the war, the Brits went with DHC and we went with hydrocodone for stronger pain relief than could be had over the counter. Hydrocodone is of course stronger, and I don't know if they just give patients a ton of DHC in Britain or what, but they still don't use hydrocodone very much. Weird, huh?

Noah

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