Addiction to illicit and prescription opioid narcotic drugs (heroin, morphine, codeine, oxycodone and related agents) is a significant public health issue because of the number of people it affects and its cost to society. Each month in the United States, 4.9% of persons aged 12 years or older (>11 million) use prescription pain relievers for nonmedical purposes [1]. Young adults (age 18−25 years) are particularly hard hit by this problem, they have the highest rate of abuse of prescription pain relievers [1]. Opioid addiction has significant adverse consequences for personal health and society [2-4]. As many as 90% of patients in chronic pain management settings receive opioid pain relievers, and the prevalence of drug abuse is 9−41% among these patients [4]. Anxiety, increased pain sensitivity, poor concentration, tachycardia and flu-like symptoms develop during opioid withdrawal, a syndrome reflecting physical dependence on these drugs [5]. The severity of the dependence and resulting withdrawal symptoms is a major contributor to the addictive potential of opioid narcotics. Current strategies for treatment of opioid withdrawal are suboptimal; they rely on the administration of controlled
