The US Drug Enforcement Administration placed SR-17018 in Schedule I in late August, classifying the compound alongside heroin as having no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Researchers say the move could halt plans to investigate it as a potential opioid treatment.
Laura Bohn, a senior associate vice president of research at University of South Florida Health, began seeking safer pain medicines in 2012 as deaths in the opioid crisis increasingly involved heroin rather than prescription pills. In 2017, her team and other researchers reported in the journal Cell that SR-17018 and several related compounds relieved pain in mice without causing respiratory depression, a potentially fatal effect of opioid use.
The researchers also found that mice did not develop a high tolerance to SR-17018. In another experiment, mice dependent on morphine took the compound to reset their tolerance without experiencing painful withdrawal symptoms. Bohn says her team filed a patent on SR-17018.
Some people who use drugs have also discussed the compound on Reddit and Discord, describing it as a major help in quitting opioids. Before the DEA action, SR-17018 was not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration and was relatively easy to buy online because it was not a federally controlled substance.
Bohn had been working toward clinical trials in humans, which have not yet been conducted. The Schedule I designation has brought that effort to a halt, according to the report.
Sources: Ars Technica.