Texas Plant May Have the Answer to Opioid Crisis

Research done in North Texas may have found an alternative for pain that doesn't involve addicting pills.

Over at Texas Women's University, research has been going on for a plant know as Euphorbia bicolor. People know this plant as 'snow on the prairie' in our area. This particular plant blooms in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi. The chemicals in the sap have something in them that stops pain and it's not addictive.

This particular plant was being tested as an anti-cancer drug. Now it's being tested as a way to ease chronic pain suffered by military veterans. They injected the plant into nerve endings and they were turned off. This is key, they were INJECTED and not INGESTED. The sap is extremely toxic and cannot be ingested. It's injected directly into the area that has the pain.

Their research has been published, but they need additional funding for further testing. They hope to gain approval for clinical trials in the future. “We need to make sure it doesn’t hurt other cells,” said Dayna Averitt, an assistant professor in TWU’s department of biology. “You’re harming nerve endings, which we want to do, but we want to make sure it isn’t acting as a toxin on other cells as well.”

“You can’t help but look to the future and be excited, like maybe this could be something that could be a real breakthrough.” Hopefully, they get the funding for those clinical trials. I am all for people getting off those addictive prescription pain killers.