Legal Issues That Pertain To The Drug And It’s Use Or Abuse

Legal Issues That Pertain To The Drug And It’s Use Or Abuse 

           Phenobarbital is a drug that is used to treat epilepsy and prevent seizures.People chose to use Phenobarbital because it is relatively cheap to produce and that has a positive impact on the price. In fact according to the International Drug Price Indicator Guide, a packet of 1,000 tablets with a dose of 100 mg can cost anywhere from $4.82 to $9.58. To get a better idea of how cheap this drug is we can compare it to Carbamazepine. Carbamazepine is a drug that is also used to teat epilepsy; in fact most scientists say that both drugs are almost identical. What do these drugs have that make them different? The answer lies in the price. A packet of 1,000 Carbamazepine tablets of 100 mg costs $9.25 to $15.03. Most people would say that there isn’t much of a difference in the price but the reality is another. It is important to realize that there are people who are poor and need this medication and if they can limited resources for medications they will chose the cheaper one because they can afford it. The price difference in reality is a matter of life and death: whether one person can afford it and live or not afford it and die.

           A big misconception is that phenobarbital is the most popular because of its effectiveness. This was true…in the 1950’s and in the 1960’s, in fact now a days with our modern technology we are able to produce even more effective drugs that unfortunately more expensive.

           Unfortunately, like many drugs, phenobarbital can be abused. What is drug abuse? Drug abuse is when someone does not follow the doctor’s directions on how and when to take the drug. Phenobarbital abuse is sometimes compared to alcohol intoxication since they share some of the same symptoms: slurred speech, confusion, poor judgment, irritability, insomnia and somatic complaints. However the previous stated symptoms is only when there is a little abuse of phenobarbital. When people overdoes on phenobarbital in great amounts then it can be lethal. Once a person is dependent of phenobarbital there are some characteristics we must be on the look out. The first characteristic is to obviously want to continue taking the drug; the second characteristic is the tendency to increase the does and the frequency of the drug. The last characteristic of phenobarbital dependence is when a person needs to consume the drug in order to maintain calm and relaxed. When we have reached the point of phenobarbital dependence the only way to deal with the problem is phenobarbital GRADUAL withdrawal. For a gradual withdrawal it is normal to see some reactions, such as: anxiety, muscle twitching, tremor if hands, weakness, dizziness, distortion in vision, nausea, vomiting and insomnia. However sometimes complete withdrawal is chosen over gradual withdrawal and the reactions are the same along with convulsions and delirium. It is also important to also note that not everyone is the same and the symptoms and reactions may not all be displayed.

-Alejandro

For More Information:

http://www.rxlist.com/phenobarbital-drug/side-effects-interactions.htm

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/epi.12026/asset/epi12026.pdf;jsessionid=51A831602CB0FD47F6F74D637AD8D17D.f04t02?v=1&t=i8bv58ji&s=80951d3c3c36d4aae47350998fd20a14190ce679

Drug History Part 2

How was your drug discovered?

The drug Phenobarbital has a long history; in fact the discovery began in 1865, over a century ago.  In 1890 at the German Chemical Society meeting a German chemist names August Kekule reported that he had been working with chemical structures and he had noticed that many of the structures he worked with had one thing in common, they had ring like shapes.  He had researched these new structures for about 20 years and had finally decided to speak up.

Despite the fact that Kekule set a great foundation for the discovery of Phenobarbital he was no the one who discovered it.  Twenty-two years after the Chemical Society meeting a man named Alfred Hauptmann was a clinical assistant in Freiburg who was annoyed at the fact that he was awakened at night by patients who had seizures. So he gave them Phenobarbital as a hypnosis medication and noticed something amazing… the seizures were being suppressed by the drug.

Astonished by this new observations; Hauptmann decided to pick patients who had a long history of seizures. The test subjects were administered different doses of Phenobarbital at different times of the day. The Phenobarbital was administered as medication tablets for example some of the tablets were 300 mg or 200 mg tablets.  He noticed that the difference in the amount of drugs given to the patient was the determining factor of how effective the drug was.

In conclusion Hauptmann said that he recommended using Phenobarbital in “genuine” epilepsy treatment. This is the earliest record of the discovery of Phenobarbital but shortly after Hauptmann published his work many other scientists around the world did the same or a similar experiment. Like in Britain were the scientist Golla who also had the same success in proving that Phenobarbital worked. This new drug discovery jumped from nation to nation and pretty soon it was one of the drug of first choice when dealing with epilepsy treatment.

In this picture we have August Kekule the chemist and the ring structure he worked with:

In this picture we have Alfred Hauptmann the man who discovered phenobarbital:

How is this drug manufactured?

To make the drug Phenobarbital there are eight possible ways or reactions that are able to give us the desired drug.  But the most used method or procedure to create Phenobarbital is the following. We need to react ethyl oxalate ester and pheylacetonitrile once they have reacted we need to add iodoethane into the mix, this will give us “Product D”. Then we get “product D” and heat it up so It turns into a decarboxylation reaction and yields “Product E”. from there product E condenses with Urea and the product crystalizes and Product F is yield also known as Phenobarbital.

In this picture we see a visual of how the drug is created:

-Alejandro Guzman                   

For more information Visit:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/epi.12026/asset/epi12026.pdf?v=1&t=i7sin5t9&s=7ca53cb15a1ea102d42ad603371d1bcb2b01d421

http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/phenobarbital#section=Top

The drug Phenobarbital has the molecular formula C12H12N2O3. The elements included in this drug are Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen. Other forms of the drug Phenobarbital includes: Luminal, Phenobarbitol, Phenobarbitone, Gardenal, Phenema and more. The drug Phenobarbital is considered a barbiturate, which is a nonselective central nervous depressant. Barbiturates, are a synthetic compounds that, substitute for pyrimidine derivatives which contain the basic structure similar to that of barbituric acid (C4H4N2O3). Barbituric acid is a substance that has no central nervous system (CNS) activity. However, CNS activity can be obtained by substituting alkyl, alkenyl, or aryl groups on the pyrimidine ring- which is an aromatic heterocyclic organic compound. The drug is primarily used as a sedative hypnotic and an anticonvulsant in subhypnotic doses. It is chemically designated as 5-Ethyl-5-phenylbarbituric acid with the molecular weight of 232.24.  Phenobarbital can be taken, orally, in tablets or elixir

- Mora, Celina

Hi my name is Celina Mora. I am a junior attending the high school Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy. I am sixteen years old, proudly Mexican, and my passion is music. I chose to research the drug Phenobartital because it is a drug to treat seizures. My grandma suffered all her life from seizures and happened to use this drug. I would like to know more about this drug and learn of it's effects.

                                                                                                                                           -Celina Mora

Hi my name is Alejandro Guzman. I am a sixteen year old male that attends Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy. I am in 11th grade. One of my favorite free time activity is hunting for animals and surfing the internet. For my chemistry project we chose to research the drug Phenobarbital, a drug that helps to deal with the seizures. I chose to research this drug because in elementary there was a boy that was a few years younger that would often break down in seizures and the paramedics would come and take him to the hospital. about a year ago he died drowned in the bathroom because he had a seizure while taking a shower and no one knew about it. what killed him was the fact that he drowned but he wouldn't have drowned if he hadn't had a seizure. I want to know if this drug could have helped him.
                                                                                                                                 -Alejandro Guzman