Abuse of opium-containing Indian herbal medicines: a case report.

Traditional medicines belonging to the ancient schools of Ayurveda (a system of medicine native to the Sanskritspeaking India of largely Hindu roots) and Unani (a system of medicine with Greco-Arabic and Islamic roots), although used in India for centuries, have become quite popular in western developed countries over the past few decades. Recently, various adverse events related to such medicines have been reported in the literature.1–5 To the best of our knowledge, however, abuse of opium-containing herbal medicine has not been reported. We report a case of abuse of opioid-containing traditional herbal medicine and its consequent adverse events.