Opioid-induced hibernation protects against stroke

This will never be studied fully here, you can't study any kind of recreational drug even if it could save thousands of lives. One major problem is that the rats were put into opiod hibernation prior to giving them a stroke. I can't ever see that occurring in real life, 'I'm going to have a stroke in the next hour so get me my opium so I can hibernate through it.' But maybe put into hibernation in the ambulance, someone can compare the efficacy of that to hypothermia.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=58600&CultureCode=en
Using an opioid drug to induce a hibernatory state in rats reduces the damage caused by an artificial stroke. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology have shown that those animals put into the chemical slumber suffered less behavioral dysfunctions after a period of cerebral artery blockage than control rats.
Cesar Borlongan, a neuroscientist at the University of South Florida Center for Aging and Brain Repair, in Tampa, FL, worked with a team of researchers from the National Institutes of Health, USA, to investigate the role of the opioid system in brain injury and protection. He said, “Studies in hibernating and active squirrels have shown that ‘natural hibernation’ has anti-ischemic effects. We’ve shown that a drug that induces hibernation can achieve similar results”.
Borlongan and his colleagues dosed the rats with [D-ala2,D-leU5]enkephalin (DADLE), a drug from the same pharmaceutical family as morphine and heroin. They found that, after an experimental stroke, the pretreated animals performed better than control rats in a series of behavioral tests. The researchers write, “DADLE prevented cell death processes and behavioral abnormalities. The observation that this substance, previously shown to induce hibernation, attenuated deficits inherent in cerebral ischemia provides a new pharmacological target for stroke therapy”.