Opioid agonists, exemplified by morphine, have been the most prescribed class of drugs for the management of moderate to severe pain for many years. These drugs have significant liabilities of addiction and constipation over long‐term use and acute overdoses can result in respiratory depression. For over thousands of years, opium and opium‐derived drugs have nonetheless been utilized for their therapeutic and recreational benefits. Due to their liabilities, medicinal chemists and clinicians have worked for years to discover novel agents or treatment courses that would be devoid of these side effects. Still to this day, there are no agents that meet these criteria. Therefore, efforts continue vigorously in the quest for drugs with potent analgesic effects without abuse or side‐effect potential. Many chemical classes have been sought after in this quest and the range from peptides to synthetic compounds to natural products. Morphine offered a template that was rigid and able to provide an enormous amount of structure–function relationships that many of the market analgesics are based on. To complicate matters, the endogenous opioid system is comprised of four distinct receptor subtypes. These receptors are all members of the G‐protein superfamily and are designated as mu (μ, MOP), delta (δ, DOP), kappa (κ, KOP), and nociception (ORL1, NOP). It has been realized over the years that a combination of activities at these receptors may result in agents that could be devoid of liabilities. Intensive efforts have been directed at improved probes for each receptor subtype and combinations of agonists and antagonists for combinations of these receptors. This review will discuss the structure–activity relationships, as they are currently understood, with regard to each of the major classes of compounds that interact with these protein targets.