The response to centrally-acting drugs is highly variable between individuals and does not always correlate with plasma drug levels. Drug-metabolizing CYP enzymes in the brain may contribute to this variability by affecting local drug and metabolite concentrations. CYP2D metabolizes codeine to the active morphine metabolite. We investigate the effect of inhibiting brain, and not liver, CYP2D activity on codeine-induced analgesia. Rats received intracerebroventricular injections of CYP2D inhibitors (20 μg propranolol or 40 μg propafenone) or vehicle controls. Compared to vehicle-pretreated rats, inhibitor-pretreated rats had: a) lower analgesia in the tail-flick test (p0.6 and p>0.7, respectively), tested at 30 min after 30 mg/kg subcutaneous codeine, and c) lower morphine formation from codeine ex vivo by brain membranes (p0.9). Analgesia trended toward a correlation with brain morphine concentrations (p=0.07) and correlated with brain morphine to codeine ratios (p0.8) or plasma morphine to codeine ratios (p>0.8). Our findings suggest that brain CYP2D affects brain morphine levels after peripheral codeine administration, and may thereby alter codeine's therapeutic efficacy, side-effect profile and abuse liability. Brain CYPs are highly variable due to genetics, environmental factors and age, and may therefore contribute to interindividual variation in the response to centrally-acting drugs.