This study was designed to determine postoperative analgesia and safety of a balanced anesthetic technique : combined epidural morphine and general anesthesia for lumbar laminectomy. Twenty-two patients were randomly selected into two groups. Group I (n=11) received conventional general anesthesia with intravenous morphine (0.1 mg/kg) as intraoperative analgesia. Group II (n=11) received combined epidural morphine (0.5% bupivacaine with adrenaline 1 : 200,000 and morphine 3 mg) and general anesthesia. The result of study showed that group II had longer postoperative analgesia with significant reduction of first postoperative day analgesic requirement. There were no significant differences of postoperative complications, sedation, motor function, nausea, vomiting and respiratory depression between two groups except pruritus. We suggest combined epidural morphine and general anesthesia is an alternative anesthetic technique for lumbar laminectomy.