"Faux" and "Pseudo"

[Phee]

Hi. 2 questions. The first is more an observation. Many people refer to poppy tea reduction as "fauxpium" which is kind of funny, but technically misleading? It is not fake, say, the way fake marijuana sold in head shops is fake. It's not a completely different substance is it? It may not be opium as traditionally defined, that comes from the collected sap from the pod, but it is not fake.

This leads to my 2nd question. I can't seem to find a lot of information on "pseudomorphine" other than definitional. Does anyone know more about psuedomorphine as it applies to the making of poppy tea? Is it not concerning at all? Very minimal? Is it something that is unavoidable or does it even matter?

 

[spacejunk]

What do you mean by "concerning"?

"Pseudomorphine" sounds like a misnomer to me.
I mean, i assume it refers to a crude opium extract that is likely to consist of morphine along with other opiate alkaloids.
Something like "kompot", presumably - a non-acetylised crude morphine extract.

As for "fauxpium" - you can make various sort of gummy extracts of opium that aren't technically the same as what is understood to be refined opium (of the sort that is/was consumed in opium dens in SE Asia and all over the place in the 1800s).

Home-made opium is likely to be full of plant fats and oils, and is unlikely to behave like opium that has been traditionally prepared for smoking.

On the other hand - it's really just semantics.
"Opium", to me, is any broad-spectrum narcotic preparation made from papaver somniferum.
This can be in the form of a tincture (such as laudanum), pod tea, seed wash etc etc

When i used to fuck around with opiates, i used to harvest lots of pods i grew and throw them into a canvas bag.
At the end of a season, the bag would be stained brown with opium latex - so naturally, i would wash it and squeeze out all the dried poppy sap. When boiled down, it made a really potent "opium" which i took orally.

Would i call this "opium"? Yes - but not in the "true" sense of what "opium" is widely understood to be. It's not the same as the stuff you may be able to obtain in Thailand or Iran, produced for black market sale - but it was still "opium", more or less.
I guess it's a little like "pharmahuasca" (DMT brew with an MAOI such as moclobemide, as opposed to caapi vine).
Pretty much the same thing....but not exactly.

Does that make sense?

 

[Phee]

Obviously we don't want to turn any alkaloids into something bad, or poisonous. But even if it's a substance that does nothing, i wouldn't want to waste or destroy anything good.

Pseudomorphine is a real thing. It exists, it's just that i can't tell how it's made. I'm working on tea reductions/concentrates (by the way i am stunned, absolutely stunned at how good a tincture im making). I don't want to inadvertently create pseudomorphine. I think, and hope, that it might be an issue only when one is trying to extract morphine with chemicals, which im not interested in doing.

I would certainly call what you had "opium". If you were able to boil down actual sap/gum, then yep, that's the real deal. It would then be a matter of re-simmering, filtering ("cooking") it and that would create classic cooked, smoking opium.

In your example, the DMT is coming from a different original source? In the case of the poppy i would think that whatever the method, chemically, fundamentally, it's from the same source.

The issue I've found with seeds is that it really is the same thing, it just contains far more plant matter and such. It requires lots of cleaning and filtering. Multiple filters, decanting, I've done ice cleaning, defatting, everclear soaks, etc. I can bring 3, 4 pounds of good seeds down to 1 gram of very clean stuff. What i haven't done yet, and i will, is a final step of melting down a good 10 grams of this putty, and do another simmer/filter. I'll get to that soon. In the meantime, im finding that using it in a well crafted tincture is outstanding.

 

[spacejunk]

By "pseudomorphine", are you talking about inadvertantly extracting other opiate alkaloids that are less desirable, such as thebaine?
I believe there are something in the range of 40 active opioid alkaloids in opium poppies.
(Edit - sorry, i just looked it up, and it's not something i knew about; please excuse my ignorance!)

Pseudomorphine is an inactive, natural dimerisation product of the morphine molecule in tandem and thus a common impurity in morphine concentrations.

My DMT analogy is not about the DMT part of the ayahuasca brew - but the MAOi containing part, which is traditionally banisteriopsis caapi - which makes the DMT orally active, but can be replaced by other MAO inhibitors.
Generally it is not considered "true" ayahuasca when the caapi vine is substituted for something else, but the DMT is still orally active.
Thw source of the DMT - at least as i understand it - is not of great importance, because it is the caapi vine that has particular alkaloids that affect the overall experience.

Maybe not a great analogy for what you're talking about.

Are you doing all your extractions from poppy seeds? They have pretty wild variability, depending on their source, their genetics - and of course how "washed" they are before you work with them.

I would highly recommend trying to grow your own pods if this is your field of interest - but with a word of warning; the first time i did my "extract" from the canvas bag i'd been using, i totally misjudged the potency of it and was very sick for 2 or 3 days.
Like, incapacitated. Pounding head, blurred vision, puking.
Really nasty. Always titrate your dose if you're fooling around with poppy extracts - in my (sadly rather considerable) experience, potency variation (in seeds, pods, etc) vary wildly - and dangerously.

Having said that, i always used to prefer full-spectrum opium tea (or soup, latex putty, or whatever) than "pure" opiates/opioids.
Long lasting, and kinda warm and stony.

But i gotta stay away from that stuff these daze

 

[Phee]

No, i mean a real chemical called pseudomorphine that is inadvertently created, from morphine. Posdibly due to citric or other acids but i can't tell. Thebaine already exists as one of the natural alkaloids. I believe I'm getting rid of much of it through gentle simmering. Pseudomorphine is simething we don't want that may ne created throigh the tea making/reduction process.

 

[Phee]

I get very "dirty" seeds through one of 3 main sources that are well trusted. They run from average to strong. I've got moderate tolerance and 1 cup of seeds, about 225 grams is often more than enough. I've got 20+ years of various opiate experience.

I've enjoyed tea for a few years now, and been working on reductions for about a year. I love the tea, but i find that the reductions, especially tinctures, are more morphine focused. I think im getting rid of many unwanted alkaloids and i find the high cleaner.

 

[spacejunk]

Yeah, sorry - i did some reading and know what you're talking about now.
There is some concern that some of the culinary seeds may be increasingly high in thebaine as a biproduct of genetically manufactured thebaine-dominant strains of poppy, especially if the seeds are Australian (such as the infamous "Norman" strain grown in Tasmania) - but as far as i know this may just be conjecture with little to back it up.
It is something to be mindful of, however, as thebaine can be dangerous in high enough doses (seizure risk i believe).
I've never looked into thebaine's properties, or how to go about trying to extract it or break it down...but it does seem to be a variable to be especially mindful of, in terms of being undesirable/harmful.

225 grams; those are some decently strong seeds.
Play safe man

I've enjoyed tea for a few years now, and been working on reductions for about a year. I love the tea, but i find that the reductions, especially tinctures, are more morphine focused. I think im getting rid of many unwanted alkaloids and i find the high cleaner

Interesting. I used to just try to refine my wash techniques (3 quick rinses, in cold water/juice with much agitation, from memory) - but tended to find most pod tea qualititively better, in terms of effects.
Maybe subjective, but i tend to think pods were always more pleasurable when i could get (or grow) them.

 

[Phee]

All good, im just thirsty for more knowledge.

The seeds i get which are quite good are from another land with a Queen. . They are morphine dominant, i can tell. There iis codeine and anywhere from a small to modest amount of thebaine. I believe that Australia has bred and grows a thebaine dominant strain developed specifically for the pharmaceutical industry. Thebaine can be "speedy" and a bit nauseating. Most people don't wsnt it, some like it, and some think it's good to have a small bit of it as part of a complete natural opiate. It feels as if simmering destroys some thebaine and other unwanted alkaloids because my extract feels much cleaner, like straight morphine.

I think good seeds can have anywhere from 30 to 90 milligrams of morphine per pound. I think the ones i get are at least on the high end of that.

I'm going to make the transition to pods soon, im certainly interested in comparing.

 

[Phee]

Hi everyone. So i figure I'd give some updates. I am currently doing a test batch of what I'd lile to accomplish. I have had great success making a tincture from seeds and now im ready to combine all of the methods into one hopefully great tincture.

I am using 6 pounds of seeds with the goal of reducing it to as little as 1-2oz. of final tincture.

So far i have washed the 6 pounds of seeds as best as i could. Shaken well for 5 minutes, just the juice of 1 lime. I also do a wisking of the seeds after i dump them in a colander in a large bowl. I wisk the seeds as i drizzle more water over them.

I now have 2 liters of very strong tea. So far i have warmed it, and filtered through a tight dish cloth. I then did a warm filter through a coffee filter and am warming and reducing.

I plan on doing another couple of warm filters, cold filters, and 2 ice extractions.

I hope to have this reduced to about a cup of rich liquid which will now be further reduced and decanted.

There will be an everclear/cfo soak, a thick tea reduction, and putty. Then i plan on gently melting the putty into the cfo alcohol/thick tea reduction, filter, and bottle.

 

[Phee]

Hello again. The first attempt at a true laudanum recipe is a great success. 6 pounds of seeds were finally reduced to 1.5 fluid ounces of what looks like dark red thin gravy. It looks like iodine. I made some adjustments, the biggest one being that Everclear (96%+) really cleans things up. Its amazing that after a good 10 filtrations of various kinds, the alcohol still created an amazing amount of tan crashed sediment. I really hope the sediment doesn't have anything good in it but i don't think so. The alcohol doesn't take long to turn a deep red and actually bleaches the sediment, which looks like fine beige sand. I of course filtered.

So i saw no reason to create any cfo or putty and leaned more in the Fogle method which looks so good. I basically took about 4 oz of the final tea slurry/reduction, and mixed it with the Everclear. I'll bet the everclear does it's job in mere hours, but i let it soak for 24 hours.

The Everclear was pre soaked in cinnamon stick, vanilla bean, some dried apricot, and a clove.

It's excellent. My guess is that there are at least 10mg per ml.