How does Opium compare to Heroin?

[Hexenstahl]

I recently read "Diaries of an english opium eater" by Thomas De Quincey. Apparently a lot of 19th century poets and also ancient philosophers like Plotinus praised Opium for inducing certain "visions" that are known as opium dreams. Even though I enjoy my Heroin, I would like to try Opium and see if I'm missing something. Perhaps the alkaloids in the poppy plant create a deeper and richer high that feels more complete and satisfying than all those isolated alkaloids like morphine and prescription opioids like oxy. I thought about buying some iranian shire opium and make some good ol' fashioned Laudanum (and keep it in one of those nostalgic brown medicine bottles ). Anyone here who tried good quality Opium? How does it feel compared to Heroin? Does it really give inspiration and creativity? Is it more or less euphoric? If we have any Opium connoisseurs here, please tell me about your experiences.

 

[nznity]

I recently read "Diaries of an english opium eater" by Thomas De Quincey. Apparently a lot of 19th century poets and also ancient philosophers like Plotinus praised Opium for inducing certain "visions" that are known as opium dreams. Even though I enjoy my Heroin, I would like to try Opium and see if I'm missing something. Perhaps the alkaloids in the poppy plant create a deeper and richer high that feels more complete and satisfying than all those isolated alkaloids like morphine and prescription opioids like oxy. I thought about buying some iranian shire opium and make some good ol' fashioned Laudanum (and keep it in one of those nostalgic brown medicine bottles ). Anyone here who tried good quality Opium? How does it feel compared to Heroin? Does it really give inspiration and creativity? Is it more or less euphoric? If we have any Opium connoisseurs here, please tell me about your experiences.

I got my copy next to me lols, best book ever.
Anyway, @TheUltimateFixx can get into detail how the opium experience compares to heroin since he has tried both.

 

[plumbus-nine]

Oh I always wondered about Opium, too heard about these dreamy visions and with pharma morphine I never got any visuals, just my very first time heroin was like sinking into the mattress where I had some 3d-ish space but black & white and more annoying than recreative. Couldn't sleep for ages.

Afaik does opium contain stuff like dissociatives (NMDA antagonists) and sigma agonists, etc. so the high should indeed be quite different. I loved combining morphine with deschloroketamine but it was also pretty destructive (not caring about nothing, thus losing much money etc. and not respecting my own as well as the borders of others). This is something one should really only do on special days and at home..

 

[Harmredux]

I have it all the time. In very large quantities, opium can be a bit trippy, slight melting walls, etc. Also lasts a long time and takes orally as laudanum almost 2 hours to really peak.
VERY Itchy compared to anything else even if you have sky high tolerance to any other opiate.
You can only get laudanum as a tincture with the narcotinevremoved so no nausea.
Also, itching starts about 12 hours after peak. And half life is comparable to methadone.
Worst part is that although you can still get something off of your doc, it has the most cross tolerance of any opiate because it literally contains dozen(s) of alkaloids. After a few days of use in the 200mg range daily (which is really 200mg of morphine but who knows how much other alkaloids), I get some WD even when switching back to 200mg oxy daily. Shivers and general malaise mostly, and definite depression. What I get is pharmaceutical so no adulterants.
I need this as medicine, but once in a while end up taking a 200mg dose because I am an idiot. I know that I am going to pay for it later, but as lo g term pain patient, sometimes I run out because I have been at same dose of regular meds for a decade. That's when I take more than I should... Prescribed dose is like half a ml (which should only be 5mg morphine) . Speaking of pay, out of pocket it would cost at least $10 per mg. So for example 500ml would cost $500 if I had to pay out of pocket (yikes!)
It also varies a LOT by time of year and batch, even from one of the only 2-3 companies licensed to produce it in my country. Color is different, taste is different, and DEFINITELY the amount of itch it causes is different, so I am guessing that the alkaloids besides morphine in it vary widely. Even color varies in terms of how cloudy it is. I insist pharmacy shake bottle dispensed from or a lot settles to bottom of the larger container it is dispensed from.

Disclaimer : I NEED this so not condoning irresponsible use (going over 1ml a day). It's not a toy.

Overall, it is not as euphoric as oxy, and does cause sleep disruptions sometimes, but it does have delerium unlike other opioids which I guess some people would want to experience, but if people 200 years ago had oxy or any of the other options they have today it would not be anyone's first choice of opiates.
I never smoked it, this is oral. And everyone would DEFINITELY experience this differently because of the full spectrum of alkaloids it has, but I would not obsess over trying to find it or feel like you are missing out on much after the first time you experience it.

 

[Hexenstahl]

@Harmredux
What's considered a "normal" dose of Opium (oral) for someone with little to no tolerance?

 

[Harmredux]

The prescribed dose of Tincture standardized to 10mg/ml is tiny-. 5ml per dose.
If you want to space out with zero or little tolerance I can't tell you. I was very high tolerance when started.
Go by using the numbers for morphine.

Also depends what experience you want, only at higher dosages do the non-analgedic or prescribed effects show up, but you would probably not be able to sleep and itch till you were miserable even with 2 benadryl.

Never smoked it either.

I'm not comfortable suggesting anything here because if you are not tolerant the spacey place would not be achievable without a lot of it, and the "normal" high from it is nothing worth mentioning.

It's kinda only worth doing a high dose if you have decent tolerance, otherwise it is not euphoric.
Sorry if that's not the answer you want.
It's obviously been romanticized because at the height of its use there weren't very many other options.

ROA is important too, the opium dens of centuries ago had special pipes and tolerant users. You could never duplicate that without a regular script.
If it helps, I tried plugging a bunch of times (ouch to the high alcohol content) and always hold half under my tongue for 20+ minutes even though I still can't tell if that makes a difference.
Plugging does not work well.

If you can handle 150mg at once of oxy, a good dose is 150ml swallowed and 50ml under tongue but that's if you can handle a single 150-175mg oxy dose.

Again, not really worth it but no idea if smoking a different form besides laudanum is different.

 

[Hexenstahl]

@Harmredux
Ok so I researched a bit and found out that the so called "opium tincture" these days doesn't contain opium at all. It's an ethanol solution containing anhydrous morphine which is quite a different thing. 100mg of good quality Opium should contain approximately 15mg morphine. So if I dissolve 10g of Opium in 100ml Everclear, then 1ml of the tincture should contain 100mg Opium which would be a good starting dose.

 

[tubgirl.jpg]

I've just had raw opium orally, and heroin is nowhere near it. It's heroin on steroids.