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Opioids Oral heroin - Is there any objective reason that this is a bad idea?

M

MrBadExample

Greenlighter
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
8
Hi,

I've been doing a bit of research into oral administration of heroin;
The pharmacokinetic data suggest that it should work at least as well as oral morphine, however no one seems to have tried it so I am wondering why.

The reason this interests me is simple, I enjoy taking opiates, at most once per week, but I want to avoid any ROA that causes the drug to get into the bloodstream too rapidly, as this makes addiction more likely.
Taking opiates orally (poppy tea, morphine, codeine, etc), I have never felt any withdrawal or anything more than a slight desire to use more often than I should.

The first proper opiate experience I had was with oral morphine solution (Oramorph in the UK).
I took a small dose (10 - 15mg of morphine) and I was very high for almost a whole day (I took it at 2pm and my pupils were still myopic (?) the next morning).
I'm not sure why it lasted so long, maybe my liver is missing (this would also explain why codeine isn't very impressive :D ).
However morphine is not cheap because it is usually diverted from prescription medicine I suppose (there doesn't seem to be an illicit trade for morphine because heroin is more profitable), and poppy tea isn't quite as good in my opinion (it is close, but it seems to be less euphoric, and the body load seems to be stronger)

So this is why I am considering buying heroin and taking it orally.

According to Wikipedia, morphine has an oral bioavailability of 20?40%.


And for heroin:

"Heroin's oral bioavailability is both dose-dependent (as is morphine's) and significantly higher than oral use of morphine itself, reaching up to 64.2% for high doses and 45.6% for low doses; opiate-naive users showed far less absorption of the drug at low doses, having bioavailabilities of only up to 22.9%."

So the oral bioavailability seems to be roughly the same for both.

Now, heroin is up to 4 times as potent as morphine, so even if the heroin I buy is only 25% pure (seems a bit low), it will still equal the effect of morphine, and it is still cheaper, weight for weight.


I suspect the reason that there is very little information about this is that heroin tends to have a very bad reputation, consequently, it is seen as a "last resort". People usually switch to heroin because it is more cost effective. This means that they already have a heavy opiate habit, probably daily use. This means that their tolerance would be quite high, necessitating an ROA that gets the levels in the blood as high as possible, as quickly as possible.
Oral is the slowest ROA for heroin so this wouldn't be desirable.

That is just my theory, I mean no disrespect to anyone, I am simply stating what I believe to be true.

Also:

"clinical studies comparing the physiological and subjective effects of injected heroin and morphine in individuals formerly addicted to opioids; these subjects showed no preference for one drug over the other. Equipotent injected doses had comparable action courses, with no difference in subjects' self-rated feelings of euphoria, ambition, nervousness, relaxation, drowsiness, or sleepiness."

This suggests that heroin is simply a more potent version of morphine, and that its effects are much the same, therefore oral use of heroin wouldn't be any more addictive than oral morphine use.

So I am really looking for a long-lasting high with no rush and no harsh come down. This, I hypothesize, is the only hope I have in maintaining a regular opiate habit without addiction.

Does anyone know if there is a reason that oral heroin is no good, or should I give it a go?


Thanks in advance.
 
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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take my advice. DONT NOT TRY HEROIN. You said "This, I hypothesize, is the only hope I have in maintaining a regular opiate habit without addiction."

I had a "regular opiate habit" and i didnt think i was addicted either... THEN I tried Heroin. It can only go down hill from there. I thought i could control it...But i couldnt. Dont think for a second that you can. You're at a cross road. Should i try it?..Or should i leave it alone? DONT.

DO NOT TRY IT. I wish i could go back and not of used it. Now im doing everything i can to get off opiates. Please do not do it.
 
It actually causes lower peak levels of morphine in the blood than taking morphine orally. I don't remember where the study was, but I think it was like 10% weight ended up as morphine in the blood.

Nasal use would be more effective without injecting. If one filtered it through a micron filter and made a nasal spray it should work fine.
 
Diamorphine is around 1.5-2x as potent as inemorphine classic , and it is absorbed more rapidly

Have explained this in some detail before; diamorphine is fully converted (back) into morphine prior to reaching systemic circulation; it just so happens that diamorph/h produces higher plasma levels by mouth, that is, better BA%

Other than that and faster onset, effect should be more or less indistinguishable. So it’s not “terrible woes” of h, it is simply acting as a pure prodrug when subject to first pass metabolism. And 25% isn’t low, just not high . Purity would be main concern, aside from dosing (and the obvious)

To conclude, it is an interesting concept that is ignored, though that is no recommendation -However, it would be the safest way. Just don’t think it will somehow spare you addiction; that is on you and self control, and other things, me not so good with
 
Tacodude, he is talking about heroine(?) ;)

It produces higher and faster morphine plasma levels
 
if your only reason for taking it orally is because it will be less addicting that snorting or shooting it, i don't think thats a great reason, as it will pretty much be just as addicting as snorting it. the high is the same once it peaks
 
Yes Lorne... There was a study that said diamorph caused lower plasma levels with the same dose. Has something to do with metabolising it. I'll look for the study

Edit: of course now I look and find only something saying morphine absorbs better after an oral heroin those... I'll look later as my spasms are becoming a problem tonight so I need to sleep.
 
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It's not really efficient, as Lorne said it's got to be metabolized into morphine. The main reason heroin is stronger than morphine is it crosses the brain blood barrier faster, allowing more morphine to get across, which doesn't happen if subject to first pass metabolism.

And if your gear is only 25% pure then 40mg is actually only 10 of h, which then has to be metabolized into less than that of morphine. Totally inneficient.
 
^ :) You make it seem awful

Tubbs, you can get people to stop H. Explain the numbers( only half joking!)

~50% is good quality - you hit like 70%+ and whoa - made me understand how people, in wd, especially, can accidentally OD. You go to do a gram when your used to 25%, yet you have 50-75% h with some morphine - Your tolerance is dropped, and you get a double or triple dose accidentally. Finding a quick way to test your gear is important

And no disrespect Tacoman, personally like your posts, didn't quite ger that one though, At any rate, multiple studies and sources confirm diamorphine by mouth to be more effective than morphine po mg per mg, although BA% is dose dependent and some reverse tolerance seems to be involved. It is absorbed more quickly, likely because it is like 5-10x more soluble. It is all deactly'd back into morphine prior to reaching cns, though, kinda nullifying the point, as our resident bunny catman pointed (bp? Bunny price?)
 
I'll just say if the goal is to use heroin and not become depedent, even if you were able to stick to strictly oral use(which I have serious doubts about), its a very flawed premise...high is high, you'll just keep adjusting your dose to get high and your tolerance will rise, Eliminating the rush isn't going to somehow magically make it OK to use without building a dependency. Plenty of people have some serious WDs off oral oxy.
 
Yeah it's wierd... I swear I remember somewhere stating that it didn't lead to as high peak plasma levels as it would convert to morphine on the way to the BBB, but I can't seem to find that pubmed article I read when I looked into it asking the same question myself. I guess disregard what I said until I find the study I originally found

Edit: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/18945270/

This is what I found trying to look for it again and yes it days in chronic users it can have higher bioavailability, cut for those who don't use regularly it's about the same. At least if I'm not misunderstanding this study
 
^ Yes your correct... Well according to me ;)

Subjects like this may always be a bit cloudy, however, studies confirm acute exposure to either lends consistently (poor) BA%, which is about the same; ~ 20% seems to be it. W/ chronic, 30-40% morphine classic, more like 50% diamorphine, though variable and dose dependent (30-70%)

Oddly, chronic h has a similar BA% to oxycodone... And your fast Tacodude, and you knew most (all) of what was just posted, however I like clarification and to try and make things, idk, just putting them out there. Thanks for link and reminding me of the low acute figures

Any crazy ideas why there is reverse tolerance(of some sort, it seems) or the dose dependency (which may be easier explained) ?
 
Wish I knew... Maybe the body needs to learn how to metabolize it? You already know opioid bioavailability is difficult
 
This is only my personal account. I'd bought a bundle of very potent east coast heroin a few years ago. I dumped out all the bags and capsuled it up. Ate them and waited for that warm fuzzy feeling and honestly i didn't get much out of it.

Maybe it's cuz i was IV'ng a couple bundles of H per day at that point. But it did keep me outta withdraw the whole day and i felt a little floaty. Wasn't entirely a waste of product.
 
This sounds like a great way to waste a lot of money and also become addicted to heroin. Either don't use heroin or accept that you're going to become addicted with even semi regular use. There's no point wasting money taking it in an inefficient way, you'll waste some but what does get into you will get you high and addicted just the same.
 
I really expected more open answers from bluelight for this fellow.
I?m almost positive (based on his post) that he seems to understand the jist of what everyone?s discussing here, but wants a clear answer from someone who has experienced this or has some knowledge that he cannot find.
I understand all the warning signs that are due to come after a post like this but still I think OP is looking for a way to dose an opiate ?that happens to have stigma around it? without getting the stigma. Plus he/she points out they will continue using a different opiate regardless I don?t think opiate addiction is necessarily the topic at hand, but I guess a fair warning is nice.

Either way I?d like to know the same answer and have wanted to know how oral heroin works in order to maybe cut down from IV use to an oral use and quitting the mental habit of shooting up. I also see OP is aware of the dangers when you administer H rapidly through IV or smoking or snorting, so maybe he/she deserves a fair answer on the dosing.
It just seem like the more this subject is talked about the more we realize we don?t know shit about oral heroin dosing
 
^ Without knowing the purity of the product, we can't just pull a dose from dimension

Diamorphine, pharmaceutical grade, the sdu would be ~20mg / 15-30, with a range of 10-40mg, depending upon various factors

In simple terms, pure, 100% "product", would be roughly equivalent to oxycodone po - So, ~20mg = 10mg IV/IM Morphine, or 30-40ng morphine po (chronic) w/ a range of around 25-70mg - So it is not simple, and throw in "25%" >, or <, and there is not a clean conversion Also, it has been explained it is absorbed faster, so reduced tmax and increased cmax; not sure what else? (On the q)
 
Wow I didn't expect so many responses.
Thanks guys.

Chris42393 I wish you the best of luck in getting off of opiates :)

I appreciate all of your help and, yes, I suppose that warnings are to be expected in response to my post.

Gorillaboy21, yeah you're spot on; The only people who seem to have tried it are those who already have a serious opiate habit, so it is no wonder they are going to need a huge amount, as tacodude says regarding the study.

I am well aware of the correlation between rate of onset and addiction potential, I have only ever experienced an opiate rush once (on a low dose of codeine funnily enough) and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever felt.
It fitted accurately with the description I have read of "like dying, but in a good way"
(I have no idea how it is even possible to get a rush from codeine but it happened), and I can see how even a mild rush such as this could lead to addiction as I have been hoping to experience it again ever since to no avail.

Also, I seem to have quite a low tolerance and I am not physically dependant, but I am definitely somewhat psychologically dependant, I would be extremely unhappy if I ran out of opiates haha.
Although I am capable of restricting my usage to once per week, I find that, every day that passes, I am intensely looking forward to it. I wake up in the morning and say "Only 6 more days until morphine".
This sounds bad, and it probably is, but is it any different from a person with a boring job wishing the days away until the weekend?
That said, I used to wake up in the morning and be disappointed because I hadn't died in my sleep.
"Oh God, I'm not dead yet, when will this be over"
So I think "Only 6 more days until morphine" is an improvement :D

I use opiates as anti-depressants because I haven't found anything else that works, so at least I can have 1 day per week feeling motivated, sociable and happy. This can help me for the other 6 days of the week because it can allow me to do things, when opiated, that I have been putting off, or allow me to initiate things that I wouldn't initiate when "sober".

Sorry to hi-jack the topic kind of, just wanted to give a little bit of background.


So yeah, it looks like oral heroin would probably be plausible at low doses for those who don't have a high tolerance?
Fortunately I have discovered a source of kratom (which I've never tried before), and I'm really excited to try it, I hope it might be able to replace full opioid agonists entirely in my case.

Thanks again to everyone :)

Much love.
 
Oral heroin is absolutely plausible, in fact, the very first form of heroin available from Bayer was usually prescribed in 5mg instant release tablets for oral usage. They were prescribed for the "usual" reasons, namely chronic cough, pain relief, morphine dependence, "female problems", etc. - and unsurprisingly people realized that exceeding the prescribed dosage made you feel great, taking large doses everyday, until the eventual onset of dependence and withdrawal. Pretty much an early version of the whole Oxy epidemic thing. History repeats itself.

As far as I can tell, oral heroin is much better absorbed by the oral route because it is rather more lipophilic and less polar due to the esterification of both the 3' and 6' position alcohol groups on morphine, thereby reducing the ability of the molecule to donate hydrogen bonds.

Apparently the actual BA of heroin taken orally depends on the size of the dose and also whether or not you're a chronic user. Larger doses, and taking the drug orally for longer, both increase bioavailibility according to this study. It does however state: The maximum plasma concentration of morphine was twofold higher after oral diacetylmorphine than after morphine administration. That means that very simply, you an take oral morphine doses, and divide by 2, to get an approximate oral heroin dose. So for a naive user, anywhere between 5 and 15mg should be good.

It's also worth mentioning that so much of the "heroin" available on the market is tainted with fentanyl, which is something like 40 times more potent than heroin is. A lethal dose for an opioid naive user is about 2 milligrams, meaning that doing 100mg (aka a "point") of heroin with 2% fentanyl would be lethal. You really need to have your stuff professionally tested, or at the very least, find or buy some fentanyl test strips. I could write an essay on why I think the whole fentanyl game is a crock of shit, but I've written enough for now.
 
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