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Turning Codeine into Morphine by boiling in water for long enough trough hydrolisis?

JessFR said:
You used to be able to easily buy codeine here in Australia. But then they banned that a few years back cause codeine causes liver failure...

Yes, that's right, codeine does that, and definitely not the paracetamol/acetaminophen, no sirrie. :p

Granted my tolerance is way too high for otc codeine to be worthwhile anyway.. But it's the principle of the thing.
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I live in Australia too, i had no idea that lie was part of the reasoning, i figured it was due to the "opioid crisis" and its abuse potential.

Funny how things that actually cause liver damage ie paracetamol and ibuprofen are pushed as safe "pain killers" that are even sold on supermarket shelves all while offering negligible pain relief at best.
When I got my wisdom teeth pulled a few years back it was right around the time codeine had been pulled from shelves, was told to take the placebo that is paracetamol. I convinced him to write me a script for codeine only to find out there was actually no codeine available in the 15mg per pill range, so i went back and got him to get me Panadeine forte

As far as i know Panadeine fort is still the weakest codeine product available via script and doctors prefer to spout bullshit like mindfulness and exercise for people with chronic pain (I dont have chronic pain but my ex struggled to get her usual scripts after the whole debacle)

I suffer from migraines once a month or so and I havnt even bothered to see a doctor for a script to keep a box in the house for when I desperately need it as it would be a waste of time

Sorry to take this topic so off path, albeit adding coidene to boiling water in hopes it turns into mopheine is impossible. It's a nice idea though, if only it were that easy!
 
MindlessBilly said:
I live in Australia too, i had no idea that lie was part of the reasoning, i figured it was due to the "opioid crisis" and its abuse potential.

Funny how things that actually cause liver damage ie paracetamol and ibuprofen are pushed as safe "pain killers" that are even sold on supermarket shelves all while offering negligible pain relief at best.
When I got my wisdom teeth pulled a few years back it was right around the time codeine had been pulled from shelves, was told to take the placebo that is paracetamol. I convinced him to write me a script for codeine only to find out there was actually no codeine available in the 15mg per pill range, so i went back and got him to get me Panadeine forte

As far as i know Panadeine fort is still the weakest codeine product available via script and doctors prefer to spout bullshit like mindfulness and exercise for people with chronic pain (I dont have chronic pain but my ex struggled to get her usual scripts after the whole debacle)

I suffer from migraines once a month or so and I havnt even bothered to see a doctor for a script to keep a box in the house for when I desperately need it as it would be a waste of time

Sorry to take this topic so off path, albeit adding coidene to boiling water in hopes it turns into mopheine is impossible. It's a nice idea though, if only it were that easy!
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I agree with nearly everything you said, but I gotta dispute that paracetamol is a placebo. For some types of pain I actually find paracetamol more effective than opiates.

Of course it'd be nice if we could go back to having paracetamol AND codeine.

Also wait a second... I remember the argument being that now you'd have to get a prescription if you had real pain, are you telling me that even if you do that the only product still on the market is now the strongest form of paracetamol+codeine?

Meaning anyone with legit pain who was on panadeine extra would have to move to panadeine Forte? If that's true that's so dumb.
 
This was right after the switch they may very well have the lower dose now.. i could have really used codeine when I had a migraine the other night, all i could do was take a seroquel and lay in the dark until it knocked me out...

Doctors more than happy to throw antipsychotics with horrid long term side effects around like candy but nup not evil codiene!
 
MindlessBilly said:
This was right after the switch they may very well have the lower dose now.. i could have really used codeine when I had a migraine the other night, all i could do was take a seroquel and lay in the dark until it knocked me out...

Doctors more than happy to throw antipsychotics with horrid long term side effects around like candy but nup not evil codiene!
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Doctors hate doing anything they haven't done a hundred times before, and they would sooner let you die than risk a malpractice lawsuit.

Basically they're just skilled bureaucrats.

The ones in general practice being by far the worst.
 
HBr will not work on codeine: not only does morphine rearranges to apomorphine when heated in the presence of strong acids (i.e. your product is destroyed after it is formed) but I think codeine rearranges similarly as well...
516px-Morphine_to_Apomorphine.png


Boron tribromide is OK on paper but there are a few problems with it. It's a specialty reagent, quite expensive, and rather hazardous. You need to use something like 6 equivalents of the BBr3.

Maybe you could use a thiolate, e.g. sodium ethyl sulfide. Unfortunately the reaction conditions are something like heating moephine with several equivalents of the thiolate in DMF at 100C+ for many hours.

IMHO, trying to demethylate codeine is a losing proposition. Now, if you were to hydrogenate it to dihydrocodeine, the rearrangement to apomorphine cannot occur. Then you can use HBr.
My favourite trick is using HBr in acetic acid, you form a mixture of 6-acetoxy-dihydromorphine and dihydroheroin as hydrobromide salts.
 
Pillhead111 said:
God I would kill to be able to go to the store and buy codeine...
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I'll sell you some if you want

But seriously I just ordered some for first time ages because a friend asked if I could get them my doc must think my chronic pain is magically cured :p
 
All you need to make codeine stronger is promethazine and weed and taking them with heroin including codeine which effects me more than it does other people
 
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