Great conversation! I read this whole post because I have a choice btw the two and am having trouble deciding which to go with. It seems to me that the consensus is: hydro is a a better high, but doesn't last long enough. Staying power is important, so I'll prolly go with opana. NTM, I'm a perc lover, and am guessing the effects of oxymorph are more energetic than with hydromorph. An aside, I don't shoot, its all intranasal here.
These arguements about basic organics (heroin, morph) vs. synthetic derivatives (oxy, hydro) are laughable. First, you have to define "euphoric." Not easy. I find the pins and needs and a good nod very euphoric; apparently others don't. I find a sense of well-being and "everything is great in the world" very euphoric, others seem to look at it as just an afterglow. Those above-mentioned studies are ridiculous, just plain bad science, because sensations are so subjective (sorry to restate others words). Everyone's biochemistry is different. The brain is likely the most fine-tuned a machine there will ever be. And they are each uniquely constructed. Plus, they weren't double blind placebo from what I could tell, so it junk science to begin with. First, they'd need to take a page from food sensory science and design a scale that takes into account these subjective differences, for example the LMS scale. All these scales are still flawed to a large degree however.
Sorry, but the idea that some people on here seem to have that reading a lot of studies and looking at pictures online makes them knowledgeable pharmacologists is dangerous and misguided. I commend the effort to learn, but don't get pompous about it. The more surface knowledge you glean online, the more likely your are to miss crucial facts and connections that only a trained scientist can glean. A little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing, especially if the person in question thinks they know more than they actually do.
I'm a biologist. I've completed a post-graduate education, and I am still very careful with my statements because even at my level, there is a lot I don't know and it is easy to step on your dick when your talking to real experts.
On a tangent, those who say morphine is better were likely addicted to heroin at some point, and therefore find the more familiar felling a comfortable reinforcement of longstanding neural reward systems. As a last thought, the idea that because some of these drug go through phase I conjugation and become morphine-like means they are going to provide the same euphoric effect as heroin overlooks the, "complex machine" theory. Its like saying that because 87 and 91 octane in a combustion engine net the same result; methane and CO2, and pressure, that their effects are identical. We know thats not true, because its all about the speed of delivery, which alters the net effect (a larger explosion).
