Misc Smoking embalming fluid??? Not PCP, embalming fluid.

[shruuuuuuuuzzz]

My cousin let me smoke some cigereates which he dipped in what he called "fermaldyhide" andPCP, which it said on the little jar. aftter we smoked a few cigerettes that were dipped in it, I didnt feel anything except a little head change, was expecting way more.

 

[lozgod]

My cousin let me smoke some cigereates which he dipped in what he called "fermaldyhide" andPCP, which it said on the little jar. aftter we smoked a few cigerettes that were dipped in it, I didnt feel anything except a little head change, was expecting way more.

Might of been weak PCP. Small doses of PCP should fuck up any first time user and the hi isn't questionable, you know you are hi.

 

[Mr Blonde]

Thank you for elaborating instead of just saying "smoking ibuprofen can't get you hi".

No problems; when I disagree with someone I prefer to use logic over flaming.

Anyway, as you said; back on topic. :D

I think the low boiling point for formaldehyde, even when mixed as is the case with Formalin, is going to be a problem for smoking it. It could be used as a volatile inhalant perhaps, but I doubt it.

 

[socio]

It could be used as a volatile inhalant perhaps, but I doubt it.

If it does "work" alone, this is what I would assume is going on [EDIT: ACTUALLY THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE OF SMOKING, BUT PERHAPS THE NON-VOLATILE RESIDUES ... IF THERE ARE ANY?]...
Might also be the methanol in embalming fluid (highly dangerous! but I do see med journal articles on intentional methanol intoxication). [EDIT: On second thought, this doesn't necessarily mean smoked formalin... So, like Blonde said, maybe it just has to be inhaled. Does anyone know if any non-volatile residue might be smokable?]
Here's some indirect support for formalin use--of what ROA we don't know:

Spiller HA. 2004. "Epidemiology of volatile substance abuse (VSA) cases reported to US poison centers."American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2004. 30(1):155-65.

Abstract
Volatile substance abuse (VSA) is believed to be widespread. The Toxic Exposure Surveillance System (TESS) of the American Association of Poison Control Systems offers an opportunity to evaluate the epidemiology of volatile substance abuse ...
we analyzed a data set of TESS for the 6-year period of 1996 through 2001 involving all cases of intentional inhalational abuse of nonpharmaceutical substances. ...
The top five categories of substances abused were gasoline (41%), paint (13%), propane/butane (6%), air fresheners (6%), and formalin (5%). Three categories were responsible for the majority of deaths: gasoline (45%), air fresheners (26%), and propane/butane (11%).
--http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15083559

Note: formalin, as Senor Blonde mentioned, is an aqueous solution of formaldehyde, with some methanol in it as well (according to Wikip).

This has got to be a myth. I mean, embalming fluid must be highly combustible in the same way that, I don't know, rubbing alcohol or something similar is highly combustible. The embalming fluid would evaporate almost the second that it catches the flame, no?

I think the low boiling point for formaldehyde, even when mixed as is the case with Formalin, is going to be a problem for smoking it.

This was my reaction the first time I ever heard this. Do embalming fluid and formaldehyde eventually evaporate "clean" at room temperature -- i.e., not leaving behind any residual chemicals that could intoxicate (the way, I believe, isopropyl aka rubbing alcohol would do, or does some residue of formaldehyde or additives remain)? That seemed like the clearest reason to skeptical, but my educational/professional background is far from chemistry (really wish I had taken the time to study that subject!), so it's a topic I wouldn't conjecture about.

Serious peer-reviewed science journals have reported that smoking formaldehyde dipped cigarettes causes health effects, so there must be something remaining after evaporation right? (E.g. Neurology, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, Substance Abuse, The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and others).

It seems absolutely clear that some people do think it does something, and so some try to use it as a drug. There are reports of ethnographic observations (kinda like a combination of anthropology and journalism) of dealers preparing this for sale.

What I see most frequently mentioned is formaldehyde used as the solvent for dissolving PCP, then applied to smoking material (i.e. tobacco, marijuana), and smoked when dry. Perhaps emb fluid does nothing, it's just that PCP is more soluble in formaldehyde than other solvents. I don't know enough about chemistry resources to look up the solubility profile of PCP, but it seems a plausible explanation.

Not 100% clear to me if the effects of wet sherm wickie sticks "illy" (a term used in Connecticut) are due to PCP alone. I found a couple articles (only the abstracts, actually) trying to directly address this.

* "Illy: clinical and public health implications of a street drug." Substance Abuse 2008 (4):45-51
* "When the drug of choice is a drug of confusion: embalming fluid use in inner city Hartford, CT." Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse 2005. 4(2):73-96.

Both suggest users are simply mistaken in their belief that the drug is embalming fluid, and that they are really smoking PCP. In the first, 92% of ER patients with "embalming fluid" ODs had positive tests for PCP. In the second, PCP was "frequent," according to the abstract (didn't bother tracking down the full text).

 

[Mr Blonde]

This was my reaction the first time I ever heard this. Do embalming fluid and formaldehyde eventually evaporate "clean" at room temperature -- i.e., not leaving behind any residual chemicals that could intoxicate (the way, I believe, isopropyl aka rubbing alcohol would do, or does some residue of formaldehyde or additives remain)? That seemed like the clearest reason to skeptical, but my educational/professional background is far from chemistry (really wish I had taken the time to study that subject!), so it's a topic I wouldn't conjecture about.

Good post, brother. Assuming that the fluid being used is formalin (and assuming it's 37% formaldehyde, 10-20% methanol and 53-43% water), I imagine it would evaporate clean with no residue. I know both methanol and water evaporate cleanly, I imagine that once the formaldehyde concentration increases as evaporation continues it's boiling point is going to become much lower and it too will leave no residue.

Regarding if it is perhaps being used as an inhalant or on cigarettes; both it and methanol are toxic chemicals. Methanol can cause necrosis and hemorrhaging in the brain, formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen, irritant and a toxin. It's toxic symptoms can include tiredness and fatigue, inflammation and oxidative stress. Maybe people who have actually tried using formaldehyde are experiencing some toxic side effects?

 

[HYDRO_CHRONIC]

man wheres phreex when u need him,if you cant look up your own answers then thats your problem ,yea i HAVE been here a long time and you think this crap hasnt been asked before ....after seeing silly stuff being asked over and over just makes u wonder how this silly shit gets spread around and get on ya fuckin nerves

everybody was ignorant at one point,you asked....adding flame DIRECTLY to pharm grade drugs mastly ends in degrading of the drug ,

since when is hydrocodone smokeable by adding a flame direcly to it?

ok father?

 

[socio]

Embalming fluid...new high or new guise for PCP?

Maybe this is beating a dead horse (an embalmed one), but for my own reasons, I've wanted to learn whether embalming fluid really is something people use on its own. There is very little concrete information, both because "embalming fluid" is slang for PCP and also because the two are often mixed together. Still, there are enough scraps of evidence to draw some conclusions.

Re: Blonde's comments above: Doubtless this is dangerous beyond any sane conception of reasonable risk. People do also get kicks playing Russian roulette. If embalming fluid/formaldehyde/formalin are at all like methanol (methyl alcohol), then maybe they can take a sort of gelatinous form (?). (Think of the canned pink methanol cooking fuel -- are additives needed to congeal?) It might then work as an inhalant when heated by a lit cigarette (i.e. melting and vaporizing just ahead of the cherry). Also consider that even after the cigarettes dry, the chemical smell reportedly remains. People aren't smoking sopping wet joints; some residue seems to stick around.

I've found one especially informative review article on the subject (not in a first-rate scientific journal, but still, a serious, peer-reviewed journal, one you'll find at university libraries): Holland et al. 1998. "Embalming fluid-soaked marijuana: new high or new guise for PCP?" Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30(2):215-9.
As the title suggests, it's all about the questions we're debating here in this thread. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9692385

I think I listed a reference to it in another post, but I found the full text on the author's website (she's an MD with a serious, Ivy League background and a career in high prestige hospitals, so not some total quack--not that elite status should be taken too seriously):
http://www.inch.com/~jholland/julie/illie.htm

The article is about the most informative I can find, in terms of summarizing a wide range of evidence. Based on the evidence, a few conclusions seem justified:

1. Many or most people who claim to smoke "embalming fluid" (or "fry," "wet," "sherm," "illie," and so on) are actually smoking something that contains PCP;
2. Many people who end up in hospitals or jails after smoking "embalming fluid," etc. test NEGATIVE for PCP, suggesting they really were high on formaldehyde (e.g. some of the case studies mentioned show a majority tested positive for PCP; others found very few individuals tested positive, depending on the local drug market, it would seem);
3. Many medical, law enforcement, mortuary/funerial, and drug treatment professionals believe formaldehyde, formalin, and/or embalming fluid itself is an intoxicant (without PCP) and consider this a professional concern (e.g., theft of embalming fluid from funeral homes is a perennial problem);
4. No one on Earth has any idea how many of the so-called "embalming fluid" joints/cigarettes actually contain PCP, nor is there any reliable data whatsoever on how widespread their use is.

 

[Mr Blonde]

^ Regarding the congealed methanol, yes extra additives are needed.

Thanks for the article, I don't really have time to read it or think too seriously about this but I will make a better post later.

 

[Mr Blonde]

Also consider that even after the cigarettes dry, the chemical smell reportedly remains. People aren't smoking sopping wet joints; some residue seems to stick around.

That would be because substance soaked into the tobacco is protected from full evaporation. It will take longer to completely evaporate then if you just poured some of it into a puddle on the floor.

I might dip a cigarette into methylated spirits and see what happens when I light it (not smoke it though!). It contains around the same percentage of methanol as some Formalin preparations, though ethanol has a lower boiling point then formaldehyde does in Formalin.

 

[Pillmatic502]

My brother from another mother told me back in the day his mom used to knock Embalming Fluid (not pcp) he knows the deal with pcp but str8 up embalming fluid dipped joints in the late 70's early 80's, Str8 from a morgue, people do smoke that shit but from what I've been told it's really similar to pcp or they way people act on it at least, But if they was smoking it alot most likely its wet, sherm, basically pcp not embalming fluid because that shit really is supposed to last a grip

 

[oxymoron87]

ok if u cant get high off motrin anyway, like eating it wont get u high why would putting a flame to it all of a sudden make it get you high u are fucking retarded bro let it go yer making yourself look like a dumbass

and i thought only 10 year olds thought motrin got u high

 

[BaybeX]

Weed is legal in some countries and for medicinal purposes.

Weed won't get you high if you eat it but if you add heat and inhale what happens?

Say what???

 

[tastethealex]

One day some friends and myself decide to smoke a "sherm stick" we wanted to smoke PCP in hopes that we could figure out why people do it to begin with. From the beginning people were skeptical s to weather it was real PCP or if it was embalming fluid. What threw us off is we were told"do not light this while you inhale, it is combustible and can quickly burst into flames. light it with a lighter first then smoke it once lit.

Now I have serious doubts to the fact that embalming fluid can be smoked. So I like to believe it was actual PCP that I smoked. I was pretty obviously high and the effects were similar(although not the same) to those of ketamine.

The reason I brought this up even though I don't believe embalming fluid is smokable is the fact that we were told not to light it on fire while in our mouth due to risk of combustion? now this did not sound normal fro PCP. And it brought question about the evaporation point. Now Gasoline is extremely flammable, as we all know, and yet if you were to throw a cigarette in a bucket of gasoline the fluids would not catch fire because the cigarette does not in fact burn hot enough to ignite the gasoline. the cigarette was constantly going out on us and was needing to be re lit. The flame did catch extremely easy although the cherry on the cigarette would not. as if it was not maintaining a high enough temperature to keep the tobacco burning. So, is it then possible that the contents it has been dipped in are causing the low heat of a cigarette to burn even lower thus possibly having it at a temperature in which the frameldahyde can be vaporized and not destroyed?

 

[tastethealex]

Say what???

this is true. I'm a huge pot head and I eat edibles all the time. however eating pot alone will not get you high, it must first be cooked in order to reach a temperature high enough to activate the THC.

Now I'm not stating that smoking motrin can get you high. but that simply eating pot will not get you high. although I'm sure if you eat a high enough amount it may, but that would be a waste.

 

[StonedNative]

I bet his cousin has been smoking liquid PCP.
Formaldehyde doesnt have any psychoactive properties.

 

[fakenamedotcom]

eww

 

[Pseudovoyager]

this is true. I'm a huge pot head and I eat edibles all the time. however eating pot alone will not get you high, it must first be cooked in order to reach a temperature high enough to activate the THC.

The level of bull in this thread is unreal. While I am not going to call shit on the motrin smoking or embalming fluid stuff because there's no definitive research to say yes or no, this guotes obviously *not* backed up by anything factual.

http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_faq_consumption.shtml#eat

Read the bottom section on eating.

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2794.html

 

[robatussin]

i can not believe the amount of misnformation either. The motrin thing....whatever. You guys can have that one. But in response to the posted source claiming people wigging out in hospitals test negative for PCP, there are plenty of anologues of pcp that hit the really vague "wet market" and might not show up in the standard tests.

As for the funeral homes being broken into and robbed of the embalming fluid, I believe this is a result of misinformation from dealer to user, then user (or dealer) wants to bypass the taxes of the drug trade and go straight to the top. I even know people who claim they smoked pcp, and embalming fluid separately and got totally different effects, although they were vague and their story broke down upon further questioning, they still firmly believed what they said and I was not about to change their minds.

 

[Mr Blonde]

^ Yeah I've almost given up, but through reason I'm trying to show how unlikely it is that formaldehyde is a recreational substance.

Motrin I think we've won on, even if it was Vicoprophen I doubt it would be very active when smoked.

Pseudovoyager, you raise a good point about PCP analogues perhaps being used. I wonder how different they would have to be to avoid detection? After all, DXM tests positive for PCP sometimes.

 

[socio]

^ Yeah I've almost given up, but through reason I'm trying to show how unlikely it is that formaldehyde is a recreational substance.
Motrin I think we've won on....

To me, trying to "win" seems like a strange approach. Aren't we trying to figure out what's really going on, finding the most relevant information and drawing conclusions, rather than picking an answer ahead of time and trying to defend it? I guess "winning" for me would be learning as much as I could about the issue.

I chimed in -- I was already considering starting a thread on this topic anyway -- because I knew of this controversy: Is "embalming fluid" itself an intoxicant when cigarettes (or joints, etc.) are dipped in it and smoked? Is it simply a slang term for PCP? Did the slang term lead misinformed dealers/users to begin selling/smoking the substance, despite its lack of pychoactive effects? I don't particularly care what the answer is, as I've said, but I'd like to learn more if there is relevant information I'm unaware of. Sometimes, though, the information simply hasn't been produced.

I see people saying it's absurd to think embalming fluid &/or formaldehyde could get someone high. But I don't see why it's aburd to consider the possibility. (Just like in the lopermaide threads: Lots of people claim loperamide can't possibly do anything more than stop diarrhea, right in the face of numerous self-reports that it can actually stop withdrawaI; admittedly this is different because it's a street drug so you can't read the ingredients on the box).

Here's an interesting piece of relevant trivia: An article in the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse (Singer et al, 2005, "When the Drug of Choice Is a Drug of Confusion"), quotes the website Erowid.org at length on the possible self-fulfilling prophecy of "embalming fluid."

The slang term for PCP may have been around for decades, and some users and dealers came to believe that formaldehyde alone or in combination with PCP had psychoactive properties. Thus, a demand for actual embalming fluid was fostered, and some dealers, whether or not they believed it worked as a drug, may have begun selling it.

"Perception is reality," as somone said a few posts above. I do agree that there is no especially strong evidence that embalming fluid alone does get you high. After all, it's hard to imagine researchers conducting experiments on humans in which they would smoke formaldehyde cigarettes or placebo. It could conceivably be done with animals, but I find no such research.

There are a few case reports in medical journals describing patients suffering various forms of misery after smoking marijuana laced with formaldehyde, but the authors fail to report how they concluded formaldehyde poisoning was responsible (e.g. Hawkins et al. 1994, "Abuse of formaldehyde-laced marijuana..." Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences).

One researcher, whom I mentioned in a previous post, analyzed a small number of street samples; she concluded PCP was present in addition to formaldehyde (Holland, 1998, "Embalming fluid-soaked marijuana: new high or new guise for PCP?" Journal of Psychoactive Drugs). As she reports in the same article, since there is no centralized agency for gathering data, additional information could only be collected from scattered local health officials, professional toxicologists, and emergency room physicians. Their findings were variable: Some could find no other intoxicants than embalming fluid ("acute anoxic encephalopathy due to formaldehyde affecting lung parenchyma," whatever that means, or "formaldehyde intoxication proper") -- but as mentioned above, they could not have checked for all PCP analogs; others found that most patients did test positive for PCP.

According to a team of researchers in Hartford, CT (Singer et al. 2005, "Dust in the wind..." Substance Use & Misuse), users believed that the drug sometimes contained PCP in addition to formaldehyde. The following is an interview excerpt with a user, regarding the smell:

Q: Everybody talks about the chemical smell.
A: Yeah, it is horrible . . . I don’t know, it smells like something
they put in dead people . . . You can smell it on you if you smoke it.

Another participant told us:

[Wet] comes in a little glass bottle. My friend used it to dip [blunt
cigars]. It stinks when you smoke it.

They claimed embalming fluid was regularly stolen from local mortuaries or ordered off the internet. In the area of this research, youth claimed "embalming fluid" was one of the most readily available intoxicants. However, the researchers made no attempt to validate the ingredients in the drug since, they claimed, GC/MS, the standard laboratory test, cannot detect formaldehyde.

One of that article's main claims is that hardly anyone knows what's in the drug (the users themselves, many of the dealers, police and other criminal justice agents, hospital staff and other treatment providers). The same is true on a larger scale: No one, it seems, really knows.

Why would anyone use it, then? For the sheer enjoyment of experiences like this, of course(!), haha:

Q: So what kind of things did you see?
A: Like, the grim reaper and I seen like different color cats just
running past . . . it makes your pupils dilate real big and you just
see a whole bunch of things and you can’t really walk.
See here: http://pdfserve.informaworld.com.proxy2.library.uiuc.edu/283615_783359347_902986281.pdf

Almost all of the relevant evidence I can find of is of these types:

- Self-reports of users, taken by researchers, law enforcement, or medical professionals. Such reports are of low quality as evidence re: the chemicals consumed.

- Blood and urine tests of self-reported or suspected users, taken by medical staff in the course of treatment or at the behest of law enforcement. As far as I know, samples are not tested for embalming fluid. Some of those who report smoking embalming fluid also test positive for PCP, some do not. But as dcramer... and robatussin said, they may have smoked analogs or ketamine or some such.

- Chemical analysis of samples of street drugs collected by law enforcement. These analyses show that the cigarettes have, indeed, often been dipped in embalming fluid. So people are smoking it, if only because dealers believe it is a product in demand, and/or users take the term "embalming fluid" literally.

This doesn't mean that formaldehyde gets people high. It simply means that (a) people do smoke formaldehyde, alone or in combination with PCP, whether or not it gets them high; (b) serious, educated professionals consider it possible that formaldehyde is an intoxicant; and (c) no one really knows whether it is true or false.

The moral of the story? As Singer and company point out, neither users, dealers, nor researchers are sure whether the drug is "real":

There remains considerable uncertainty, both among users and among researchers,
about the nature of substances sold as embalming fluid mixtures. Additionally, it is unclear whether smoking embalming fluid actually produces pharmacological effects and health consequences, or whether user reported effects are a consequence of PCP or some other substance in the embalming fluid mixture.