• 🇳🇿 🇲🇲 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 🇦🇺 🇦🇶 🇮🇳
    Australian & Asian
    Drug Discussion


    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • AADD Moderators: andyturbo

Australian Pill injection research

herm1t

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 7, 2010
Messages
50
Location
Sydney, Australia
Written for opiophile, but decided I'd post it here as well :)
Introduction & Context
I recently attended a pill injection workshop in Australia, among the people at this workshop, there was a man called Dr. Bruno Raimondo, him and his team are running research into opioid pills such as OxyContin, MSContin and Subutex and the effectiveness of filtering. In the morphine forum I already summarized a document he did, I managed to obtain a copy of the slides he used at the presentation, although he has not released the formal version (which I will link to when he has) of the research, the slides he has emailed me are sufficient for the information people need to know.
Too long didn't read:
Don't heat pills, 2-3ml of water soaking your finely powdered pill, with a 1ml rinse through your filter (SHOULD be using a wheel filter) will give you the best results. Wheel filters are necessity they don't retain any drug (95-99% is let through, cotton filters let through less). Expect health problems down the road if you shoot cotton filtered pills.
Harms of pill injection
Injecting pills (or anything) can result in contaminants entering your body such as insoluble particles or bacteria and fungi. These things can irritate and inflame tissue and veins, cause infections in skin/muscle (granuloma, abscess). They can also result in local and systemic infection from the bacteria/fungi.

Insoluble and undissolved particles can cause microcirculation capillaries (5-10um) to become blocked, they clog up in the heart and lungs. Granulomas in the lungs are caused by inflammation which leads to scar tissue (fibrosis). Congmomerate masses lead to restrictive lung disease and pulmonary hypertension. The particles also reach other organs (liver, kidney etc).

Key particles in pills (OxyContin, MSContin, Subutex)
iMr8h.png

Other insoluble particles included are:
Magnesium stearate (5-30um)
Titanium dioxide (100um clumps) (ms, oxy)
Other particles that change form in heat are:
Stearyl alcohol MP is 59*C (ms, oxy)
Eudragit RS 30D clumps at >30*C (oxy)

All these particles cause problems in your heart, lungs and other organs, the chemicals that change form in heart are the reasons why pills should NOT be heated, and you will soon find out there is no advantage to heating.

Why pills shouldn't be heated
hvsyT.png

As you can see, of these images under a microscope, heating pill solutions cause enourmous particles to dissolve in the mix. These particles will pass through the filter (wheel or cotton) and recongeal, precipitating out in your filtered mix or veins.

Ok so I shouldn't heat, what about Rollie cigarette filter filtering (or cotton).
nSWUr.png

For comparison: MSContin rollies reduce particles >5um by 60%.

What about the drug retained?
yojge.png

For subutex 97% of the drug is returned in this process.
Drug is not retained in the filter after this, even if the filter is wet.
.
Wheel filters (and why they rock!)
Here is the solution of two pills under a microscope before and after wheel filtering
DDFwZ.png

But how many particles are removed by the wheel filters?
XMv7e.png

But what about drug recovery
MLOuC.png

For subutex drug recovery is 99%
*Note: One of the researches reminded me to say that when they first did these tests, their technique with wheel filters was poor, and that morphine recovery is more like 95-99%

So as you can see, using wheel filters removes all the particles that cause harm (basically), with a rinse of water after first filter, you can retain 95-99% of the drug (better then a cotton/rollie filter) while removing 99% of the particles that cause harm, and heating is generally a bad idea that does NOT help at all, and does more harm then good.
Note: Hand rolled cigarette filters filter to about 50um.
 
Last edited:
Another document for the national drug safety council, which focused mainly on morphine and wheel filters, also contains a lot of information. It is located here.
 
herm1t... that is one of the most awesome posts I have ever seen.

You should think about putting that in OD as well. :)

Thanks a lot for taking the time to share this with us.
 
Another document for the national drug safety council, which focused mainly on morphine and wheel filters, also contains a lot of information. It is located here.

Link is broken mate

But otherwise a great post, cheers for sharing.
 
Top post mate, you would like to think anybody reading this would be convinced that the difference is well worth the cost of a micron filter. It is a shame they don't provide microns free of charge at exchanges like they do needles, I feel if they did then there would be a lot less complications from IV use, especially in places like the Northern Territory and Tasmania where pills are among the most commonly injected substances.
 
Top post mate, you would like to think anybody reading this would be convinced that the difference is well worth the cost of a micron filter. It is a shame they don't provide microns free of charge at exchanges like they do needles, I feel if they did then there would be a lot less complications from IV use, especially in places like the Northern Territory and Tasmania where pills are among the most commonly injected substances.

I'm not sure about other states, but I spoke to a bloke who helps out at a needle exchange here in Adelaide and he said everything they hand out is completely free, needles, filters, swabs etc.
 
Crackinit, I cant send private messages yet so:

Alright, basically a cotton filter filters to 50um, thats micrometers, wheel filters filter to 1.2 (red) and 0.22 blue), 0.22 is able to filter out most common types of bacteria, that is really fucking small. You are right about the wax, all those particles that you may have read about in my thread, that are insoluble in water, or change form in heat, or only dissolve when heated, will precipitate out in your veins, will clog your heart and lungs and your body will have trouble removing them. Most of those particles are small enough to pass through the cottons, but NONE of those particles are small enough to pass through the wheel filters, the only things that can pass through the wheel filter is viruses, fungi, drugs and water. Well, those are the things that will pass through and you should be concerned with, so it doesn't matter if you pour sand and dirt and candle wax in your mix, once it goes through the wheel filter, it will be fine to inject, bordering on hospital grade.

Note: you may notice in those graphs, that some particles that are bigger then 0.22/1.2 do still pass through, although the number is very low, it is probably just due to environmental contamination from containers or the wheel filter being slightly faulty. But it's nothing to worry about.
 
Thank you for the post herm1t! Very informative and should be required reading for anyone thinking of injecting pills without a micron filter.
 
I'm not sure about other states, but I spoke to a bloke who helps out at a needle exchange here in Adelaide and he said everything they hand out is completely free, needles, filters, swabs etc.

I am not an injecting drug user and have zero experience walking into needle exchanges for equipment, but I have always been lead to believe that micron filters generally were not free. I seem to recall reading a few places that IDU's cited the cost of microns as a primary reason for not using them, ofcourse I could be mistaken and am a bit intoxicated to look it up right now, if it interests anyone I am pretty sure I read it in a Government document about IDU's in NT, focusing mainly on MSCONTIN users.

Perhaps you are correct and they are free, and hopefully this is the case. If they are then we must ask wy more injecting drug users are not bothering to pick them up, hopefully threads like this one will change that trend.
 
That pic of the heated vs unheated particles will stay with me a long time. Thanks herm1t, awesome post.
 
I am not an injecting drug user and have zero experience walking into needle exchanges for equipment, but I have always been lead to believe that micron filters generally were not free. I seem to recall reading a few places that IDU's cited the cost of microns as a primary reason for not using them, ofcourse I could be mistaken and am a bit intoxicated to look it up right now, if it interests anyone I am pretty sure I read it in a Government document about IDU's in NT, focusing mainly on MSCONTIN users.

Perhaps you are correct and they are free, and hopefully this is the case. If they are then we must ask wy more injecting drug users are not bothering to pick them up, hopefully threads like this one will change that trend.
The only place I know that stocks them is NUAA in sydney (bluelight directed me there!), but they now cost 50c each because they are so expensive to buy and since they don't filter viruses they don't get funding for them, 50c a hit is better then collapsing your veins and having granulomas in your heart and lungs.

That pic of the heated vs unheated particles will stay with me a long time. Thanks herm1t, awesome post.
And by heating you're not even helping drug recovery..So in the end all you're doing is putting bigger particles into your veins which cause even bigger problems.

Top post mate, you would like to think anybody reading this would be convinced that the difference is well worth the cost of a micron filter. It is a shame they don't provide microns free of charge at exchanges like they do needles, I feel if they did then there would be a lot less complications from IV use, especially in places like the Northern Territory and Tasmania where pills are among the most commonly injected substances.
Yeah, that's where the researchers came from, tasmania, so they must have a fair few problems, they're trying to help convince the government to give out funding for wheel filters, or else they're going to see a lot of injecting related hospital visits in the future.
 
Yep nice work getting those pix - did someone say a picture speaks a thousand words??

I believe those researchers about their poor technique ;) Another trick to get all the good stuff through a filter is to push about 0.5 to 1ml of air through at the end.

SO process is - draw up mix through rolly filter, then draw in about 1ml air as well. Affix pre-moistened (if you use the filters dry you will also lose good stuff to filter - remember wetting those filter papers back in high school chem?) micron filter to syringe and push through slowly into another syringe. This second syringe now has the good stuff - attach a needle and away you go!
 
Yep nice work getting those pix - did someone say a picture speaks a thousand words??

I believe those researchers about their poor technique ;) Another trick to get all the good stuff through a filter is to push about 0.5 to 1ml of air through at the end.

SO process is - draw up mix through rolly filter, then draw in about 1ml air as well. Affix pre-moistened (if you use the filters dry you will also lose good stuff to filter - remember wetting those filter papers back in high school chem?) micron filter to syringe and push through slowly into another syringe. This second syringe now has the good stuff - attach a needle and away you go!

Yeah I usually use a 1.2 micron filter attached to a 0.22 micron filter, I then draw up an extra 1ml air and use that to push it through, but I now also rinse with 1ml of water, because the other day I tried not doing the 1ml wash and just using air
and then instead put the 1ml soak and wash into a separate syringe, which still gave me a rush, which means there was still morphine in there.
 
^hey nice tip - thanks for that. Sounds like you piggy back 2 micron filters together - I guess that means you don't have to prefilter through a bit of cotton wool or similar? Good trick but doubles the price! Would make the rinse process simpler though...
 
^hey nice tip - thanks for that. Sounds like you piggy back 2 micron filters together - I guess that means you don't have to prefilter through a bit of cotton wool or similar? Good trick but doubles the price! Would make the rinse process simpler though...
I'm personally not that concerned about the price, $1 a hit for wheel filters doesn't bother me, because my health is worth that. But not everyone is in the position to be spending money on wheel filters everyday for weeks (people with regular habits).
 
^ I just want to confirm your method - do you also pre-moisten the filters; ie - push about 0.5ml of water through each filter before use? Not doing that will definitely increase drug retention in filter.
 
At the three closest NSP's to my house you can get microns for free plus all the other equipment. Im pretty sure most NSP's in NSW stock them and theyre free, ive never had to pay from them anywhere and I live in semi-rural NSW.

Im really starting to wish I wasnt so stupid with pills, ive IV'd everything and id IV anything but shooting at least 1-3 OC80's and plenty of ritalin, MSContin and dirty base speed for a few years is definitely going to affect me down the road(and is affecting me now in various ways) I just dont know how. I used microns for the last maybe 1/3 of my full on opiate days but for the first few years it was just cotton because I didnt think I could get microns anywhere except Sydney so I stocked up when I could but id run out and cotton would be the only option. Then I found out I could get them a mere 2km from my house and I just wondered that if I knew about this sooner then maybe id have a few more years on my life but since then ive always used them for pills, never for heroin or meth but maybe I should.

If your shooting pills then please look after yourself and get microns, they can really be a lifesaver.
 
Last edited:
^ I just want to confirm your method - do you also pre-moisten the filters; ie - push about 0.5ml of water through each filter before use? Not doing that will definitely increase drug retention in filter.
Yes I am quite experienced with using wheel filters.
At the three closest NSP's to my house you can get microns for free plus all the other equipment. Im pretty sure most NSP's in NSW stock them and theyre free, ive never had to pay from them anywhere and I live in semi-rural NSW.

Im really starting to wish I wasnt so stupid with pills, ive IV'd everything and id IV anything but shooting at least 1-3 OC80's and plenty of ritalin, MSContin and dirty base speed for a few years is definitely going to affect me down the road(and is affecting me now in various ways) I just dont know how. I used microns for the last maybe 1/3 of my full on opiate days but for the first few years it was just cotton because I didnt think I could get microns anywhere except Sydney so I stocked up when I could but id run out and cotton would be the only option. Then I found out I could get them a mere 2km from my house and I just wondered that if I knew about this sooner then maybe id have a few more years on my life but since then ive always used them for pills, never for heroin or meth but maybe I should.

If your shooting pills then please look after yourself and get microns, they can really be a lifesaver.
Wow, the only ones I know of in sydney that stock them is NUAA, and they're 50c each, KRC, ACON and foundation clinic don't stock them to my knowledge, the injecting centre does but only reds and for use in-house only.
 
Top