Heroin Anyone have any experience with pure 6-Monoacetylmorphine?

[RedHat]

Hello! I'm an on again/off again Heroin user, and I live in a part of the United States that doesn't get much heroin other than the black tar heroin. But that's not the type of heroin that most people think about or the type of heroin you see in movies or in articles. I started to get curious what that "china white" heroin was like, so I started doing some research online to see if there was a way to convert the black tar into the nice clean white powdered heroin (at this point, I was completely clueless when it comes to chemistry, but I've learned a lot over the years). What I found was pretty interesting, and I'm sure a lot of you are already aware of this, but I'll sum up what I learned in the quote section below (which you can skip to the question that's after that if you like).

Basically, there are four "types" of heroin (of which, only two are actually really even heroin), and the four types basically just represent different states of the product as it's taken from the poppy plant and processed into heroin.​

• Heroin #1 I believe is just before the opium is extracted and turned into morphine base (though I could be wrong about this, different sources say different things).
• Heroin #2 is the morphine base.
• Heroin #3 is when the morphine base is acetylated into diacetylmorphine (real heroin) using acetic anhydride.
• Heroin #4 is the nice white heroin hydrochloride.

​

Acetic anhydride is used because it's a much stronger acetylating agent (capable of acetylating the morphine at both the 3 and 6 locations) than just acetic acid (capable of acetylating only 3 OR 6 - though it seems to preferentially acetylate the 6). But when acetic anhydride itself became a restricted precursor, the process was modified to use vinegar in place of acetic anhydride. Now if they were to use pure/glacial acetic acid instead of just vinegar, then apparently the product wouldn't get so gunked up, since (from what I understand) the black stuff is mainly from sugars or whatever else is found in the 5% vinegar that's used to acetylate it.​

​

Now here's the interesting part - Both the diacetylmorphine and 6-monoacetylmorphine need to get turned into morphine to be bioactive. The acetyl groups make for a more potent drug because it helps the molecule pass through the blood brain barrier faster than without them, but having two acetyl groups doesn't make it cross any faster than having just one. However those acetyl groups need to be removed to expose the phenolic hydroxy groups (making the drug bioactive), and it takes twice as long to remove two than it does to remove one. This makes the 6-MAM found in black tar heroin a more potent opiate than the diacetylmorphine (this doesn't take into account the concentration within the black tar, but just the potency of the opiate itself).​

My question: Does anyone have any experience with pure 6-monoacetylmorphine? Or know anything about its chemical characteristics? There doesn't seem to be too much out there about it. Neither the 6-MAM Wikipedia or Pubchem pages have much about it. I would think that since it's a more potent morphine analog than even heroin that there would be some data on it, but nope, at least not that I could find. Nothing about it's solubility in different solvents, melting point, anything like that.

 

[G_Chem]

Contrary to popular belief the impurities present are not from the acetylating agent, but from the fact a crude extract or opium is used instead of pure morphine. This is also why BTH contains many other alkaloids, and more often than not acetic anhydride is still used even with BTH.

5% acetic acid/vinegar is unable to acetylate anything (even if it could distilled vinegar contains only acetic acid and water), glacial acetic acid can create 6-monoacetymorphine but again isn’t the source of the impurities.

Very few people have knowingly tried 6-MAM from what I’ve seen but there is reports of other 6-mono esters of morphine on this site.

-GC

 

[RedHat]

Contrary to popular belief the impurities present are not from the acetylating agent, but from the fact a crude extract or opium is used instead of pure morphine. This is also why BTH contains many other alkaloids, and more often than not acetic anhydride is still used even with BTH.

5% acetic acid/vinegar is unable to acetylate anything (even if it could distilled vinegar contains only acetic acid and water), glacial acetic acid can create 6-monoacetymorphine but again isn’t the source of the impurities.

Very few people have knowingly tried 6-MAM from what I’ve seen but there is reports of other 6-mono esters of morphine on this site.

-GC

Hmm, interesting... I wonder why that theory came about then. And I wonder why they wouldn't just process the crude opium using the same process up til the acetylation step.

In regards to 5% not being able to acetylate anything - I knowin "Heroin Holiday" by Vice, the reporter dude went into the poppy fields and did the same process they were doing, extracting the opium sap from the poppy plants, drying it, then just boiling it in a cup with some vinegar, and when he took some back and analyzed it they found that it had some 6-mam in it. This makes me believe that it can in fact do some acetylation, probably just not much.

I'm tempted to get some crappy black tar and try to extract the 6-mam out of it, the problem is I wouldn't which compound it is, lol. I suppose I could assume it's similar to morphine or heroin and see where that gets me. However it would also be ridiculously expensive, given how much trial and error it would take.

 

[G_Chem]

Hmm, interesting... I wonder why that theory came about then. And I wonder why they wouldn't just process the crude opium using the same process up til the acetylation step.

In regards to 5% not being able to acetylate anything - I knowin "Heroin Holiday" by Vice, the reporter dude went into the poppy fields and did the same process they were doing, extracting the opium sap from the poppy plants, drying it, then just boiling it in a cup with some vinegar, and when he took some back and analyzed it they found that it had some 6-mam in it. This makes me believe that it can in fact do some acetylation, probably just not much.

I'm tempted to get some crappy black tar and try to extract the 6-mam out of it, the problem is I wouldn't which compound it is, lol. I suppose I could assume it's similar to morphine or heroin and see where that gets me. However it would also be ridiculously expensive, given how much trial and error it would take.

I’m not sure your remembering that right... I watched that too and in the analysis all they found was morphine.

Based on the analysis I’ve seen it’s more common to find diacetylmorphine over 6-MAM. If you look there’s no straight 6-MAM analysis they all also contain diacetylmorphine too.

And they don’t process the crude extract/opium because that’s actually the hardest part of the whole process. The 1-4# system is really outdated at this point and only relates to SE Asia production.

To purify the morphine takes actually a not so easy A/B extraction and likely leaves alkaloids behind. Processing BTH as is likely is more profitable, plus many enjoy the added alkaloids which get purified out otherwise.

All that said I don’t discourage you to try purification, but note the likelihood of fentanyl being present is high and could lead to a product too potent to use safely.

Great thing is unlike morphine, heroin and 6-MAM don’t need a specialized A/B extraction. Just base with sodium carbonate, extract with non-polar. Then pull back into acidic solution. Remember hydrolysis can happen which will turn diacetylmorphine to 6-MAM, and 6-MAM to morphine. Not as fast as cocaine degradation but still something to keep in mind.

-GC

 

[4meSM]

Yeah you can't acetylate morphine using just vinegar, if it were that easy then homemade heroin would probably be much more prevalent.

6-MAM is active on its own, I think it's actually believed to be the main compound responsible for the rush. Not sure if 6-MAM would be better than heroin since it probably would take a bit more to reach the brain, the increased lipophilicity of heroin presumably helps it cross the BBB quicker.
Although heroin is also metabolized extremely quickly into 6-MAM, IIRC most of it is gone within a couple of minutes.
So in a sense I guess heroin could be viewed as a pretty efficient pro-drug for 6-MAM. It's possible that you could actually archive a higher concentration of 6-MAM within the brain by taking heroin instead of taking 6-MAM directly (because a significant portion of it could be turned into morphine even before it's able to reach the desired receptors).

Edit: a couple of refs, you should be able to find more on google

Levels of heroin and its metabolites in blood and brain extracellular fluid after i.v. heroin administration to freely moving rats - PubMed

After an i.v. heroin injection, 6-MAM was the predominant opioid present shortly after injection and during the first 30 min, not only in the blood but also in rat brain ECF. 6-MAM might therefore mediate most of the effects observed shortly after heroin intake, and this finding questions the...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Role of 6-monoacetylmorphine in the acute release of striatal dopamine induced by intravenous heroin - PubMed

After injection, heroin is rapidly metabolized to 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) and further to morphine. As morphine has been shown to increase striatal dopamine, whereas 6-MAM has not been studied in this respect, we gave i.v. injections of 3 μmol 6-MAM, morphine or heroin to rats. Opioids were...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

6-Monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM), Not Morphine, Is Responsible for the Rapid Neural Effects Induced by Intravenous Heroin - PubMed

Heroin rapidly enters the CNS but is quickly metabolized into 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) and then morphine. Although morphine is often thought to mediate heroin's neural effects, pharmacokinetic data question this view. To further understand the effects of heroin and its metabolites, oxygen...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[RedHat]

I’m not sure your remembering that right... I watched that too and in the analysis all they found was morphine.

Based on the analysis I’ve seen it’s more common to find diacetylmorphine over 6-MAM. If you look there’s no straight 6-MAM analysis they all also contain diacetylmorphine too.

And they don’t process the crude extract/opium because that’s actually the hardest part of the whole process. The 1-4# system is really outdated at this point and only relates to SE Asia production.

To purify the morphine takes actually a not so easy A/B extraction and likely leaves alkaloids behind. Processing BTH as is likely is more profitable, plus many enjoy the added alkaloids which get purified out otherwise.

All that said I don’t discourage you to try purification, but note the likelihood of fentanyl being present is high and could lead to a product too potent to use safely.

Great thing is unlike morphine, heroin and 6-MAM don’t need a specialized A/B extraction. Just base with sodium carbonate, extract with non-polar. Then pull back into acidic solution. Remember hydrolysis can happen which will turn diacetylmorphine to 6-MAM, and 6-MAM to morphine. Not as fast as cocaine degradation but still something to keep in mind.

-GC

Thanks for replying!

And... You're right, it was just morphine. Not sure why I assumed it was MAM (sorry about that, I should have re-checked, lesson learned).

And I haven't done any heroin chemistry in some time. The only real chemistry I did was ordering some #3 off of silk road and purifying it and converting it to #4 (then purifying it again). I don't think doing anything with black tar would really make much sense (other than to satisfy my curiosity).

In regards to the MAM extraction stuff in your last comment, do you have a link to some literature that I can maybe read? That sounds interesting.

 

[RedHat]

Yeah you can't acetylate morphine using just vinegar, if it were that easy then homemade heroin would probably be much more prevalent.

6-MAM is active on its own, I think it's actually believed to be the main compound responsible for the rush. Not sure if 6-MAM would be better than heroin since it probably would take a bit more to reach the brain, the increased lipophilicity of heroin presumably helps it cross the BBB quicker.
Although heroin is also metabolized extremely quickly into 6-MAM, IIRC most of it is gone within a couple of minutes.
So in a sense I guess heroin could be viewed as a pretty efficient pro-drug for 6-MAM. It's possible that you could actually archive a higher concentration of 6-MAM within the brain by taking heroin instead of taking 6-MAM directly (because a significant portion of it could be turned into morphine even before it's able to reach the desired receptors).

Edit: a couple of refs, you should be able to find more on google

Levels of heroin and its metabolites in blood and brain extracellular fluid after i.v. heroin administration to freely moving rats - PubMed

After an i.v. heroin injection, 6-MAM was the predominant opioid present shortly after injection and during the first 30 min, not only in the blood but also in rat brain ECF. 6-MAM might therefore mediate most of the effects observed shortly after heroin intake, and this finding questions the...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Role of 6-monoacetylmorphine in the acute release of striatal dopamine induced by intravenous heroin - PubMed

After injection, heroin is rapidly metabolized to 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) and further to morphine. As morphine has been shown to increase striatal dopamine, whereas 6-MAM has not been studied in this respect, we gave i.v. injections of 3 μmol 6-MAM, morphine or heroin to rats. Opioids were...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

6-Monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM), Not Morphine, Is Responsible for the Rapid Neural Effects Induced by Intravenous Heroin - PubMed

Heroin rapidly enters the CNS but is quickly metabolized into 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) and then morphine. Although morphine is often thought to mediate heroin's neural effects, pharmacokinetic data question this view. To further understand the effects of heroin and its metabolites, oxygen...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Oh wow, very useful information. Thanks for the refs! (and the reply).

 

[G_Chem]

Here’s a good ref showing a buffered heroin solution degrading to a fair amount of 6-MAM in 24hr.

Spontaneous hydrolysis of heroin in buffered solution - PubMed

Electron-capture gas-liquid chromatography was used to study the spontaneous hydrolysis of heroin in phosphate buffer (pH 6.4 and pH 7.4) at 23 degrees C. Aliquots of solution were taken over a 24-h period. After extraction at pH 8.9 into propan-2-ol (10%)-ethyl acetate, deacetylated products...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I’d be willing to bet a lot of 6-MAM present is actually an artifact of improper humid storage conditions causing hydrolysis to the heroin.

I’m wondering if one could theoretically create some by intentionally hydrolyzing the product? But as @4meSM said you may still be better off pharmacologically with the diacetylmorphine.

Idk where you live but I’d bet buying #3 then purifying it/changing it to #4 would probably be your safest best bet for clean heroin. How did that stuff turn out?

BTH can be surprisingly pure at times and worth extracting but again the fentanyl risk is too high. With Afghan #3 and SE Asian #4 your more likely to avoid it. Basically if you live in North America we’re fucked here lol.

-GC

 

[negrogesic]

There isn't much for me to add to this at this stage but nice discussion guys.

Just as a side note, isn't BTH less likely to be fentanyl adulterated? Haven't had it since fentanyl adulteratant became so ubiquitous.

 

[The_Doc]

Hey,
I been acetylating the Grey's and MS-MONOS (There the best) for years now and comes out nice and pink, fuckin beautiful. 100mgs of morphine with bout .03-.05g of bi-carb mixed up with some high alkaline water then dried out completely, has to be dry as a nuns cunt. Then add bout 10 unit's of AA, Cook in the oven for 15-25 mins depending how accurate the temperature gauge is and mix bout 2mls of water n Wak that shit up, beautiful. Depending on how well you dry it out ( most important part of the process, also not to much bi-carb or it comes out yellow or brown)

 

[izo]

Quick unrelated question: is there a qualitative difference between morphine and Heroin?