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Codeine Extraction

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I have a question.
Neurofen Plus used to be 'splittable' That is because all the ibuprofen was on one side and the codeine on the other. Apart from the pill machine they use, this was due to the fact that when mixed, the ingredients last a shorter amount of time (they react).
The new Neurofen Plus is non-splittable. This is due to the ingredients being mixed together (to prevent people from 'splitting'). This is also evident by the comparative expiry periods of the old and new Nurofen Plus. The new one expires sooner, because the ingredients are already mixed.

The question is to do with the extraction process. I believe that they have added something else to the pill. It is a chemical that binds to the others when mixed in water, making it into a 'slush', which is much harder to filter (longer) than just the 3 powders in water by themselves.

Has anyone overcome the effects of this 'slush'-making additive?

Thanks in advance.

Ghost
 
Find a cheaper brand or go for chemists own. and do extra filters to get rid of the panadol.
 
Splatt said:
Find a cheaper brand or go for chemists own. and do extra filters to get rid of the panadol.

You mean Chemists Own brand might have less or none of this mystery sludge substance?
More filters, I understand. But each filter fill takes up to an hour. More if you don't stir it with a spoon.

Someone up a bit said use a centrifuge lol. That would be the best way and the easiest. I wonder how much one of those things costs...
 
Yeah it takes lkonger but panadol is worse for you than ibuprofen. Chemist owns cost cheaper as well and they dissolve fast with a few stirs
 
I see. I think I would rather save my kidneys some harm rather than spend $X more and wait 30 minutes less.

But the centrifuge is sort of keeping me curious. Australia ones cost around $xxx new at least. And it is not drug paraphernalia, if I believe correctly.

I can make one myself if I'm desperate.

[EDIT: No Prices. Lil Angel15]
 
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I find the Nurofen Plus sludge ingrediant didnt really do anything until I started taking doses over 350mg, and then it really started clogging things up and ruining it.

Paracetamol always seems to work much better, the codeine concentrate is crystal clear and it doesnt clog up the filter.
 
Splatt said:
Yeah it takes lkonger but panadol is worse for you than ibuprofen. Chemist owns cost cheaper as well and they dissolve fast with a few stirs
this guys right
usually the chemist owns, or whatever other generic shit your chemist has is the better option
its cheaper as well and you sometimes get more.
 
No one ever listens to me. Someone should at least try the syphon method. It's not a true syphon but rather relys on capillary action but imo is the best filtration technique to date (of otc methods anyway).

Cold Water Extraction-Syphon Method

I included a photo of a recreation of what the method looks like useing something other then pills.



I please push my point again in someone else trying this method in the name of HR ( Although I was a little worried my method would increase the number of people useing Codeine I figure they are going to do it anyway).


Dissolve pills in a glass of water, I use a decent amount.
Grab some napkins. The more napkins you use the faster the filtration but you will lose more Codeine in the filter. A single napkin can take more then an hour but I tend to use 3-5.
Lay them all out flat on a table with a corner pointing towards you. Start rolling them up togther towards the oppistie corner as to make a long rope like filter.
Put your pill glass up high, like on a microwave or a toaster and put you collector glass down lower.
With your rope like filter, hold this under a tap untill its soaked in water.
While still dripping wet put one end of the filter in the pill glass so it touches almost the the bottem and hang the other side over the edge so it hangs over the glass. It's important that the lowest part of the filter is lower then the lowest part in the pill glass.

Right away a stead dripping will ensure. As the crystal clear product drips down (my theory) is that pockets open up higher up in the filter, cappillary action then pulls more water up from the glass and the cycle continues.
Although I don't believe its important you can chill the water as it passes through the filter with a fan, the large surface area allows rapid cooling which further lowers the solubility of Ibuprofen or Paracetamole.

Unlike the typical gravity filters like coffee filters, the product has to travel through the entire length and not just one layer, dramaticly improving the catch rate of unwanted crap. Everytime the final product is crystal clear with one exception. Nurofen Plus seems to have some sort of white colouring which IMO is there to hinder extractions. Although the final product with the CWE-SM is very clear, it still contains the slighest hue of white. I believe this is an additive anyway, maybe it is indeed traces of Ibuprofen. No one can say for sure.

As I say I hesitated to post this method as I don't want to feel guilty for people abuseing Codeine but decided that this was a useful piece of data in the name of HR. Mod's how ever feel free to destroy this post if this is in some way a breach of the BLUR or in some one unethical.

Id like someone to try this and leave this method open to any critisim people can throw at it.

"pac man does effect us as kids"
 
^ Very interesting - nice post. What do you do with the napkin when it has finished draining water from the top glass, surely it would still be full of water (and hence codeine). And does the gunk stay in the top glass or is it also in the napkin. Just wondering what would be in the napkin if you decided to wring it out at the end.

What kind of yield do you think you get?
 
static_mind said:
No one ever listens to me. Someone should at least try the syphon method. It's not a true syphon but rather relys on capillary action but imo is the best filtration technique to date (of otc methods anyway).

Cold Water Extraction-Syphon Method

I included a photo of a recreation of what the method looks like useing something other then pills.



I please push my point again in someone else trying this method in the name of HR ( Although I was a little worried my method would increase the number of people useing Codeine I figure they are going to do it anyway).


Dissolve pills in a glass of water, I use a decent amount.
Grab some napkins. The more napkins you use the faster the filtration but you will lose more Codeine in the filter. A single napkin can take more then an hour but I tend to use 3-5.
Lay them all out flat on a table with a corner pointing towards you. Start rolling them up togther towards the oppistie corner as to make a long rope like filter.
Put your pill glass up high, like on a microwave or a toaster and put you collector glass down lower.
With your rope like filter, hold this under a tap untill its soaked in water.
While still dripping wet put one end of the filter in the pill glass so it touches almost the the bottem and hang the other side over the edge so it hangs over the glass. It's important that the lowest part of the filter is lower then the lowest part in the pill glass.

Right away a stead dripping will ensure. As the crystal clear product drips down (my theory) is that pockets open up higher up in the filter, cappillary action then pulls more water up from the glass and the cycle continues.
Although I don't believe its important you can chill the water as it passes through the filter with a fan, the large surface area allows rapid cooling which further lowers the solubility of Ibuprofen or Paracetamole.

Unlike the typical gravity filters like coffee filters, the product has to travel through the entire length and not just one layer, dramaticly improving the catch rate of unwanted crap. Everytime the final product is crystal clear with one exception. Nurofen Plus seems to have some sort of white colouring which IMO is there to hinder extractions. Although the final product with the CWE-SM is very clear, it still contains the slighest hue of white. I believe this is an additive anyway, maybe it is indeed traces of Ibuprofen. No one can say for sure.

As I say I hesitated to post this method as I don't want to feel guilty for people abuseing Codeine but decided that this was a useful piece of data in the name of HR. Mod's how ever feel free to destroy this post if this is in some way a breach of the BLUR or in some one unethical.

Id like someone to try this and leave this method open to any critisim people can throw at it.

"pac man does effect us as kids"



I think your method is good, except for one reason. The solution may be cooled before the process, but during the filtration process (due to the fact that it is a very long period of time) it will warm back up to room temperature before its completed.... hance raising the solubility of the paracetamol/ibuprofen/unwanted ingredient.

U mention having a fan blowing on it, but this does not "cool" the napkin and contained liquid. the effect one feels from a fan is not cooling, it is the illusion of cooling, the same way a car window wound down on a hot day feels cool, the air outside is still hot.

If u put the whole thing into a fridge and did it, that would be a different story.

Other than that though, i think its a pretty good way of filtering out the unwanted gunk. Have u then chilled and put the yield through another coffee filter or something? Id be interested to know if anything else got filtered out (doubt it though)
 
Syphon method looks and sounds wasteful and cumbersome in my opinion. Standard filtration is much better.

Personally I think that there is a lot of paranoia regarding the amount of paracetamol left over after a cold water extraction. I understand the importance of a healthy liver, but if you cannot see any obvious solids in your final solution it is gonna be safe to drink.

If there is too much paracetamol in your final solution it will appear as precipitates, ie tiny little particles that float around like dust in a sunbeam. Paracetamol will not make it appear cloudy, it's the binders that cause cloudiness (hence N+ solutions looking milky - shitloads of binders). Hell, milk looks cloudy as hell but there are certainly no solids in milk, are there? Bottom line is, cloudiness is OK, tiny floating particles are not.

But don't take my word for it. Try an experiment. Grab a 500mg capsule of paracetamol (ie the powdered para in a gelcap. Yes, you can still find them). Dump the contents (pure paracetamol) into a hundred mls of cold water. Stir it, shake it, heat it, add a little more water, do whatever you want but I can guarantee you there's no way you're gonna get all of the paracetamol to dissolve. You'll be left with big flakey clumps of paracetamol floating around in an otherwise clear solution. Conclusion: there's no way even 500mg of para will dissolve in 100ml of water, and any para precipitates will be very, very obvious.

If you're still not convinced, dump 40 tablets worth of pure paracetamol into the solution, filter it and evaporate it. You'll be left with a couple hundred mgs of paracetamol. That's it.

Case closed.
 
static_mind, I appreciate the amount of thought you've put into making a different extraction method. It uses some solid logic and appears to be working effectively in the picture. I don't want to sound cynical but I did notice a couple of issues. The first thing that stood out was the amount of water used in that picture. You didn't mention how many pills you were extracting, and although it appears to me like there are probably many doses in there, I wanted to be sure it wasn't a single, because that much water (~300ml) for a single dose is way too much, and will result in far more paracetemol (around 4.5g or 9 pills by my estimates) than should be consumed in one go.

From my experience with the extractions, the more filter paper or paper towels used, the less codeine results in the end solution. For example the only difference I noticed between using 2 coffee filters and 6 is that the end product was of less strength. I tested out paper towels on a few occasions, and although they (for some but not all pills) seemed to produce a slightly clearer liquid, the strength was never as strong as with coffee filters. The only way I could get it to an almost comparable strength was by using a very small amount of paper towel (1/10th a sheet) folded up and wedged in the bottom of the funnel. There was a major flaw with this however, in that unless the paper was wedged in perfectly, sometimes small particles could still manage to get around it. Ultimately I thought that coffee filters worked better (and compared to my "wedging" method, more safely) since they were designed to filter something, whereas a paper towel is designed to absorb.

From extractions using large amounts of paper towel, I found that if I "wrung" the towels out into a separate container and filtered it through 2 coffee filters, I'd get something almost as strong as the initial extraction, which also suggested to me there was quite abit of loss. However I should mention that I always also used to either wring out the coffee filters and re-filter the results, or let it filter thoroughly and then put some additional water through the filter paper, which would usually result in a brew of between 10-40% the strength of the original extraction, depending on the brand.

In terms of how clear it appeared, the only determining factor (assuming you are only using coffee filters) I could note was the brand of the codeine. Some brands produced crystal clear results with 2 filter papers, while others would always have a slight cloudy appearance, regardless of how much filtering was done (with coffee filters or paper towels at any rate). I've had brands that contained dyes, but still produced what appeared to be a clear liquid (apart from obviously having a color in it) I'm not sure what causes the cloudiness, but it should be noted that the most enjoyable (and strongest) feeling doses of codeine I consumed were from tablets that filtered clear.

Initially you posted saying that you tried an extraction with normal methods but the liquid crept up the filter and dripped over the top of the funnel (or similar) device. I've also seen this happen, generally when preparing a larger amount for extraction, but there is a fairly simple solution. The only reason why the liquid is able to get above the funnel is because the filter paper is larger than the funnel it is sitting in. The solution is to either get a larger funnel or to trim the filter paper down so that even if it does reach the top, it won't be able to drip over.

Tortoise said:
Conclusion: there's no way even 500mg of para will dissolve in 100ml of water, and any para precipitates will be very, very obvious.

The solubility of paracetemol in water is undeniably low enough when compared to codeine to make it almost a trivial factor, but from the information I've read, between 0.7 and 1.5 grams of paracetemol should dissolve into 100ml's of water (depending on temperature). It could be possible that the paracetemol caps you used also contained some filler - I was under the impression that paracetemol took on a crystalline form (as opposed to powdery) when it was pure. That said, having never tried the said procedure you could be entirely right about it not working.

Many have pointed out the chemists own pain tablets as being the best for extraction. There are many positives about using them - they are in a bottle of 100 (so you don't need to spend ages breaking blister packs), they are 10mg and not 8, and they filter rather quickly. However, out of the many chemists I visisted in SA (atleast 30), only one stocked the chemists own pain tablets. Instead it was far more common for them to have the chemists own pain tabsules, which others in this thread have criticised for their slow filtering speed.

I'm actually a fan of them, because in my experience they always produce a very strong dose, probably stronger than the pain tablets. The only problem is that it takes a very long time to filter, so its best to do it overnight or at a time when you won't be checking it every 5 minutes to see if its done yet ;)

Codapane is fairly common here, and IMO is probably the best brand (only just, with chemists own pain tablets being second) in terms of how quickly it extracts and the strength of the effects. The only negative to it is that it is 8mg and only comes in a max of 48 tablets.

There are a large variety of generic brands which are associated to a certain chemist, and generally I found these types of brand names to produce fairly effective results. There are atleast a few of these that are as good as the chemists own brand. Some others aren't quite as effective - such as chemmart, but will still do the job (and with the chemmart brand in particular, a wash of the filter paper would be wise since I've found it seems to clog up a reasonable amount of codeine).

If you can't (or don't want to) obtain generic brands, the regular "panadeine" will always do the trick, though maybe not quite as well as chemists own or codapane.

For reasons I've explained in another thread, Codalgin 100's never extracted very well for me and so I generally avoided the brand altogether (tho I've had success with the 20 and 50 boxes).
 
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^ Great post peaked!

Does anyone else find they get a big stomach ache after using Chemist's Own tablets? I'm not sure if the problem is specific to this brand, as its all I've used for years, but I find that even after low doses of codeine I get a really tight stomach. It also makes a rumbling sound like it's hungry really often, like every 10-15 seconds. This feels like its going on lower down in my intestines. I know a side effect of codeine is constipation - is this just the sound of this happening, or something more serious?
 
That's interesting. I occasionally get a little unsettled in the guts, sometimes with rumbling and sometimes a little gassy. I've never paid much attention to which brands cause it most though.

Peaked, as usual your posts are very informative. I think you could write a thesis on the subject! Interestingly, I've never noticed that much of a difference in final potency between brands. Obviously, some are very slow to dissolve and filter but in the end I always end up with a solution with very similar potency. I think this boils down to he fact that I tend to squeeze as much liquid out of the paracetamol clump wrapped in 2 filters as possible. I squeeze till it's hard as clay and I can't squeeze any more. I find that by doing this, I end up with a final yield of solution that is about 85 - 90% the volume of the initial solution and it works any time.

Some people are obviously a little concerned about squeezing because of the risk of more para entering the final solution, but I'm confident that if done properly this is most certainly not the case. To put my mind at ease I recently boiled down and evaporated my end solution after a typical CWE and found that there was under a gram of solid left over. This is obviously a safe level of paracetamol.
 
Doooofus said:
...I find that even after low doses of codeine I get a really tight stomach. It also makes a rumbling sound like it's hungry really often, like every 10-15 seconds.

Although I have no idea what causes this, I was experiencing exactly the same at the height of my codeine use. It seemed to happen most when I was laying down, and sometimes the "rumbling" would persistently happen every 10 or so seconds for at least a couple of minutes. Needless to say, I was quite concerned about it, and it is one of the reasons that lead me to cease my consumption. The rumbling lasted for awhile after I stopped, but they are essentially gone now. On the one time I have had codeine since stopping, the rumbling came back again straight away. I do hope this was just a digestive issue and not something more serious.
 
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