Harm Reduction Cold Water Extraction (CWE) Mega Thread & FAQ v2.0

[Flowerpotman]

Bit lost as to why you're using ibuprofen/codeine combos anyway when paracetamol/codeine combo is half the price and doesn't hsve any of the ph based problems...a CWE of normal co-codamol tablets is incredibly simple to do and costs pennies...I don't see why you would want to use ibuprofen.

Also dihydeicodeine/paracetamol is worth trying as it doesn't have the same enzyme related issues....it is much more expensive though..

Money isn?t an issue and with my wonky liver I?m just concerned about even the smallest amount of paracetamol. I?ve been reading studies on CWE that showed even under good conditions you only retrieve 60% of the codeine and 5% of the paracetamol - which adds up if you?re doing big CWEs.

DHC was okay with me. I got prescribed that a year ago but didn?t find it as euphoric as codeine. These days who knows maybe it will! Really considering getting some OTC and just seeing what happens.

 

[Scrofula]

Does psudophedrine inhibit it? I can?t find anything bad so it probably doesn?t. I just wanna be sure. Sudafed really puts me in a good place. Makes me feel calm and I can read much more easily.

Btw I take my CWE with some lime cordial juice. It?s ?2 from Sainsbury?s or Tesco?s. Rose is the brand name. It?s very very tarty so nearly 100% covers up the CWE taste.

Sudafed puts you in a good place? Calm, and ready to catch up on the Sunday acrostics?

You know, you might just be weird. No offense, the world needs eccentrics. I abuse methamphetamine and think pseudoephedrine feels dirty like too much of the worst gas station coffee, but I don't have as sophisticated a palate.

Two OTs: One, Sudafed, as pseudoephedrine, has been secretly swapped out of all the OTC meds in the US, and replaced with phenylephrine. To get the good sudo you have to see the pharmacist. Meanwhile, phenylephrine, still branded as SudaFed, is an upper, and feels worse than pseudoephedrine. It's worse for your cardiovascular system and it doesn't help with sinus congestion. It's not just worthless, it's harmful.

Two: as for CYP2D6, I got lazy and couldn't find the answer, but did find something I forgot: an intermediate in meth synthesis from pseudoephedrine is chloro-ephedrine, and it can be found as like a 1% contaminant in meth. Chloro-ephedrine is actually an irreversible inhibitor of CYP2D6. A sort of super-grapefruit juice. And you'd never feel codeine again. Or at least not till the enzyme turns over, in like a week or two maybe.

 

[Forever Changes]

Up until a couple days ago, I woulda said, why don't you just eat the Codeine with Ibuprofen? Ibuprofen being so much less toxic in overdose than APAP.

Then I read ibuprofen makes men sterile have to compensate for their hypogonads. So I still don't see why you can't eat them. It would take a long time for my gonads to shrink to normal, but I don't want that after all.



And so why don't more people ask for things like Vicoprofen or Percodan? APAP has had its murderous day. Tens of thousands of them.

It may be safer than APAP, but I doubt it would be a good idea to take 20 or 30 pills of 200mg Ibuprofen. Why risk it when you can remove most of it with CWE?

I use less than 100ml cold water so the most dissolved Ibuprofen I'm getting is 1000mg, perhaps a bit more because the filter processs isn't perfect. But that's within the safe daily dose

 

[Backfromthebrink]

Money isn?t an issue and with my wonky liver I?m just concerned about even the smallest amount of paracetamol. I?ve been reading studies on CWE that showed even under good conditions you only retrieve 60% of the codeine and 5% of the paracetamol - which adds up if you?re doing big CWEs.

DHC was okay with me. I got prescribed that a year ago but didn?t find it as euphoric as codeine. These days who knows maybe it will! Really considering getting some OTC and just seeing what happens.

Not sure where those numbers cane from...if done properly, you should retrieve 90+% of the codeine and you can tailor the temp and volume of water to retain as little or as much of the APAP as you like....certainly well within safe parameters....it's just a case of looking up the solubility of APAP at certain temps and volumes and making sure to filter properly...I know it sounds a bit complicated but it's not really.

 

[Lorne???]

You are right and Sominex is DPH in USA and Canada, but promethazine in the UK. (And apparently the Indian version of peptol-bismol.)

Doesn't matter, since all five 1st gen antihistamines are CYP2D6 inhibitors.

Now, for solubility, keep in mind that nearly everything that isn't a gas at ambient pressure, will be more soluble in hotter water, including codeine.

I went based on the big acid moiety hanging off of ibuprofen, which with enough water to keep the pH at 7 and up, assures it'll have a charge and remain freely water soluble, even with a oily overall structure. Codeine has a polar group, and maybe that nitrogen can keep a charge at pH 7, maybe not. So I figured ibuprofen would be easily more soluble.

Well, its not so clear. What is clear: adjusting the pH will have a dramatic difference, and tweaking that is probably better yielding and easier than temperature dependence. Really, at pH 7 they should both be quite soluble in water. Raise the pH and the ibuprofen will stay water soluble, lower it and it'll readily drop out of solution.

The pKa of ibuprofen is an oddly high 4.8-5.0, so adding a lot of lemon juice should knock it right out, as long as there aren't a lot of buffers added to the pill binders. You're aiming for a final pH of three or under, and lemon juice comes in at 2. Once you've filtered the slurry, you can always dilute it back to drinkability.

The codeine will remain polar at a pH under 3, and if that nitrogen will take a charge, it will absolutely be charged at that pH, and remain soluble.


If you looked up ibuprofen at wikipedia or pubchem, you may see it listed as "practically insoluble". Yeah, similar to amphetamines, that's for the uncharged form, the "acid" form of the molecule. We're interested in sodium ibuprofen, which is soluble in water at 25C and pH 7 to 100mg/mL. The pills might not contain sodium ibuprofen, but they will become that "form" when smashed and stirred in some hot water.

Which 5 1st gens are you talking about? Dimenhydinate doesn’t count, it is diphenhydramine, just having a dirty affair with a worthless ? stimulant ? ?

Cyproheptadine isn’t a 2D inhibitor that Inknow of, and Meclizine and it’s derivatives are more like hydroxyzine(so to speak) and doxlymine is metabolized by 2D

 

[Backfromthebrink]

Which 5 1st gens are you talking about? Dimenhydinate doesn’t count, it is diphenhydramine, just having a dirty affair with a worthless ? stimulant ? ?

Cyproheptadine isn’t a 2D inhibitor that Inknow of, and Meclizine and it’s derivatives are more like hydroxyzine(so to speak) and doxlymine is metabolized by 2D

If it's OTC in the UK it's gonna be either. chlorphenamine, hydroxyzine, diphenhydramine and promethazine....theyre the only common 1st gen OTC ones.

 

[Scrofula]

Which 5 1st gens are you talking about? Dimenhydinate doesn’t count, it is diphenhydramine, just having a dirty affair with a worthless ? stimulant ? ?

Cyproheptadine isn’t a 2D inhibitor that Inknow of, and Meclizine and it’s derivatives are more like hydroxyzine(so to speak) and doxlymine is metabolized by 2D

Of course you'd ask which five, and I came ready: diphenhydramine, carbinoxamine/Clistin, clemastine/Tavist, chlorpheniramine, and brompheniramine.

Actually, chloro- and bromo- pheniramine should only count as one, that's kinda cheating.

TBH: I don't have whatever reference said "all five", I constantly am looking shit up for you people that you didn't ask for. I bet I'll find it again and update. There's clearly more than five first-gen antihistamines, if the criteria is merely "drowsy/non-drowsy".

And then you'd have to check quetiapine and hydroxyzine too . . . .

 

[Lorne???]

^ There are 3 criteria for judging an antihistamine 1st gen or 2nd(“3rd” is like a subgroup apparently)

Yeah, it was a silly question, it just seemed to imply that all antihistamines practically available are 2D inhibitors; however the Codiene guy seems convinced that anything that interacts with 2D, or is structurally related, or came from a retro NES or similar gaming system (NES and SNES= Ultimate Gaming) is going to ruin the codiene high he has never gotten, making it all moot

TBH- we, well Me and surely other people, appreciate you Scro

Don’t go to the golden gate bridge yet - One day you will be rid of me, just need a P Wing, and a Dragon Knight, and of course, a Fenix Down or two

(Of course the UK has the safest and arguably best antihistamine, and Promethazine, powerful decent duration and song sedative /hypnotic; not as safe as Hydroxyzine yet really no worse than diphenhydramine,(although it was once an antipsychotic for some reason)

 

[Scrofula]

Found the study, abstract here, and guess what? I misread it.

It's why I still haven't made partner here.

The line was "All five H1-antihistamines studied inhibited CYP2D6 markedly" and my brain read that as 1st gen antihistamine. Maybe the link above.

And just in case one day there's some random member who really needs to knock out that enzyme and has raging hayfever, here's the five in the study:

Cyclizine, promethazine, tripelennamine, chlorpheniramine, and diphenhydramine.

Last time I was at the GG on foot, I was starting out on my sauce days--daytime was always a mild WD still--I was way too queasy and anxious to get more than fifty yards out. You could leave those Kopemons out there and be super-rare or WTF. Well shit, do it at night now and I'll steal them before you even park.

That makes sense.

 

[Forever Changes]

Scrofula, can you clarify something you said earlier - for us lay people - that Ibuprofen is more soluble in water than codeine.

Does this mean that CWEing with Ibuprofen tabs is potentially dangerous, even when using under 100ml water - because you could OD on Ibu?

 

[Scrofula]

No, ibuprofen is more soluble in cold water than APAP. The solution is to replace some of the water with lemon juice, cider vinegar, or some other potent acidic ingredient (not battery acid, just stuff in your kitchen).

Once you've filtered out the ibuprofen, you can always add water back to the codeine + lemon juice to make it less horribly sour, maybe add some sugar. IDK what you guys do with it.

 

[Flowerpotman]

Only me again. Well I'm still not getting much buzz from the CWE. Straight up codeine pills though... fuck me.... so I've been experimenting with potentiators as I've posted about. I currently drink 2 litres of golden grapefruit juice a day because I also fucking love the stuff. I've stopped taking the Sominex. What I took to doing was taking the CWE and hours later having the sominex for a different kind of experience where everything is just really relaxed. But now I'm giving my body and mind a break and just having the codeine. I've even stopped my gabapentin. So what I do is

T000- small 40mg DXM, 20mg gaviscon, 200ml GFJ
T030- CWE between 256-720mg

Yesterday though I had a full 720mg codeine pills and I've never felt so good from drugs before. Fucking hell! Problem is I went through 3 days worth of my prescription so I've gotta make do on CWE which still isn't that powerful to me. I might try something new tonight, tell me what you think;

- double boil the kettle to filter out any inpurities, pour out 150ml boiling water, wait until it reaches... well what's a good temp to mix at? Warm enough to not burn my mouth but enough that a shower of it would be fine. Would appreciate a number from you pros!
OR would it be better to use my filtered tap to pour out 150ml and then heat up gently? What I mean is would the kettle boil off any impurities? I imagine water purity plays a part in filtering
- crush up 96*8mg codeine pills using a pestle and mortar. pour powder into single water container with that 150ml water
- stir for 10 minutes, repeated randomised stirrings for up to an hour
- place in 4?c fridge for at least 8 hours
- take 4 coffee filters, pair them up, soak them in ice-cold filtered tap water, place over two large capacity glasses/tumblers
- pour out mixture into one filter as slowly as possibly, as soon as fluid pouring out turns slightly white (this happens quite a way in so 75% clear-ish fluid ends up in one, 25% sludge in the other) then empty the sludge contents out into the second glass.
- Clear fluid filters quickly leaving only partial residue. Resulting liquid almost to completely clear (varies depending on brand of pills)
- Sludge filters slowly but results in a small amount of crystal clear fluid - this is consistent for me regardless of pill brand.
- Mix with Rose's Lime cordial, drinking ASAP to ensure it's cold which is more pleasant than when its warm, via a straw.
- Small glass of coca cola to mask the horrid CWE flavor!

Is there anything I should change or add in there? In the past I've done stuff like dissolving the pills into the water straight away but even after hours of waiting there's still crumbs of debris in the mix, when I crush there's no such debris.

 

[Backfromthebrink]

Only me again. Well I'm still not getting much buzz from the CWE. Straight up codeine pills though... fuck me.... so I've been experimenting with potentiators as I've posted about. I currently drink 2 litres of golden grapefruit juice a day because I also fucking love the stuff. I've stopped taking the Sominex. What I took to doing was taking the CWE and hours later having the sominex for a different kind of experience where everything is just really relaxed. But now I'm giving my body and mind a break and just having the codeine. I've even stopped my gabapentin. So what I do is

T000- small 40mg DXM, 20mg gaviscon, 200ml GFJ
T030- CWE between 256-720mg

Yesterday though I had a full 720mg codeine pills and I've never felt so good from drugs before. Fucking hell! Problem is I went through 3 days worth of my prescription so I've gotta make do on CWE which still isn't that powerful to me. I might try something new tonight, tell me what you think;

- double boil the kettle to filter out any inpurities, pour out 150ml boiling water, wait until it reaches... well what's a good temp to mix at? Warm enough to not burn my mouth but enough that a shower of it would be fine. Would appreciate a number from you pros!
OR would it be better to use my filtered tap to pour out 150ml and then heat up gently? What I mean is would the kettle boil off any impurities? I imagine water purity plays a part in filtering
- crush up 96*8mg codeine pills using a pestle and mortar. pour powder into single water container with that 150ml water
- stir for 10 minutes, repeated randomised stirrings for up to an hour
- place in 4?c fridge for at least 8 hours
- take 4 coffee filters, pair them up, soak them in ice-cold filtered tap water, place over two large capacity glasses/tumblers
- pour out mixture into one filter as slowly as possibly, as soon as fluid pouring out turns slightly white (this happens quite a way in so 75% clear-ish fluid ends up in one, 25% sludge in the other) then empty the sludge contents out into the second glass.
- Clear fluid filters quickly leaving only partial residue. Resulting liquid almost to completely clear (varies depending on brand of pills)
- Sludge filters slowly but results in a small amount of crystal clear fluid - this is consistent for me regardless of pill brand.
- Mix with Rose's Lime cordial, drinking ASAP to ensure it's cold which is more pleasant than when its warm, via a straw.
- Small glass of coca cola to mask the horrid CWE flavor!

Is there anything I should change or add in there? In the past I've done stuff like dissolving the pills into the water straight away but even after hours of waiting there's still crumbs of debris in the mix, when I crush there's no such debris.

No need to cool it for 8 hours...

Just throw 2 ice cubes into it and whem cold to the touch you can filter..

The codeine should dissolve almost straight away and it shouldn't take 8 hours to cool it back down (not that's there's any need for it to be that hot in the first place)....I mean, it will work...but it's very long winded

 

[Whip_ya_maw]

Get a ceramic bowl, fill it it with water, ice and salt, put your CWE mix jar in the bowl, In the freezer...

This is for optimizing separation time... For when you can't wait.

 

[Scrofula]

I've always been confused by the second glass, Mr. FlowerPot.

Pulverized codeine pills are dissolved in hot water, then cooled to 4C. You pour this over doubled coffee filters, but for some reason don't pour the entire contents through.

Instead you stop pouring when you're down to mostly sludge in the 4C container, and then you pour that onto an entirely separate filter? So a small amount of inexplicably clear water drips into a separate tumbler.

You now have a glass with 75% clear liquid and 25% oddly clear liquid. Now what, do you combine them? Do you only add cordials and colas to one or the other?

I guess it doesn't matter much, whether you filter in parallel or serially, it's just not the way you'd expect.

If the filter step is parallel (two at the same time) because the fear is it'll warm up if the whole sludge pile was put on a single filter, then you could always just let it drip in your fridge.


OK, not important unless you were throwing out the 75% glass.

Only came to say that your kettle does not remove anything (other than dissolved gasses and small non-polar molecules). Boiling your water can kill any microbes, that's why you do it after floods and when camping. Otherwise you're only removing water from your tap water when boiling. And I don't think there's even a need to filter it anyway.

If there is stuff like talc or cellulose in the pills, that will never dissolve in tap water, whether boiling or in a blender for an hour. So you might actually be stirring more APAP into solution if you keep at it like that. APAP is not INsoluble in cold water, it's just not very soluble. So gentleness is warranted.

 

[Backfromthebrink]

CWEs are possibly the simplest, easiest procedure that somehow people manage to make so complicated it gives splitting the atom a run for its money...

 

[adder]

After reading several recent posts in the thread and taking a look at the FAQ on the first page, I suggest the information about the solubility of paracetamol, ibuprofen, and aspirin in water should be corrected. It doesn't state what the solvent exactly is, one of course can assume water, but the solubility of a weak organic acid, which all 3 above are, in water will depend not only on the temperature, but even more so on the pH of the solution and the presence of other solutes. The values given are also very rough and no source is cited, the values for all three compounds are definitely not given for the same conditions. Paracetamol solubility in water at 25oC is ~15g/L (source), for ibuprofen it's 11mg/L at 25oC (source), I don't have time to check for aspirin's, but clearly the information given is way off. It's also worth noting that these solubility values may be basically useless for anyone doing a CWE as they are given for distilled water which nobody uses to extract their codeine from pills. If you are curious how drastic effect the pH and the presence of other solutes can have on the solubility of ibuprofen, look here.

 

[Scrofula]

The numbers in the tables in the front are for the acid forms of ASA and IBU--as in, not very soluble. And while that's how those drugs usually come, I agree the numbers given are unhelpful and misleading. And that the CWE was never intended for those drugs, and an acid/base extraction is better.

(I also think if you need 100 pills, you've already exceeded the scope of this science fair project and need the Army Corps of Engineers to lay some pipeline.)

But, in a rather tall glass of water, for a few pills all you need is time to get 100% in solution. Would work as well in tap water as distilled (which Mr. Flowerpots, at least, favors filtered). In fact, my personal very hard tap water would favor the dissolution of ASA and IBU. The solubility doesn't much matter for the acids--it is low but not zero. For the anions, it is very high, and that's what the problem is.

Trust me, what to do is the subject of raging debate in the ModCave as we speak. One thing that might help is sharing the information behind that paywall, via PM, because the ACS has eyes everywhere. I spend way more time hunting open-access journals as academic pariah than reading a final article. (Yes, there are ways, but you never think you'd bother wanting to go through that when at first you just wanted to know what the BeadTek polymer is in Zohydro capsules (polyethylene oxide, which is just PEG) and what that does to your nose (not my nose, I'd just swallow them).

 

[Flowerpotman]

Hello! Yes I combine then. The two tumbler thing is to make it filter quickly. I used to just use one tumbler but for some reason have taken to using two now. I guess in my mind it means for a more efficient pull? It probably doesn?t change it.

Last night I did a 1g codeine CWE (or it should have been). It wasn?t very potent. Maybe it?s just my weird body again. This morning I did 256mg in straight up codeine pills and THAT hit me. Weird.

Haha. Yeah my evening ritual is a good strong CWE to start with, I?ll play some Breath of the Wild on my Switch for an hour maybe and just chill the fuck out. Later I?ll have a Sominex and Sudafed and bust out the Kindle and start reading away. Honestly Sudafed is so nice to me. I only have 1 and I get a huge boost to my focus abilities, plus it opens my nose and makes it much easier to breathe.

As far as drugs go this is as far as I?ve gone. I tried pot and didn?t like it. Made me paranoid. CBD oil is good but reduces the high from opiates. I used to have tramadol and when I first have that after not taking it for a while I won?t be able to sleep because I feel too happy. I don?t drink alcohol, don?t smoke. Just on painkillers for genuine pain. I have gabapentin too but just 100mg a day. Used to have lyrica at 600mg a day but it fucked me up too much after a while.

Oh gosh people I?m really sorry my posts have been going wrong here. The previous two were supposed to be replies to others. Dammit!

Just to update my story:

Last night I made two CWEs, one small and one big. The big one was with 200ml water and had 32x4 pills in. The small was just one box of 32 pills. Both provided the same experience.

Today I?m running an experiment. I?ve prepared two solutions. One with just 75ml of water and the other with 200ml. Both have 4 boxes of pills (crushed). I?m going to have the 75ml water one later and the 200ml another time. My theory is that, for me at least, the amount of water matters more. But let?s see what happens. Yesterday I finished off my prescription pills, 3 days worth in one sitting and WOW that was nice! And yet 4 days in a CWE is nothing. I?m gonna spend the evening reading this whole thread to see what others have done.

Love you all! (A tiny mouse just ran past me. I?m at my family?s home. It?s a very very old manor. Swear it?s haunted)

I feel bad being the only person in here talking lol. Well anywho. Doc put me on DHC. I took the normal dosage but felt nothing so I?m compensating with smaller dose codeine CWEs. I?ve been running numerous experiments too. One was taking the sludge and running another pass through it and I did get pretty high offa it. Best to maximize what we put in eh

 

[ExoticHaha]

Help on CWE dosage

Hello guys,

I've done CWE quite a few times. The most amount I ever did was 12 paramol 7.46/500, I got a nice high from it.

I have here 16 8/500 codeine pills and I was wondering if its okay if I do a correct CWE on all those 16 pills and drink the codeine solution at once? I don't know if this would be considered overdosing, I just want to get a nice high off it. I always get a clear solution when I CWE so I know I've done it mostly right.

Thank you