• Select Your Topic Then Scroll Down
    Alcohol Bupe Benzos
    Cocaine Heroin Opioids
    RCs Stimulants Misc
    Harm Reduction All Topics Gabapentinoids
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums

How to avoid potentially lethal/contaminated heroin?

Chronic4

Bluelighter
Joined
May 28, 2004
Messages
92
Location
America
Ok so I have read a few reports about people dying from contaminated heroin batches in the northeast. My question is how do I know the heroin I just bought and am about to use isnt contaminated and isnt gonna kill me once I put it in my body? How do I make sure my stuff is good and if it isnt how do I get rid of the contaminants?
 
I dont think there is any real sure fire way, unless you're an educated chemist. This is one of the reasons i dont like white h....it's easier to cut with some nasty fucking white powders. Tar generally is cut with brown sugar or coffee.
 
You think you are better off if your shooting it an cooking it rather than just snorting it..cause all the reports I have heard about contaminated batchs killing people have been users that snorted it.
 
^yes that makes sense. because when you add water and heat it to a boil, boiling something usually kills most detrimental bacteria.
 
DexterMeth said:
I dont think there is any real sure fire way, unless you're an educated chemist. This is one of the reasons i dont like white h....it's easier to cut with some nasty fucking white powders. Tar generally is cut with brown sugar or coffee.

What about the black tar in the west that was giving people flesh-eating bacteria... that sounds a whole lot scarier.
 
actually the amount of "cooking" you do on the spoon is not enough to kill most of the bacteria. Plus, if you held the flame on long enough to actually accomplish this, the smack would be dead.

I know this to be true from a safe injection guide from the uk. It was talking about cleaning syringes and spoons adn whatnot. You shouldn't just hold a flame to a spoon to sterilize it. You need to boil it in hot water, then bleach it, then boil...or something like that. I hardly have been shooting, so i dont follow it that much...but i should.

If i can find a link pointing out the whole "how to really kill bacteria...etc" i'll do it.....

I'm pretty sure cooking on the spoon is not enough. A micron filter is probably your best bet.
 
a lot of the heroin deaths you hear about these days are not from contaminated H like f&b said, that was while ago.....actually it is known that the notheast (esp Jersey) has some of the strongest dope in the USA, so many of the deaths can be attributed to OD's resulting from excessive ingestion of said bomb dope.... :\
 
^Actually I think the poster was refering to bags cut with Clenbutoral in the Jersey area. It seems to be quite an outbreak right now.....
from drugpolicycentral.com:
February 11, 2005, 12:32 AM EST

The city Department of Health is investigating a rash of illnesses linked to a contaminated batch of heroin, officials said.

Six heroin users visited hospital emergency rooms in the past few days reporting symptoms of agitation, nausea, severe headaches and weakness, the agency said. They either have been discharged or are listed in stable condition.

They had consumed heroin laced with the drug Clenbuterol, which is often used as an illegal performance enhancer for race horses and as a respiratory drug for asthma patients.

Joined by the Police Department and community organizations, the Health Department is trying to determine the source of the contaminated heroin and alert users, who number an estimated 200,000 in the city.

"Heroin is a highly addictive drug and, as this situation confirms, it can often be contaminated with other dangerous substances," Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said.

Similar incidents are being investigated in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, officials said.

Earlier this month, three 17-year-old boys in New Jersey were treated after they took heroin laced with Clenbuterol, according to the Asbury Park Press. They later recovered.

Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc.

http://vhi.exodus.ie/news.asp?id=44670
 
Well...

Actually I initiated a thread on it about a month or two ago [and I was not the first one either]. In this paticular case the contaminant was an active substance that some genius thought would potentiate heroin. Certainly could have been worse.

Heroin is not heated to remove adulterants per se but to convert it into a liquid for injection. The heat DOES "cook off" most adulterants so I suppose my point is moot.

Dex: Brown heroin and even tar can be adulterated just as much. Believe it or not but lactose is used on both with most users being none the wiser. In Florida many people used to say the same thing you are saying; The darker the heroin the purer it is. Not true and I'd like to use somebody elses' brilliant analogy to demonstrate my point:

Drink some beer and urinate in a cup. Pour your cup into a gallon container and fill it the rest of the way with tap water. In a second container simply fill it all the way to the top and drop a few drops of yellow food coloring into it. You now have two gallons of water. One is yellow, the other is crystal clear, most people would assume that the clear one was the purer water. Color can be disarming but really does not mean much of anything except that the "cook" didn't take the time, expense, or effort to use carbon on his product [dissolving the discolored impurities].
 
Yes xanax and rachamim that is what I was refering to bags cut with Clenbutoral or scopolmine not "bacteria". How do I know my bags are not cut with these foreign substances that would kill me if injected? And how do I get rid of them? I meen its pretty scary to know your next bag could easily be your last. Is it better if you are buying in grams and not on the street, like would the gram dope you buy be purer and less chance of being cut with some wierd shit?
 
^^^Interesting Rach.......That does nail it right on the head...


xxanxx said:
^Actually I think the poster was refering to bags cut with Clenbutoral in the Jersey area. It seems to be quite an outbreak right now.....




Clenbuterol is an anabolic steroid ain't it??? That's a gross adulterant..:p
 
All the deaths that occured that I read about were users who snorted there heroin. Also if my shit was cut with that crap how long would it be b4 I noticed something was wrong. And I assume if the dope I buy from someone who has shot it b4 with no ill effects it must be safe and uncut with these dangerous substances idiots cut it with?
 
At the end of the day mate, you're injecting heroin. You're taking part in a high risk activity and there's no getting away from it. I can see you're just trying to reduce the risks the best you can but you've always got to just give in to a certain amount of possibe harm. I don't think there's any reliable way to know if your bag is contaminated with any sort of virus. It's like the saying "if you can do the crime, you can do the time", but replace "time" with "horrible, possibly life-threatening disease".
 
Re: Well...

actually i was referring to....lmao...stop starting off your posts with "actually" guys... blahah.

rachamim18 said:
. Dex: Brown heroin and even tar can be adulterated just as much. Believe it or not but lactose is used on both with most users being none the wiser. In Florida many people used to say the same thing you are saying; The darker the heroin the purer it is. Not true and I'd like to use somebody elses' brilliant analogy to demonstrate my point:

Drink some beer and urinate in a cup. Pour your cup into a gallon container and fill it the rest of the way with tap water. In a second container simply fill it all the way to the top and drop a few drops of yellow food coloring into it. You now have two gallons of water. One is yellow, the other is crystal clear, most people would assume that the clear one was the purer water. Color can be disarming but really does not mean much of anything except that the "cook" didn't take the time, expense, or effort to use carbon on his product [dissolving the discolored impurities].

Thank you for bringing this up. This is the main reason i love bluelight. seriously.
 
Whoops rach, I didn't realize you had already posted on the subject. It is a nasty cutting agent, why the hell would anyone put it in heroin?
 
Maybe the people that snorted it died and the people that injected it didn't because when you inject heroin, you tend to filter out a lot of the cut. Maybe this batch of heroin you are talking about was contaminated with a cut and not a bacteria?

PS: Chris, you are an ass-rammer. ;)
 
Good question...

As for as actual contaminants, I have no idea how to ascertain their presence [short of chroming your sample or testing for each contaminat on an individual basis]. Like the person said, it IS a high risk activity. You can certainly get around alot of risk by purifying your stash, and then heating at an exact temp for SOME contaminants, but not all. Luckily for most users the risk is rare. All the instances could probably be counted on one person's hands, still, the risk remains.

As for the reason certain substances are used, as opposed to inactive substances, etc...Ignorance seems to be the culprit. for my money, nothing does the job like lactose and quinine in an 80:20 ration [lactose the higher number]. Anyhting else is a waste and risks ruining it.
 
Top