Heroin Hydrolysis Into Morphine

[Tryptamino]

Hello, I apologize if this has been covered in another thread, for some reason I couldn?t find anything that explained it in the persoective I have.

What I?d like to know is if it?s possible, via hydrolysis, to place high puriity powdered heroin in water, allow it to degrade to 6-MAM and then morphine completely, in order to have an orally active morphine solution, or if it only partially degrades. I?ve read mixed results, where it was said that it doesnt fully convert into morphine, but moreso 6-MAM or 3-MAM, and others that say it does, but further converts into other analogs. My main concern is letting it become morphine without any synthesis. Thanks!

 

[fairnymph]

It will become mostly morphine eventually, faster in dilute, non acidic water. But I'm pretty sure it will never be pure morphine, particularly if you're starting off with street h, however high the supposed purity. I had some really, really pure #4 & it definitely still contained small amounts of other opiates.

 

[Jekyl Anhydride]

Fairnymph has a good point about things like acetyl codeine and assorted acetylated constituents of opium breaking down at slower rates, if completely at all.

Even evidence of complete deacetylation outside of in-vivo enzymatic cleavage is scarce, from my searching at least. Loads of patience maybe

In aqueous solution, diamorphine was quantitatively degraded to give 6‐monoacetylmorphine as the major product and morphine as a minor product, the rate of deacetylation being dependent on temperature and pH. At pH 4?0 and 5?6 diamorphine had a half‐life of greater than 14 days at all temperatures but at alkaline pH diamorphine was rapidly deacetylated. The rate of deacetylation of 6‐monoacetylmorphine was consistently slower than that of diamorphine under identical conditions of pH and temperature.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2042-7158.1992.tb05474.x

 

[Hodor]

Morphine's two hydroxyl groups were not created equal: The one in the 3-position is phenolic, the one in the 6-position is alcoholic. Phenols are significantly more acidic than regular alcohols, and therefore their esters are also far less stable.

Consequently, the 3-deacetylation of diamorphine into 6-MAM happens much more rapidly than the conversion of 6-MAM into morphine. It is also the reason why Mexican "Black Tar" heroin often consists of mostly 6-MAM rather than 3,6-diacetylmorphine, as the commonly used Mexican method of acetylation (boiling in concentrated acetic acid without proper refluxing) is simply not effective enough to reliably acetylate the phenolic OH group.

At any rate, complete saponification (i.e. irreversible alkaline ester hydrolysis) of diamorphine should be easily possible under alkaline conditions; however, a solution of "morphine" produced from street heroin (which was itself rather crudely produced from opium) would also be expected to contain other poppy alkaloids such as codeine.

 

[fairnymph]

^^^I didn't know that about BTH. I thought it was just poorly purified - I had no idea it wasn't properly synthed to begin with.

 

[G_Chem]

^^^Its highly debated how exactly the Mexicans synth their BTH, some think the incomplete acetylation comes from the use of glacial acetic acid over acetic anhydride (as Hodor alluded) whereas I?ve heard from other reliable sources that acetic anhydride is necessary.

To be fair, the sources saying it wouldn?t work likely have never tried it before to say one way or the other, but until some Mexican chemist tells me that?s how it?s done I?ll be skeptical.

It is possible the incomplete acetylation occurs because of all the other impurities present somehow inhibiting the reaction.


To the OP, have you tried heroin orally and found it inferior to morphine? I?ve consumed heroin orally before (a bindle fell into a cup of water by accident) and it felt identical to oral morphine, both being underwhelming.. Morphine (and heroin of course) is better via insufflation, sublingual, or IV.

-GC

 

[fairnymph]

To me oral & IM morphine feel nearly identical, & nasal/sublingual only slightly more distinct, namely less sedating. But nasal vs IV/IM h feels VERY different. I can't seem to get any effect from smoking h. Maybe bc I don't find opiates recreational?

It's been quite a while since I took oral morphine but I think oral 'h' feels a bit stronger - I suspect the multiple opiates potentiate each other.

 

[Jekyl Anhydride]

The GAA route to 6-MAM was discovered in 1874 from Wright & Beckett at the same the same time they first came across Heroin. They were looking for Gamma MAM because they didn't fully understand the morphine structure iirc.

3 MAM was referred to as the beta and 6 MAM was the Alpha. The Heroin was Tetra Acetyl Morphine. Although the tetra was shelved until a couple decades later as it was just another of several new compounds at the time, like Diacetyl Codeine which is now known to have possible convulsant properties.

----

Oral diacetylmorphine (heroin) yields greater morphine bioavailability than oral morphine: bioavailability related to dosage and prior opioid exposure.

* Morphine influx into systemic circulation is more rapid after oral diacetylmorphine than after oral morphine, resulting in earlier and more than double maximal concentrations.

*In opioid-dependent people, bioavailability of morphine from oral doses of diacetylmorphine is also 37% higher than that of oral morphine.

*Morphine bioavailability is two and 1.5 times higher in chronic users than in opioid-naive subjects after low oral doses of diacetylmorphine or morphine, respectively.

*Oral absorption of morphine from diacetylmorphine is dose dependent, i.e. bioavailability increases with diacetylmorphine dose.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675771/

 

[fairnymph]

^^^Very interesting, thanks. Shame morphine is hyperalgesic for me or I would experiment with this.

 

[G_Chem]

Ah interesting.. Upon further examination it appears you are right. Back in the day no one seemed to believe it could be done with GAA, even rhodium.. (I wonder if they lied about it to keep the Hive from being known as a place to learn easy heroin synthesis.)

-GC

 

[Hodor]

(I wonder if they lied about it to keep the Hive from being known as a place to learn easy heroin synthesis.)

Yes, they were obviously afraid that it would ruin the Hive's good reputation as a place to learn easy meth synthesis

 

[fairnymph]

Rofl!

 

[kleinerkiffer]

Now we're getting a little too much into synth discussion

 

[G_Chem]

Hahaha too f?n good..

My apologies i derailed us a bit. Everyone get back to eating your bowl of dope rocks, chocolatey goodness.

On a somewhat related note, I once was able to procure a tincture made from an extract of poppies. It was reconstituted to make one drop equal to about 5mg hydrocodone. What I found was that this tincture seemed much MUCH more potent than equivalent amount of poppies used to make tea.

I thought maybe I was just being overly sensitive to it but even my mom (who is a full fledge pill popper) who tried it agreed on my assessment of its potency. (She then stole it from me and stayed high as fuck for a few days but that?s for another story.)

I?ve concluded that sublingual administration is much more potent than oral admin of morphine. Oral morphine has never given me proper effects, I remember popping 50-100mg with no tolerance as a kid and barely feeling much.

-GC