Today is Tuesday, July 27, 2010 and it is now 853PM here in Makati, Luzon, Philippines.
Recap: I was talking about expats here in the Philippines, and about the Japanese kidnapping victim from Sulu.
This entry: One of the important facets of my life, naturally, is my 26 year addiction to opiates and opioids. What is the difference between the 2? An "opiate" is a substance wholly or mostly manufactured from opium alkaloids. An "opioid" is a substance, synthetic OR natural, that closely mimics the physiological mechanics of an opiate.
There is a suprising amount of ignorance on this issue, even among pharmacologists, and if you can imagine. Morphine, the creme de la creme of opiates, is sometimes misindentified as an "opioid" simply because it is chemically extracted from opium. Very often "opioids," oxymorphone for example,an analogue of morphine, is listed as an "opiate" because of a structure similar to morphine.
Opium, as most people know, is the sap of the poppy. There are 3 forms of poppy that produce opium with discernible alakloidal content (enough alakloids to notice), but only 2 that are worth talking about. Most people ignorantly believe only 1 form, Papaver Somiferum, can produce the sap.
Papaver Setigerum, a shorter plant can produce it just as well but the alakloids are roughly half as much as you would find in the average uncultivated Somniferum. The 3rd variety has a discernible amount but roughly trace level which means that unless you are hugely into botany, it won't matter, hence I will ignore it.
The Philippines is a strange nation. OK, THAT is well established, but I mean in terms of opiates/opioids and "drugs" in general.
We are in SE Asia, but far enough from Mainland Asia so that there are real differences in the drug scene.
Up until the 1970s the country was like the rest of the region, albeit in much smaller quantities. Opium was prevalent anywhere "Sangleys" (Chinese) lived. Until the early 20th Century the government liscenced opium dens and opium shoppes, but only ethnic Chinese were ever liscenced consumers.
The Spanish, who ruled this country until 1898 basically took the same live and let live attitude that other colonial powers did. One found opium shoppes all over the continent and they still exist in India. Singapore, extremely anal about drugs now, had them until the 1960s, as did Malaysia, etc.
America took over the Philippines several months after Spain abandoned it. At first it was business as usual. America after all sold heroin through the Sears Catalogue in infant elixirs and cocaine was in soda pop.
Then came the American Temperance movement, which long before it turned its rabid attentions to alcohol was fixated upon cocaine and opiates (there were no opioids then).
The Harrison Act in 1914 basically shut down the legal trade in the US (it required heavy taxation though substances were still legal per se). By the early 1920s physicians could no longer freely prescribe heroin and cocaine for addiction maintenance, despite most addicts still being white, middle class and female.
It was the Temprance Movement that changed American perceptions, painting opiates and cocaine as substances that unleashed the animal instincts in non-whites. Pamphlets had "Steppin" and "Fetchit" type characters in blackface taking a hit of cocaine and turning into crazed jungle killers. The racial connotations preyed upon American ignorance and helped turn the tide against what was really an issue for white middle class America.
At this point America began clamping down in the Philippines, closing many of the liscened shoppes and dens and pushing it into the underground, where it became a hugely profitable enterprise that spawned all sorts of related crime (sound familiar?).
From then until WWII Manila at least, had a thriving underground scene, mostly in morphine hypodermic tablets, uncoloured water soluble 1/4 grain tablets for injection, and loose phamaceutically pure cocaine.
The War came and of course everything became scarce. The main source of opiates at that point was the Shanghai and Tsientsien combinations in Eastern China. These syndicates were Triad controlled (Chinese organised crime) and manufactured morphine and heroin tablets in professional labs, tabletting them in licit factories.
The Japanese first invaded Eastern China, colour that trade extinct. The Philippines saw its supply quickly dry up, with any existing stocks depelted by the time Pearl Harbor took place and shut down most of the trans-Pacific trade (colour cocaine extinct as well).
After WWII things never returned to pre-war levels but by the 1960s there was a small but solid heroin scene in Metro Manila. It expanded so rapidly in the late 1960s that there were at least 3 medium scale heroin labs in the city, all competing for local business, selling Heroin #3.
The heroin numbering system is an invention of the American DEA, another facet of American ignorance.
There are 4 numbered types:
#1: Finished Morphine.
As we see, it is not even heroin, ergo extremely ignorant. It was included in the system because it was, at the time the system was devised in 1971, a separate commodity in the manufacturing food chain.
The term "Finished" refers to it being highly pure morphine hcl.and not the usual impure freebase often utilised in illicit heroin labs.
Producers in SE Asia'a Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand and Laos) manufactured #1 as a commodity, as something they traded at a price higher than the usual morphine, because of the ease in manufacturing heroin when using #1.
Pressed into 700 gramme blocks imprinted with brand names, it was sold to labs as far afield as Hong Kong. #1 fell off the radar in the late 1990s and until 2005 was only being made in 1 small lab in Burma and only being sold in 1 small area of the Malaysian bush just south of Pattani. Since then there hasn't been any sighted, though that isn't neccessarily the end of it. Still, my money is on "extinct."
#2: Heroin Freebase.
Freebase in this case 1st being a salt that is reverted back to a freebase for ease in the final manufacture.
In the very early 1980s, with a huge shift in West Asian manufacturing from Turkey/Syria into Lebanon, and from Pakistan into Afghanistan manufacturers began selling Freebase as an end product to consumers, as opposed to a separate commodity in the chain of manufacture, as was the case with Heroin#1.
Until this point, heroin smoking in Europe, which began in the Netherlands with Heroin #3 from Hong Kong and Thailand was a very localised phenomenon. Most other European product was Heroin#4, purely for injection.
Today Europe is almost entirely taken with Heroin #2, though it is also used for injection with a catalyst of citric or absorbic acid to adjust the pH.
#3: Heroin hcl. Specifically prepared for smoking at POM (Point of Manufacture). After manufacture, unpurified heroin hcl, is mixed with an admixture of caffeine, strychnine,quinine, flavourings (vanillin, rosewater) and colourings (red, grey, pearl white). It is then moistned over a steam bath and forced through a mold to produce uniform pellet sized granules.
Heroin, to be smoked effectively must have a melting point (m.p.) closely in synch with its vapourisation point (v.p.). In other words, the point at which the heroin melts must be close to the point in which it starts to vapourise.
In its natural state heroin hcl. will melt long before it vapourises. In other words, it disappears before you can even inhale it.
A way to avoid this is to add a substance that will bring those 2 points into a close alignment so that the majority of the heroin will vapourise before dissolving.
That is where the caffeine comes into play. Caffeine has a higher m.p., and by adding up to 40% by weight and mixing all of the powders optimally you are able to stall the melting sufficiently, so that you can enjoy enough of the vapour.
The flavourings, strychnine and quinine relate to the East China trade in the early 20th Century. The labs used to use these agents to give the heroin tablets, which were made for smoking, a noticeably chemical taste. Opium, for a long time, had been mixed with powderised aspirin to optimise burning. This admixture of asprin and latex produced a noticeable odor when burned, one addicts associated with a quality experience.
The manufacturers of heroin tablets had a suprisingly difficult time building product cachet, people didn't want to forgo opium, which offered extreme ritualisation, the preperation of latex and asprin, getting it ready for smoking with repeated heatings and molding with needles and finger tips, the laying of head and even the way in which the pipe was cradled were all part of the experience.
The heroin manufacturers wanted to re-create some of that and so they attempted to pattern their product in that fashion. Crumbling a tablet into a cigarette just didn't hold the same experience, but IF they could cheaply reproduce the taste, they had a chance.
Strychnine isn't harmful in trace amounts, quinine was OK in moderate dosages and so it was a 90:10 quinine:strychine mix, with the vanillin,etc. added as perfume, just as opium sometimes had it added as well. The colouring was a form of branding, like a trademark. #3 also carried this practice as well.
Heroin #3 disappeared from all but a tiny area in Kuala Lampur and Perang in Malaysia in the mid 1990s. By the turn of the millenium the form was extinct.
#4: Heroin hcl. Specifically prepared for injection at POM.
The technical definition is extremely pure and de-colourised but by virtue of the end point being injection, latex based varieties like "Mexican Tar" and "Homebaked" are also, technically, #4.
Continued...
(Edited for spelling)
Recap: I was talking about expats here in the Philippines, and about the Japanese kidnapping victim from Sulu.
This entry: One of the important facets of my life, naturally, is my 26 year addiction to opiates and opioids. What is the difference between the 2? An "opiate" is a substance wholly or mostly manufactured from opium alkaloids. An "opioid" is a substance, synthetic OR natural, that closely mimics the physiological mechanics of an opiate.
There is a suprising amount of ignorance on this issue, even among pharmacologists, and if you can imagine. Morphine, the creme de la creme of opiates, is sometimes misindentified as an "opioid" simply because it is chemically extracted from opium. Very often "opioids," oxymorphone for example,an analogue of morphine, is listed as an "opiate" because of a structure similar to morphine.
Opium, as most people know, is the sap of the poppy. There are 3 forms of poppy that produce opium with discernible alakloidal content (enough alakloids to notice), but only 2 that are worth talking about. Most people ignorantly believe only 1 form, Papaver Somiferum, can produce the sap.
Papaver Setigerum, a shorter plant can produce it just as well but the alakloids are roughly half as much as you would find in the average uncultivated Somniferum. The 3rd variety has a discernible amount but roughly trace level which means that unless you are hugely into botany, it won't matter, hence I will ignore it.
The Philippines is a strange nation. OK, THAT is well established, but I mean in terms of opiates/opioids and "drugs" in general.
We are in SE Asia, but far enough from Mainland Asia so that there are real differences in the drug scene.
Up until the 1970s the country was like the rest of the region, albeit in much smaller quantities. Opium was prevalent anywhere "Sangleys" (Chinese) lived. Until the early 20th Century the government liscenced opium dens and opium shoppes, but only ethnic Chinese were ever liscenced consumers.
The Spanish, who ruled this country until 1898 basically took the same live and let live attitude that other colonial powers did. One found opium shoppes all over the continent and they still exist in India. Singapore, extremely anal about drugs now, had them until the 1960s, as did Malaysia, etc.
America took over the Philippines several months after Spain abandoned it. At first it was business as usual. America after all sold heroin through the Sears Catalogue in infant elixirs and cocaine was in soda pop.
Then came the American Temperance movement, which long before it turned its rabid attentions to alcohol was fixated upon cocaine and opiates (there were no opioids then).
The Harrison Act in 1914 basically shut down the legal trade in the US (it required heavy taxation though substances were still legal per se). By the early 1920s physicians could no longer freely prescribe heroin and cocaine for addiction maintenance, despite most addicts still being white, middle class and female.
It was the Temprance Movement that changed American perceptions, painting opiates and cocaine as substances that unleashed the animal instincts in non-whites. Pamphlets had "Steppin" and "Fetchit" type characters in blackface taking a hit of cocaine and turning into crazed jungle killers. The racial connotations preyed upon American ignorance and helped turn the tide against what was really an issue for white middle class America.
At this point America began clamping down in the Philippines, closing many of the liscened shoppes and dens and pushing it into the underground, where it became a hugely profitable enterprise that spawned all sorts of related crime (sound familiar?).
From then until WWII Manila at least, had a thriving underground scene, mostly in morphine hypodermic tablets, uncoloured water soluble 1/4 grain tablets for injection, and loose phamaceutically pure cocaine.
The War came and of course everything became scarce. The main source of opiates at that point was the Shanghai and Tsientsien combinations in Eastern China. These syndicates were Triad controlled (Chinese organised crime) and manufactured morphine and heroin tablets in professional labs, tabletting them in licit factories.
The Japanese first invaded Eastern China, colour that trade extinct. The Philippines saw its supply quickly dry up, with any existing stocks depelted by the time Pearl Harbor took place and shut down most of the trans-Pacific trade (colour cocaine extinct as well).
After WWII things never returned to pre-war levels but by the 1960s there was a small but solid heroin scene in Metro Manila. It expanded so rapidly in the late 1960s that there were at least 3 medium scale heroin labs in the city, all competing for local business, selling Heroin #3.
The heroin numbering system is an invention of the American DEA, another facet of American ignorance.
There are 4 numbered types:
#1: Finished Morphine.
As we see, it is not even heroin, ergo extremely ignorant. It was included in the system because it was, at the time the system was devised in 1971, a separate commodity in the manufacturing food chain.
The term "Finished" refers to it being highly pure morphine hcl.and not the usual impure freebase often utilised in illicit heroin labs.
Producers in SE Asia'a Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand and Laos) manufactured #1 as a commodity, as something they traded at a price higher than the usual morphine, because of the ease in manufacturing heroin when using #1.
Pressed into 700 gramme blocks imprinted with brand names, it was sold to labs as far afield as Hong Kong. #1 fell off the radar in the late 1990s and until 2005 was only being made in 1 small lab in Burma and only being sold in 1 small area of the Malaysian bush just south of Pattani. Since then there hasn't been any sighted, though that isn't neccessarily the end of it. Still, my money is on "extinct."
#2: Heroin Freebase.
Freebase in this case 1st being a salt that is reverted back to a freebase for ease in the final manufacture.
In the very early 1980s, with a huge shift in West Asian manufacturing from Turkey/Syria into Lebanon, and from Pakistan into Afghanistan manufacturers began selling Freebase as an end product to consumers, as opposed to a separate commodity in the chain of manufacture, as was the case with Heroin#1.
Until this point, heroin smoking in Europe, which began in the Netherlands with Heroin #3 from Hong Kong and Thailand was a very localised phenomenon. Most other European product was Heroin#4, purely for injection.
Today Europe is almost entirely taken with Heroin #2, though it is also used for injection with a catalyst of citric or absorbic acid to adjust the pH.
#3: Heroin hcl. Specifically prepared for smoking at POM (Point of Manufacture). After manufacture, unpurified heroin hcl, is mixed with an admixture of caffeine, strychnine,quinine, flavourings (vanillin, rosewater) and colourings (red, grey, pearl white). It is then moistned over a steam bath and forced through a mold to produce uniform pellet sized granules.
Heroin, to be smoked effectively must have a melting point (m.p.) closely in synch with its vapourisation point (v.p.). In other words, the point at which the heroin melts must be close to the point in which it starts to vapourise.
In its natural state heroin hcl. will melt long before it vapourises. In other words, it disappears before you can even inhale it.
A way to avoid this is to add a substance that will bring those 2 points into a close alignment so that the majority of the heroin will vapourise before dissolving.
That is where the caffeine comes into play. Caffeine has a higher m.p., and by adding up to 40% by weight and mixing all of the powders optimally you are able to stall the melting sufficiently, so that you can enjoy enough of the vapour.
The flavourings, strychnine and quinine relate to the East China trade in the early 20th Century. The labs used to use these agents to give the heroin tablets, which were made for smoking, a noticeably chemical taste. Opium, for a long time, had been mixed with powderised aspirin to optimise burning. This admixture of asprin and latex produced a noticeable odor when burned, one addicts associated with a quality experience.
The manufacturers of heroin tablets had a suprisingly difficult time building product cachet, people didn't want to forgo opium, which offered extreme ritualisation, the preperation of latex and asprin, getting it ready for smoking with repeated heatings and molding with needles and finger tips, the laying of head and even the way in which the pipe was cradled were all part of the experience.
The heroin manufacturers wanted to re-create some of that and so they attempted to pattern their product in that fashion. Crumbling a tablet into a cigarette just didn't hold the same experience, but IF they could cheaply reproduce the taste, they had a chance.
Strychnine isn't harmful in trace amounts, quinine was OK in moderate dosages and so it was a 90:10 quinine:strychine mix, with the vanillin,etc. added as perfume, just as opium sometimes had it added as well. The colouring was a form of branding, like a trademark. #3 also carried this practice as well.
Heroin #3 disappeared from all but a tiny area in Kuala Lampur and Perang in Malaysia in the mid 1990s. By the turn of the millenium the form was extinct.
#4: Heroin hcl. Specifically prepared for injection at POM.
The technical definition is extremely pure and de-colourised but by virtue of the end point being injection, latex based varieties like "Mexican Tar" and "Homebaked" are also, technically, #4.
Continued...
(Edited for spelling)
