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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Opioids Morphine Sulphate to Morphine Hydrochloride

Gaz_hmmmm

Gaz_hmmmm

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 27, 2002
Messages
4,086
Location
England, UK
Does anyone know an easy way to change morphine sulphate to hydrochloride?

The sulphate is only 65mg per 1ml solubility where as the hydrochloride sakt us about 500mg per 1ml.
 
Gaz_hmmmm said:
Does anyone know an easy way to change morphine sulphate to hydrochloride?

The sulphate is only 65mg per 1ml solubility where as the hydrochloride sakt us about 500mg per 1ml.
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You’d need to basify it and then precipitate the hcl salt.

Add NaOH (sodium hydroxide) dropwise to your extracted morphine sulphate dissolved in aqueous solution, until you see all the morphine precipitating out of solution (you could use pH strips, as this will be around pH 9-10, no point in basifying further).

Then pour the solution into doubled up coffee filters in a funnel, and rinse three times with water. The powder you have left is freebase morphine.

Next put that morphine in your ersatz beaker (glass jar or whatnot) with enough of water to cover it and start adding HCl (hydrochloric acid) dropwise until all of the morphine dissolves into solution. Again you can use pH strips and you want to aim for pH 5-6.

Lastly, you want to evaporate off the excess water, in a shallow dish on a radiator or in front of a fan or in the oven on the lowest setting. Voilà, you have morphine hydrochloride.
 
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Thank you.

What's an ersatz beaker?

Will 30% or less hydrochloric acid be fine?
Higher than that I'd need a license to buy it.
 
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A few BLers have suggested that morphine hydrochloride has a faster onset than the sulfate. But if they were comparing equal masses of both, the hydrochloride has a lower MW.

It's only rractical to swap the addition-salt of a drug if you have a reasonable amount since mechanical losses will result in some wastage.

I suggest you use Google patents. A few researchers discovered by adding a buffer to the solution allowed something like 93mg/mL to be dissolved. I don't know if that's enough for you, but from what I recall, it was a very simple process. In essence, one just adds a small amount of buffer to the dH2O (distilled water) and then using it to dissolve the morphine sulfate.
 
It was decades ago since I read the patents but in essence, they were all more or less on those lines.

It doesn't increase solubility by an order of magnitude, but if 100mg/mL is sufficient, it strikes me as a much simpler answer.

But I think it's worth noting that the patent doesn't specify the ROAs the improved solubility is intended for. So read it carefully to check it it's compatible. I think I found a couple of patents, so maybe the other one does name ROAs including the one you are thinking of.

I'm not saying it IS a problem, only that the patent doesn't implicitly state what ROAs it's compatible with. Always be careful.
 
Thank you all for the replies!

fairnymph said:
Sodium tartrate looks like the best option and it’s easy to get a hold of:

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Regarding that sodium tartrate, what the 1.0m mean?
I'm guessing molar but I still don't know what that means.

Does the 19.47% mean I add that much of how much morphine sulphate there is?

So if it was a gram of morphine sulphate I'd add basically 200mg sodium tartrate?

Would tap water be OK or must it absolutely be distilled water?
 
Molarity = no of moles of solute/volume of solution in liters - you want a 1.0M sodium tartrate solution, which is 194.0505g/L. For how much morphine to use, you’re going to refer to the solubility (103.8mg/mL). So if you want to dissolve 200mg morphine, use a little over 2mL of the 1.0M solution. Make sense?

You definitely want to use distilled water because you don’t want any other solutes in your water interfering with its ability to absorb as much morphine as possible.
 
So that means I'd need to dissolve 194.0505g of sodium tartrate in 1 litre of distilled water and then use that solution to dissolve the morphine?
 
paranoid android said:
I wish i actually knew something about chemistry cause its a real bitch only being able to fit 60mg of morphine in a 1cc syringe
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Get 5cc or 10cc syringes.

As you can see from reading this thread converting the sulphate to hydrochloride is easy, it's just takes time and will cost a little bit for the stuff needed buy once bought it'll last you for multiple goes.
 
Gaz_hmmmm said:
Get 5cc or 10cc syringes.

As you can see from reading this thread converting the sulphate to hydrochloride is easy, it's just takes time and will cost a little bit for the stuff needed buy once bought it'll last you for multiple goes.
Click to expand...

IN places like New Zealand where a lot of the stuff on the street is made from codeine-containing medicines, some 'cooks' don't acetylate the morphine to H but rather produce morphine hydrochloride. Some users credit the hydrochloride as feeling more like H although if they are comparing equal weights, the lower MW of morphine hydrochloride means more morphine freebase so it WILL be more potent. It's also more water-soluble which is an obvious advantage.

But my question is - why is morphine sulphate the form almost exclusively used medically?

Generally addition salts are chosen because of a number of reasons. One is long-term stability. I'm unsure in this case why MS became the standard.
 
4DQSAR said:
But my question is - why is morphine sulphate the form almost exclusively used medically?

Generally addition salts are chosen because of a number of reasons. One is long-term stability. I'm unsure in this case why MS became the standard.
Click to expand...
I’ve been wondering this too. Makes me wonder if it’s actually about preventing abuse.
 
fairnymph said:
I’ve been wondering this too. Makes me wonder if it’s actually about preventing abuse.
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I know pre-1914 US and pre-1920 UK morphine hydrochloride and other salts were common.

I too assume that the sulphate is used to reduce abuse but if it was really about that they'd use the tartrate salt which is only soluble to 10.2mg/1ml of water.
 
4DQSAR said:
IN places like New Zealand where a lot of the stuff on the street is made from codeine-containing medicines, some 'cooks' don't acetylate the morphine to H but rather produce morphine hydrochloride. Some users credit the hydrochloride as feeling more like H although if they are comparing equal weights, the lower MW of morphine hydrochloride means more morphine freebase so it WILL be more potent. It's also more water-soluble which is an obvious advantage.

But my question is - why is morphine sulphate the form almost exclusively used medically?

Generally addition salts are chosen because of a number of reasons. One is long-term stability. I'm unsure in this case why MS became the standard.
Click to expand...

From what I've read pharma H doesn't cause the immediate 'pins and needles' effect you get from the histamine release when IV'ed like morphine does.
Obviously though street H contains morphine and 6-monoacetyl-morphine (6-MAM) which will cause immediate histamine release and some user's associate that with 'good stuff'.

Acetylating morphine in to Heroin or just 6-MAM is easier than converting/demethylating codeine in to morphine.
Is it an issue of not being able to get acetic anhydride or acetic acid in New Zealand and that is why some cooks leave it at morphine hydrochloride or is there another reason?
 
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