Harm Reduction Regarding Micron Filters-Never seen This Asked Before

[romealone]

Hi
I have looked thoroughly through the Micron Filter Megathread, and never seen this addressed.

For those that micron filter pills, you can accumulate hundreds of these filters, and each one retains a bit of the drug within its filter. Now obviously these are not sterile and unsafe to use, but I'm curious as to the opinions of this practice.

If one were to pass several mL's of sterile water through, about ten of these filters, and then draw up this solution and pass it through a FRESH 0.22 micron filter, is there any reason that the resultant solution would be unsafe to use via IV?

Of course the solution you initially get when passing water through the old filters is far from sterile-almost anything could grow in these as they are partially wet and just left to sit (though if bac-stat water was initially used in the first filtration I'd imagine you'd cut down on growth in the filters). But assuming bacteria had proliferated to some degree in the old filters, I would think a fresh 0.22 filter would filter out any of these contaminants, as over 99% of bacteria are considerably larger than 0.22 microns.

So, any thoughts on this? Curious if anyone has done this?

PS- I suppose the same idea could be applied to old cottons. Drawing sterile water through the old, and unsterile cottons, and then pushing the solutions through a fresh micron filter. Same idea.

Thanks -

 

[sekio]

It's doubtful you'd be able to recover enough drug to get a hit out of even ten or twenty used filters, they don't retain more than a tiny fraction of the drug used to filter them.

 

[romealone]

Sekio
I would have thought the same thing, but happily this was not found to be the case. In fact 6 filters (used to filter 10mg opana IR) was found to provide what subjectively seemed to be approx 5mg. So, that would indicate each filter retained 1/10th, or 1mg of the original 10mg of oxymorphone.

However, the safety of this is what concerns me here. I would never advocate someone using the was of used micron filters as is, but as I mentioned in my OP, if passed through a clean 0.22 filter, would one be left with something safe (as these things go) for iv use?

 

[sekio]

0.22 micron filters will remove bacteria but won't remove any toxins they may have created.

If you're retaining drugs on the filter it's a sign you may want to wash the filters when you're preparing your shots.