Separating caffeine from codeine?

[djtonedeaf]

A friend of mine brought back a bunch of 222's from Canada and they contain:
375mg Acetylsalicylic Acid
8mg Codeine Phosphate
15mg Caffeine
My question is that since Codeine and Caffeine are both soluble in water is there some other kitchen chemist way of separating the Caffeine from the Codeine without blowing myself up real good?
I would like to be able to take the Codeine without the caffeine if possible. Also, I'm assuming that ASA like APAP is not water soluble so a simple cold water extract would work for it.
PS. I am not taking the codeine to get high, so spare me the CODEINE SUXORS MAN!!!! GET SOME REAL DRUGS YOU FUKIN FAG!!! flames.
edit: is ASA easier on your liver than APAP?
[This message has been edited by djtonedeaf (edited 30 September 2001).]

 

[PhreeX]

Asprin can cause severe inflammation, which can lead to painful ulcers, so it's not really much better then APAP ... but oh the 222's ....
Sadly I can't think of any easy way to get the caffiene seperated from the codeine - but it's not that big of a deal, as with 8mg codeine per 15mg caffiene, well, say you wanted to drink 100mg codeine (a fair dose for your normal opiate tollerant person) - thats only about 190mg caffiene - not that bad ... if you're not looking for a high, then you would be taking far less, so it's even less of an issue...
Roches may have some better info..
------------------
OPIATES - Making people as happy as a Muslim in the cockpit of a loaded 757!

 

[Roches]

yeah, aspirin can cause inflammation (mainly because it's acidic, seemingly, and because it makes your stomach lining less able to protect itself)...
however -- ASA is significantly less soluble than APAP in water, especially cold water, so it's better-suited to the procedure (except that you probably have to crush the tabs to get them to dissolve). and it's significantly better for your liver; the hepatotoxicity with APAP is a unique feature of APAP that ASA doesn't have.
as far as removing the caffeine; well, unfortunately i think caffeine can form stable salts, probably caffeine citrate and caffeine phosphate. however- i've never seen caffeine listed as a salt in any product, so i think it's probably caffeine base, which is kinda soluble in water.
isolation of caffeine (usually with methylene chloride) is a fairly basic organic procedure you should be able to find easily (probably like 56000 colleges have the procedure on the web). this will remove any non-polarized species from the aqueous layer and leave polarized species (which are more interesting) behind.
of course, what i mean by that is that you're going to be doing it on coffee, and you're going to remove the caffeine and leave behind those coffee-related proteins and such.
cough.
roches' probably-useless notes: in theory caffeine may enolize or something in the presence of phosphate (although i didn't check the structure of the enolate so i can't be sure) and be more polar than you'd expect.
in which case you'd have to go more hardcore.
really, unless you have some huge problem with caffeine, just leave it there.
on the other hand, forcing you to take APAP or ASA with your codeine is just silly, and you really shouldn't be expected to deal with it. the caffeine, btw, is just for legal requirements -- "codeine plus two non-controlled ingredients".
so yes, the damn junkies ruined codeine for you. blame them.
them, and the people who added the methyl group.

 

[djtonedeaf]

thanks for the replies...
I know 100-150mg caffeine is fuck all, and I may just end up of leaving it in there if I get lazy or can't get the isolation method Roches cited to work easily, but I *will* be taking this stuff before bed, and I am also morally opposed to combining even a weak opiate with shite like caffeine.
I have found in the past that codeine basically blows for euphoria but works pretty good as an analgesic without raising my tolerance for other opiates too much.
and the 222's are dirt fuckin cheap...
therefore: I may be using the codeine for the next little while.
Roches: the bottle lists the caffeine content as "15mg Caffeine Tablets USP equivalent to 30mg caffeine citrate," which leads me to believe it is not in stable salt form...what do you think?
edited for clarity
[This message has been edited by djtonedeaf (edited 01 October 2001).]

 

[canada girl]

Don't worry about the mixture of codeine / caffeine. I take these all the time (God I love living in Canada !!!!! ) and I usually never feel any caffeine effects.