Harm Reduction What do we Really KNOW about the safety of shooting Micron Filtered Pills

[romealone]

In any thread, in any drug forum, the moment someone mentions IV'ing a pill, he is met with the inevitable chorus of "IV'ing pills is a terrible idea, but if you have to do it, use a micron filter".

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree that no one should be shooting pills without micron filtering first. There is just no other way to filter out particles smaller than around 50 microns.

But for those that use sterile water and micron filter their pills, what do we really know about the overall safety? In theory I would think that it would be no worse than IV'ing pharmaceutical grade solutions. If one uses a 0.22 micron filter with sterile water, that is sufficient to filter out even the smallest bacteria (most bacteria are in the 5 micron range...some much bigger, others much smaller). Regardless if you are filtering out everything but particles smaller than 1/5th of a micron, what are the dangers. I know viruses are often smaller than 0.22 so that's a potential concern.

I am not advocating the safety of shooting micron filtered pills, just hoping some people might have ideas as to what dangers might exist that are not occurring to me.

Lastly, I would take a micron filtered pill shot over a cotton filtered street drug any day. I'm often confused when I see people who shoot street drugs act horrified by those who shoot pills, even when micron filtered. With street drugs u have NO idea what contaminants are present and are using a very ineffective filter in the form of cotton.

 

[dirzted]

THIS is a VERY good question. I would say (given my, also, sporadic internet knowledge) that it is comparable to minor side effects from different ROA's. However, there is a wide variability there, so it is hard to say specifically, my guess is that although minor effects could still occur, mainly from the simple use of a needle (contamination, possible immune system complications from a weakened skin defense, quality of gear etc.), the drug solution itself being filtered HAS to contain particles that are damaging, however miniscule.

In this way I would compare it to another more moderate ROA, such as occasional inhalation. Hard to think of analogous examples since the problems arising from IV use effect a completely different system of the body then intranasal use or oral use.

*The main reason for the advocation of micron filtration, that should not be forgotten in this question, is the DRASTIC and EXPONENTIAL reduction in harm that micron filters provide relative to other methods (such as cigarette filters or cotton).