Harm Reduction wheel filter sizes, pore sizes, and filter material for different drugs

[hydroazuanacaine]

i know what filter i like: 13mm, PES, .22um. but i use them almost exclusively for lab drugs in 1cc syringes with a 3cc luer-lok syringe with the inlet twist and the outlet smooth to work the filter. the nonprofit i'm working with has good access to those 3cc luer-lok syringes, and most filters are compatible, so sticking with that is likely.

most users in the city i moved to last year don't even know what a wheel filter is. cottons are the standard. i want to change that.

• .22um, 13mm, PES is good for cocaine, crack, and meth right?
• do dope users need .45um and then .22 because .22 will clog (it's east coast powder cut wit heavily with dormin here or raw, which is cheaper per gram and less potent than raw in some other cities)?
• can they use just a .45 or is skipping the .22 significant?
• what about pill injectors?
• is 13mm big enough for all substances?
• should i maybe go with nylon, assuming users are not pushing the solution through slowly?
• will nylon and PES stand up to the acidity involved in shooting crack (if the solution is even acidic once ready to be pulled into the syringe)?
• etc.

what wheel filters are best for which drugs? is there one that's good for all? how do we get users to switch from cottons, especially because it takes so much longer and two syringes for one shot?

thanks

 

[JTemperance]

i know what filter i like: 13mm, PES, .22um. but i use them almost exclusively for lab drugs in 1cc syringes with a 3cc luer-lok syringe with the inlet twist and the outlet smooth to work the filter. the nonprofit i'm working with has good access to those 3cc luer-lok syringes, and most filters are compatible, so sticking with that is likely.

most users in the city i moved to last year don't even know what a wheel filter is. cottons are the standard. i want to change that.

• .22um, 13mm, PES is good for cocaine, crack, and meth right?
• do dope users need .45um and then .22 because .22 will clog (it's east coast powder cut wit heavily with dormin here or raw, which is cheaper per gram and less potent than raw in some other cities)?
• can they use just a .45 or is skipping the .22 significant?
• what about pill injectors?
• is 13mm big enough for all substances?
• should i maybe go with nylon, assuming users are not pushing the solution through slowly?
• will nylon and PES stand up to the acidity involved in shooting crack (if the solution is even acidic once ready to be pulled into the syringe)?
• etc.

what wheel filters are best for which drugs? is there one that's good for all? how do we get users to switch from cottons, especially because it takes so much longer and two syringes for one shot?

thanks

Nylon and PES stand up to the acidity of black tar heroin (before the addition of baking soda). I just got 13mm Nylon 0.22um filters since the deals I had gottne on the PVDF and then PES versions had disappeared, and it seems to work fine.

13mm is probably big enough for at least a single or double dose of most usual things, maybe not the larger pills or multiples (but a quarter or half of an average-sized pill has worked). The small size has been a pain on occasion when the solution was very dirty even after pre-filtering (BTH again), requiring prolonged forceful pushing of the plunger (but leaving a transparent solution once it went through).

With that batch, filtering with 0.45um first was useful, but usually even with BTH a third or half of a roll-your-own cigarette filter is adequate for pre-filtering and Chicago dope can't be worse. Using *something* to filter before putting it in the 0.22um does seem necessary, and a cotton or cig filter might absorb a bit more solution than a 13mm 0.45um wheel, especially if not squeezed out.

Once, I noticed visible particulates after filtering a solution through a 0.45um filter, but this may have been a one-off mishap (e.g. broken membrane) because on other occasions I think it looked alright; logically, the fact that Sterifilts get almost all visible particulates out of solution at a much lower threshold leads me to believe 0.45 is alright for practical HR purposes and a huge improvement over cottons.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

PES seems like the way to go. even though you have to wait a bit longer pushing the solution through PES vs nylon, if we can get them to use them at all we can get them to wait the extra bit of time. nylon filters are popular and relatively easy to find for cheap, but no where near as easy to find as PES.

if it's dope and has to go though a cotton filter before the .22um, that might be fine. the org doesn't seem to have a shortage of cotton filters. problem is, you lose more drug to a cotton filter than to a wheel. if cottons were removed completely, iv safety packets would be simpler to prepare and the resulting shots would be stronger so users would embrace the switch. .45um only might be the answer, but that would make me sad knowing people could be having such cleaner shots. still better than the current, these little cottons.

i had found some before, but cannot now. can anyone provide me studies showing the effectiveness of wheel filters versus cotton at removing particulates from drug solutions? i need to convince the local needle exchange, who had not even heard of wheel filters, how much safer they make injecting than using a cotton alone. one that i had found that was very clear and easy to understand used rizla brand cigarette filters in the comparisons, as apparently that big filter was very popular among iv users.

 

[Gaffy]

Safe contact by any means? I get these 22u filters aswell

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

cra is not currently interested. i need to collect, organize, and present info to convince them it's important. i don't really have this fight in my right now. if the local needle exchange isn't into the, how are things going to change. i'm not giving up. i just need a moment.

 

[Wishdoctor79]

Oh dream on about getting lab wheel filters from a needle exchange. If any country was rich enough to give them to addicts, the corona panic is gonna be cutting budgets. Dental cottons were written about by William Burroughs way back and that's what you'll get for free and you'd get better filtration from a thick quality paper coffee filter like Chemex brand if they still make that. Cut off a small cone and drip with filter paper in a small funnel. It's just capturing visible grit. Or capturing hopefully most of the waxes and oils that comprise the unclean and impure drug from Mexico called black tar heroin (BTH). Dental cottons or cigarette filters are for reducing your intake of the waxes and oils into the bloodstream . Think about that for a minute. And I'm glad to say that I don't know and don't want to know about wheel filters for BTH, so maybe skip the rest of this rant.

But wheel filters are essential! I had an undiagnosed long-term bone infection in one foot that lasted eight years that started when I was doing cold water extraction of hydro/apap tablets and the very obvious cause was some chunk of powder that went into my veins and then lodged in a bone in my foot and then my body fought it for 8 long years of pain and podiatrist told me i had Morton's Neuroma and PCP found me diabetic which was needed to be qualified for the orthotic shoes to treat the symptoms of my bone infection and wow they gave me Suboxone for the pain and metformin for the diabetes caused by the chronic pain and stress compounded by poor diet, of course. But what doesn't kill you makes one stronger.

Get the best wheel filters you can find and ditch those cottons. Area goes as r-squared and 13 mm or 23 mm are just never or maybe just sometimes not big enough. With a 33-mm 0.22 micron filter made of PES with a glass fiber prefilter (Membrane Solutions, sterile but for labs only, .less than a buck each delivered) I'd rather occasionally reuse those 33-mm filters "for all seasons" than be dealing with the tiny ones that always plug up too early it seems. But I don't filter every day, rather my usual is to fill a 20-ml or 30-ml sterile rubber-topped vial with a water solution of whatever, for use by IM only and never IV!

Get the 0.22-micron unless the 0.45 is way cheaper.

My two cents. OH, if you're filtering heroin or hydromorphone, etc., save the filter medium because they're like little pain pills to take orally. Crack open the plastic of the wheel filters if it's worth doing so. Dry them in the sun and put away for a rainy day.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

this won't work. chicago doesn't know what wheel filters are. the local needle exchange doesn't like them. i can't do anything to help these people. i can't help myself.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

got 200 hundred of these now and the local needle exchange doesn't even want them. i know 200 isn't enough, but it could have been a start while we figured out how to get more. instead people shooting up with cotton filters and calling that hr. and that chicago dope is cheap and cut to fuck dormin with who knows what else. what can you do. at least they're using clean needles, sterile water, and getting tested if they're going to the exchange.

gotta figure out some way to convince the exchange that cotton filters are not the way, find some other way of passing them out, or donating to some other city's exchange that does know what's up. really wish i could get chicago to switch to wheel filters. it's such an obvious choice.

i figured out how to get the good pes ones at 33 cents a piece. could work out a deal for even less if we could get a grant and but them in bulk.

kinda wish i woulda got .45 so they'd work for dope without any pre-filtering, but i try to treat people like i treat myself and i wouldn't wanna shoot anything that hand't gone through .22um.

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

Chicago "looks" like a world class metropolis but often "acts" like a one horse town.

Kudos for your effort, keep it up!

 

[JTemperance]

PES seems like the way to go. even though you have to wait a bit longer pushing the solution through PES vs nylon, if we can get them to use them at all we can get them to wait the extra bit of time. nylon filters are popular and relatively easy to find for cheap, but no where near as easy to find as PES.

if it's dope and has to go though a cotton filter before the .22um, that might be fine. the org doesn't seem to have a shortage of cotton filters. problem is, you lose more drug to a cotton filter than to a wheel. if cottons were removed completely, iv safety packets would be simpler to prepare and the resulting shots would be stronger so users would embrace the switch. .45um only might be the answer, but that would make me sad knowing people could be having such cleaner shots. still better than the current, these little cottons.

i had found some before, but cannot now. can anyone provide me studies showing the effectiveness of wheel filters versus cotton at removing particulates from drug solutions? i need to convince the local needle exchange, who had not even heard of wheel filters, how much safer they make injecting than using a cotton alone. one that i had found that was very clear and easy to understand used rizla brand cigarette filters in the comparisons, as apparently that big filter was very popular among iv users.

Sorry for the 17 month delay, but I'd like to update what I wrote in the light of new experiences.

First of all, nylon seems to A-OK for filtering particulates in various forms (so it should work for Dormin as well). I've sampled PVDF, PES, and possibly even PTFE (hydrophilic) filters, and the differences haven't been too perceptible. (The difference between brands was more noticeable, actually.)

Second, my technique now doesn't involve a cotton filter. I draw up the murky solution straight into a 3ml barrel, then put it through a 0.45um wheel filter for the first pass, spraying it into a second 3ml barrel. After the first filtration, I take water and flush out the 0.45um filter, adding it to the other syringe, before twisting on the 0.22um filter and spraying it into the syringes being used for injection. This works very well, and at the 25mm size, it will usually last for several grams of BTH without a problem. The 0.45um filter absorbs the brunt of the particulates, so it has to be replaced more frequently than the 0.22um.

Third, I have recently had occasion to micron filter a "blue" pill (fentanyl) that was loaded with binders/excipients (weighing in at 110mg total for 1.5-2.0mg of active ingredient), and didn't really have trouble even passing it straight through a 0.22um wheel filter (a fresh one). So I think this bodes especially well for Chicago dope/cut, since it can't really be worse than a pressed pill like that.

Last, I've also tried to drum up interest around these wheel filters, without success or even much comprehension -- ironically it seems like Sterifilts have the higher profile despite being much less effective/affordable (and not very good with tar) as well as items of "drug paraphernalia" according to the US government. It breaks my heart, actually, since femoral injecting has gotten big over here and I am constantly seeing the ravages on the street (e.g. amputations) -- with wheel filters available, muscling could become a more attractive and safer option (since the abscess risk is so heavily reduced) compared with injecting in the femoral or jugular.

 

[BCski]

Sorry for the 17 month delay, but I'd like to update what I wrote in the light of new experiences.

First of all, nylon seems to A-OK for filtering particulates in various forms (so it should work for Dormin as well). I've sampled PVDF, PES, and possibly even PTFE (hydrophilic) filters, and the differences haven't been too perceptible. (The difference between brands was more noticeable, actually.)

Second, my technique now doesn't involve a cotton filter. I draw up the murky solution straight into a 3ml barrel, then put it through a 0.45um wheel filter for the first pass, spraying it into a second 3ml barrel. After the first filtration, I take water and flush out the 0.45um filter, adding it to the other syringe, before twisting on the 0.22um filter and spraying it into the syringes being used for injection. This works very well, and at the 25mm size, it will usually last for several grams of BTH without a problem. The 0.45um filter absorbs the brunt of the particulates, so it has to be replaced more frequently than the 0.22um.

Third, I have recently had occasion to micron filter a "blue" pill (fentanyl) that was loaded with binders/excipients (weighing in at 110mg total for 1.5-2.0mg of active ingredient), and didn't really have trouble even passing it straight through a 0.22um wheel filter (a fresh one). So I think this bodes especially well for Chicago dope/cut, since it can't really be worse than a pressed pill like that.

Last, I've also tried to drum up interest around these wheel filters, without success or even much comprehension -- ironically it seems like Sterifilts have the higher profile despite being much less effective/affordable (and not very good with tar) as well as items of "drug paraphernalia" according to the US government. It breaks my heart, actually, since femoral injecting has gotten big over here and I am constantly seeing the ravages on the street (e.g. amputations) -- with wheel filters available, muscling could become a more attractive and safer option (since the abscess risk is so heavily reduced) compared with injecting in the femoral or jugular.

Hi there. I was reading through this thread about micron filtering because I've never used one or even seen someone use one. I have several questions and hope most, if not all, could be answered.

I have Dilaudid pills and I know pill injection of risky, but want to see how I can do is as safely as possible.

1. Can I use a wheel filter to pull up (0.45 micron) the solution instead of using a cotton filter completely? I have read that some filters are unidirectional so I wasn't too sure if I could. It seems most people are pushing through. I only have 1mg pills, so I expect a lot of binders. If I avoid the cotton pre filter and use the wheel filter to draw up the mix, won't the filter clog up very quickly since I'd be using several pills?

2. If I can pull it up through the filter, should I use a needle on the end (I assume the filter has Luer locks)? It seems like that would only clog up the needle tip with binders. If I can't pull up through the .45 micron filter, would it be better to use a cotton pre filter to pull up the Dilaudid mix and then push through the 0.45 filter into a new barrel?

3. I would then plan to push through a .22 micron into a new barrel used for injecting.

Since I'm new to Dilaudid/pill injecting I'm not sure how much water to use per 1mg pills. If I were to use cotton as a pre filter, I'm sure it'll soak up most of the water, so I'd probably have to use more water??

When using these micron filters, how do you know when they are clogged up? Is it just harder to push through them? Is it even worth using both 0.45 and 0.22 micron filters for hydromorphone or just use the 0.22 filters?

Sorry if this sounds convoluted but I'm trying to figure a good and safe way to inject these pills. Maybe if I post this in the megathread of micron filtering as well, that someone may know???

Anyway, I really appreciate any help I can get.

Thanks