Why don't Heroin makers make use of the Codeine and Theibane in the opium to maximize profits?

[User145667]

Hello again BL. I deleted all like 200 (give or take) past posts and had quit this forum. But I had this question pop in my head the other day that I'd really like to have an answer to.

Granted, maybe making Oxy/hydro/bupe/Dilaudid/opana from the Theibane would be too complex, not sure. But surely they could at least extract all the Codeine and make Desomorphine (it's 8-10 times stronger than Morphine, 4-5 times stronger than Heroin. Basically black market Dilaudid from my understanding, more or less).

Now, of course, I'm not referring to them making crude, Russian krokodil that is filled with impurities, reagents, synthesis byproducts, etc. such as iodine and phosphorus. Rather, I mean a high quality synth that utilizes good purification techniques to make a highly pure, much safer Deso product. Similar to making good, pure, high quality heroin. Seems it would be cheap, easy, and highly lucrative thing to do. It would probably be a bigger hit than Heroin tbh.

Not that it matters, and I'm already done with the hard stuff anyways. But it just seems illogical to waste all those other alkaloids in the opium. They are just flushing millions of pounds of Codeine and Thebaine every year. Just seems wasteful and stupid from a business stand point. Not saying I want them to start doing something with it. But I can't really find a reason why they *wouldn't*.

Stay safe guys and God bless

 

[User145667]

Just thought about something. If there is any unreacted Codeine left in the desodil that could cause problems for IV users, seeing how shooting Codeine is apparently ridiculously unsafe

 

[Las Veghost grower]

What says they arnt making use of them ? And just selling it as heroin….

 

[User145667]

What says they arnt making use of them ? And just selling it as heroin….

I thought of this too. It's a good point. I guess there would be no reason to market it as something else when Heroin is already the go to, mainstream clandestine opiate.

Edit*
But then again, if you have a product that is that much more significantly stronger than Heroin, it would seem like a better idea to just sell it as its own thing for more money too tho

 

[Las Veghost grower]

Besides I’m pretty sure the crude extraction the do on the opium pulls a lot of the other opioids, I don’t think they are making a real attempt to single out morphine

 

[User145667]

Besides I’m pretty sure the crude extraction the do on the opium pulls a lot of the other opioids, I don’t think they are making a real attempt to single out morphine

From my understanding, they use the specific extraction techniques that Bayer used when they originally invented heroin, which I believe does isolate morphine specifically. Now, I'm sure it isn't fool proof, but if this is indeed the case, then all that leftover Codeine and Thebaine adds up fast

 

[Las Veghost grower]

From my understanding, they use the specific extraction techniques that Bayer used when they originally invented heroin, which I believe does isolate morphine specifically

Maybe , but I imagine they are pulling all the alkaloids and just finishing the process after that and whatever is in there is in there, they don’t give a shit

 

[Las Veghost grower]

For instance I’m pretty sure you can do a acetone was on crude poppy pod extract and pull all the alkaloids and leave 90% of the bullshit, from there they could just acetlyate it and call it a day

 

[User145667]

Maybe , but I imagine they are pulling all the alkaloids and just finishing the process after that and whatever is in there is in there, they don’t give a shit

Yeah I mean honestly this is probably true for black tar, seeing how crude it is. But I'm not so sure with the more refined stuff like #3 & 4. I'd imagine some of the other alkaloids are still getting through since it's not like they are gov't regulated. But still, it's kind of like wanting to avoid the bread on keto by squeezing the guts out of a hot pocket, but only eating the pepperonis and throwing away all the cheese. Inevitably some of the pepperonis are going to have a bit of cheese on them, but then why throw away all that valuable protein when you can utilize it

 

[Las Veghost grower]

Yeah I mean honestly this is probably true for black tar, seeing how crude it is. But I'm not so sure with the more refined stuff like #3 & 4. I'd imagine some of the other alkaloids are still getting through since it's not like they are gov't regulated. But still, it's kind of like wanting to avoid the bread on keto by squeezing the guts out of a hot pocket, but only eating the pepperonis and throwing away all the cheese. Inevitably some of the pepperonis are going to have a bit of cheese on them, but then why throw away all that valuable protein when you can utilize it

I don’t think #3 and #4 are anywhere near as refined as most would like to believe

 

[User145667]

Here

Besides I’m pretty sure the crude extraction the do on the opium pulls a lot of the other opioids, I don’t think they are making a real attempt to single out morphine

Here is a quote from Erowid:

"After the extraction is complete, the alcohol extract is filtered to remove the undissolved particulate matter. The alcohol itself is then removed from the extracted alkaloids, preferably by evaporation under reduced pressure. The resulting residue, which contains the alkaloids, is mixed or extracted with an basic aqueous solution having a pH of at least 11, preferably an aqueous solution of an alkali hydroxide. This converts the morphine free base present into its anionic (morphinate) form which is soluble in basic solutions of pH values of 11 or above. **Other opium alkaloids are relatively insoluble and, in general, at least partially precipitate out of the basic aqueous solution**. After removing any precipitate, preferably by filtration, **the remaining alkaloids are separated from the morphinecontaining basic aqueous solution by extraction with a substantially water-immiscible solvent, such as toluene or benzene**. Finally, the morphine free base is precipitated out of the resulting aqueous solution by adjusting the pH of the aqueous filtrate to pH 8.5 to 9.5."

 

[User145667]

I don’t think #3 and #4 are anywhere near as refined as most would like to believe

Well like I say in the above comment, it appears isolation of morphine from other alkaloids isn't all that hard to do.

 

[User145667]

Well like I say in the above comment, it appears isolation of morphine from other alkaloids isn't all that hard to do.

But it could be that Codeine is a little harder to isolate though

 

[Las Veghost grower]

Here

Here is a quote from Erowid:

"After the extraction is complete, the alcohol extract is filtered to remove the undissolved particulate matter. The alcohol itself is then removed from the extracted alkaloids, preferably by evaporation under reduced pressure. The resulting residue, which contains the alkaloids, is mixed or extracted with an basic aqueous solution having a pH of at least 11, preferably an aqueous solution of an alkali hydroxide. This converts the morphine free base present into its anionic (morphinate) form which is soluble in basic solutions of pH values of 11 or above. **Other opium alkaloids are relatively insoluble and, in general, at least partially precipitate out of the basic aqueous solution**. After removing any precipitate, preferably by filtration, **the remaining alkaloids are separated from the morphinecontaining basic aqueous solution by extraction with a substantially water-immiscible solvent, such as toluene or benzene**. Finally, the morphine free base is precipitated out of the resulting aqueous solution by adjusting the pH of the aqueous filtrate to pH 8.5 to 9.5."

I’m not saying they can’t do it, I’m saying I doubt they do

 

[User145667]

I’m not saying they can’t do it, I’m saying I doubt they do

But this is just standard procedure. The whole point is to try and make premo product. Premo product means more customers, better advertisment and word spreading, and more repeat customers. No one goes into it trying to make a sub par product because lower purity means less net product which means less net money. Drug Lords have standards too. It's the middle men And peddlers that ef the product up most times. The whole point is to isolate the morphine, otherwise why even bother? You might as well just make polish heroin to sell to everyone if you are just going to extract the alkaloids with no intention on isolating the morphine

 

[Las Veghost grower]

But this is just standard procedure. The whole point is to try and make premo product. Premo product means more customers, better advertisment and word spreading, and more repeat customers. No one goes into it trying to make a sub par product because lower purity means less net product which means less net money. Drug Lords have standards too. It's the middle men And peddlers that ef the product up most times. The whole point is to isolate the morphine, otherwise why even bother? You might as well just make polish heroin to sell to everyone if you are just going to extract the alkaloids with no intention on isolating the morphine

I think your giving cartels to much credit, isolating the morphine loses weight, as you initial post suggested, more weight = more money, as long as it’s a decent product it will sell

 

[plumbus-nine]

I think the cartels are just kinda lazy because they make enough $$$ with their traditional business, there's no need to be creative. They just adopted fentanyl because it is so insanely potent. They could also do counterfeit oxys with a legal fentanyl derivate but why, when the conservative approach works. They don't care about the little fishes being caught and prosecuted, as long as people will buy fake oxys, heroin #3 and cocaine/levomisole they do this. Levamisole is the most 'creative' thing we'll see from these old, established cartels. Sadly, I'd love to see stuff like legal precursors being sold in 'make your drug at home' kits, where mixing two chems will yield the wanted drug but only the last do-me-at-home step involving illegal chemicals. Granted, such an attempt wouldn't last long and the chems would be put under precursor surveillance but still, would give them 1 or 2 years of legal business for each combination. Maybe I'm seeing this too casually and it's harder than I'd think to come up with something like that,

 

[G_Chem]

Well like I say in the above comment, it appears isolation of morphine from other alkaloids isn't all that hard to do.

You haven’t necessarily proven acetone extraction works yet, don’t put the cart before the horse.

-GC

 

[Las Veghost grower]

You haven’t necessarily proven acetone extraction works yet, don’t put the cart before the horse.

-GC

I did do a extract using Kleen strip acetone, msds says 100% acetone and nothing els added, didn’t do the epsom bake/dehydrate of the acetone but I figure any moisture that made it into the acetone should be negligible for this particular extract, it’s dried out but Im waiting for it to harden a bit before I try to scrape it, but it does look promising at this moment, I should know by tomorrow, I’ll wait till I’m in mild pod wd then give it a smoke, it does run on foil, kinda , so we’ll see tomorrow..if it does work and pulls the good stuff I think my next experiment will be boiling it in some glacial acetic acid for a while and see what happens there, hopefully make it more available

 

[Nurse Ratched]

Great thread and a keeping it real convo but it's really a drug culture kind of thread.

Gonna move it.

BDD > DC