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

We’ll just smoked what the Kleen strip pulled, the end extract was still super bitter but didn’t have a lot of pod extract to extract since I’m waiting on a package of pods today so will to a bigger extract next time, can’t say for sure what was pulled but what the aceton pulled was bitter and what it left behind wasn’t, and even tho I only had a tiny bit to smoke my runny nose n watery eyes seem to have stopped, I feel like aceton wash is a winner but I’ll have to play with it some more…it does seem like the first extract with the denature benzene pulled a lot more then just pure acetone, I wonder if the benzen changed the pH of the acetone or somthing ? And Is there a way I can lower the pH of acetone without worrying about anything leftover in the extract ?
 
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I think what is going to make cartels the most money is simplifying their supply chain. And isolating and selling codeine probably doesn't help with that.
 
Don't they do the conversion in 55 gallon drums over a campfire? They are cooks, not chemists.

I do wonder when the heroin conversion is done for the more pure forms. It might be done "in the field" and then further purification done in actual labs. Anyone?

Las Veghost grower, I will be following you experiments. I play around with small quantities of pods and seeds, an easy method of making a smokeable thing would be fun.
 
The reason why I’m doubtful of the acetone extraction, is this would be assuming the alkaloids were in their freebase form as I’m unsure how well the salts would dissolve. Problem is the alkaloids come in salt form (I think meconate being one) from my memory. This is why a simple tea with no acid added is possible, but also means more non-polar solvents will have difficulty.

I don’t want to hamper creative experimentation, you never know.. But just putting that out there.

-GC
 
Both codeine & thebaine are toxic - almost as toxic as morphine (but you cannot get tolerance). In short, both cause seizures. They are also both minor constituents of opium. You don't lose much by removing them (and since extracting morphine from opium is so easy.... why make the work?

I HAVE noted that it seems US law enforcement is either asleep at the wheel, or they would rather have US citizens die using a drug that does not support The Talliban.
I had assumed maybe hundreds of analogues had turned up one by one - keeping the product technically legal. But nope, it's plain fentanyl. Prices:

1Kg fentanyl $4150
1Kg heroin $6000

BUT if you know the story of George Marquardt who was making alpha methyl fentanyl in 1981.... he chose that analogue because it's safer and it's duration is about the same as heroin. He did not want the very existence of his designed drug known (and it took 6 years to find). It was made in Wichita, shipped to the west coast and cut into H so 1Kg of '100% H' became 2Kg of '100% H'.

Chemistry has come a long way so someone would have to solve 2 things. 1 a compound whose fragments will have very similar (ideally the same) GCMS retention time AND would not show up on an NMR (or, rather, would overlay an identical moiety). Still findable - but ONLY when you know it's in there.

So what you need, is a fair amount of something that is cheap (a masking agent) and a compound researchers wold take 1-2 years to confirm.

You can make lotto money in those 2 years before people start adding up.... so you are gone in 18 months.

A narrow field.

Lastly - why do working chemists HAVE a name? No use of ANY digital hardware without an air-gap is a requirement. The thing is, you do not want to be known. Fame in felony is real.
 
Becauze its cheapest just to treat crude opium extract with acetic anhydride and call it a day.

Codeine will become acetylated at the non aromatic hydroxy group (allylic one) making a compound better than Codeine (anyone know the name?)

But to demethylate codienes aromatic methoxy into morphine then acetylate....it's just not worth that extra step.

More steps, more reagents needed. Too much hassle.
 
Fertile said:
Chemistry has come a long way so someone would have to solve 2 things. 1 a compound whose fragments will have very similar (ideally the same) GCMS retention time AND would not show up on an NMR (or, rather, would overlay an identical moiety). Still findable - but ONLY when you know it's in there.
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This wouldn't fool any toxicologist or analytical chemist.

Differentiation between two similar compounds with the same retention time and exact same mass is very easy using triple quad gcms/ms using SIM (selective ion monitoring) or MRM (multiple reacrion monitoring) . If the masses are different with the same retention time it's even easier and the whole point of using a MASS spectrometer...to differentiate by mass, not retention time like UV backends.

But for same retention time and same mass...

The two different compounds will fragment differently and even the same fragments if they happen to make them will be produced at different ratios relevative to the unfragmented ion measured first. So you look at these ratios. It might be 90% fragment. Peak area for compounds A and 10% fragments peak area for compound B, relative to the peak area of the non fragmented ionized compound.

You can also find unique fragments produced by one compound that aren't produced by the other and monitor them using SIM. This makes the problem of same retention times and same mass of two different compounds obsolete.

Overlapping retention times are not an issue at all using triple quad MS which is a mmainstsy of any tox lab.

Lool.at SIM or MRM (multiple reaction monitoring) chromatograms common in.any high end drug testing or tox lab. You see multiple overlapping peaks pf decreasing height for a single compound. These are 1) the unfragmented compound at full mass 2) fragment, 3).other fragments. Then you just look at the area ratios or unique fragments not produced by the other compound of same retention time and its completely distinguishable which compound is which and you can even quantitate the amounts of each RT overlapping compound.using calibration curves and standards. Without chromatography separation.

But if you do want to separate the stationary phase technology is so advanced now that you can separate even epimers.

Then add in pre analysis functionalization like used in analyzing vitamin D isomers of the exact same mass and retention time (PTAD) derivatization and it gets even easier.

Plenty of tools to solve this problem.



And if you're talking someone making two different compounds with identical Hnmr amd Cnmr spectra (which is impossible)....2D nmr techniques like cosy would make quick work of realizing there are different compounds in there.
 
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LucidSDreamr said:
Becauze its cheapest just to treat crude opium extract with acetic anhydride and call it a day.

Codeine will become acetylated at the non aromatic hydroxy group (allylic one) making a compound better than Codeine (anyone know the name?)

But to demethylate codienes aromatic methoxy into morphine then acetylate....it's just not worth that extra step.

More steps, more reagents needed. Too much hassle.
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No it's not, because it takes 7-10Kg of opium to make 1Kg of heroin so you would need much larger volumes of AA (and all of the associated costs such as larger vessels that need more energy to heat). Calcium hydroxide and ammonium chloride are amazingly cheap.
There is a LOT of competition within Afghanistan to make the H as cheaply as possible - and so if they all settle on the same method (and many were tried), it's the cheapest - be sure of it.
 
Fertile said:
No it's not, because it takes 7-10Kg of opium to make 1Kg of heroin so you would need much larger volumes of AA (and all of the associated costs such as larger vessels that need more energy to heat). Calcium hydroxide and ammonium chloride are amazingly cheap.
There is a LOT of competition within Afghanistan to make the H as cheaply as possible - and so if they all settle on the same method (and many were tried), it's the cheapest - be sure of it.
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This is a very good point. I don’t think it has to do with price though but availability. In Mexico we see acetylation of crude/opium to get black tar heroin and they are known to go cheapest routes possible. Acetic anhydride is probably much easier to source in Mexico than it is Afghanistan, so the need to purify to save on reagents is much less.

-GC
 
G_Chem said:
This is a very good point. I don’t think it has to do with price though but availability. In Mexico we see acetylation of crude/opium to get black tar heroin and they are known to go cheapest routes possible. Acetic anhydride is probably much easier to source in Mexico than it is Afghanistan, so the need to purify to save on reagents is much less.

-GC
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But it will cost more, for the other reasons I mentioned.

Above is a link to exactly how uneducated Afghans produce almost 100% pure diamorphine with no special equipment or hard to obtain (or expensive) chemicals.

It takes 70Kg of crude opium to make 3.9Kg of white heroin... but as I understand it, US heroin is rubbish. In the UK it's common to come across 85% product. Competition has driven quality up.

But the intermediate brown heroin is what is usually seen. It's the bulk of the European market. The white diamorphine hydrochloride is for rich people to snort... and to destroy their lives with.

I also wonder if Mastering The Internet prevents people in Mexico from viewing the above document.
 
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So “uneducated” Afghans can make pure diamorphine but Mexicans with infinitely more access to things like the internet “can’t access” the above article. Sounds like a major stretch to me..

Also you have to factor in the time and reagents it takes to purify the morphine out which are taken out of equation with black tar.

US used to have very pure heroin but fentanyl and greed chwnged all that. Just depended where one was located, west coast was all tar.

What makes more sense is once again the Mexicans have streamlined a process to make crude extract into a heroin product people will buy. Mexican cannabis is the same way, it’s not about quality it’s about how much and how fast it can be produced.

-GC
 
Fertile said:
But it will cost more, for the other reasons I mentioned.

Above is a link to exactly how uneducated Afghans produce almost 100% pure diamorphine with no special equipment or hard to obtain (or expensive) chemicals.

It takes 70Kg of crude opium to make 3.9Kg of white heroin... but as I understand it, US heroin is rubbish. In the UK it's common to come across 85% product. Competition has driven quality up.

But the intermediate brown heroin is what is usually seen. It's the bulk of the European market. The white diamorphine hydrochloride is for rich people to snort... and to destroy their lives with.

I also wonder if Mastering The Internet prevents people in Mexico from viewing the above document.
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I dont understand how using extra steps and reagents is cheaper. That makes no sense and they don't give a shit about have some 6 monoacetyl codeine in there.

I mean an extra step in large scale synthesis is shitload of extra work and time.

Most hard addicts tolerances are so high they even prefer fent, further lowering the demand for heroin. Heroin won't even get American addicts well.

On the east coast pure fent won't even get the addicts well because their fent has xylazine also.

More reagents (more attention)...a whole extra step. Why would they do that for the US market?
 
G_Chem said:
So “uneducated” Afghans can make pure diamorphine but Mexicans with infinitely more access to things like the internet “can’t access” the above article. Sounds like a major stretch to me..

Also you have to factor in the time and reagents it takes to purify the morphine out which are taken out of equation with black tar.

US used to have very pure heroin but fentanyl and greed chwnged all that. Just depended where one was located, west coast was all tar.

What makes more sense is once again the Mexicans have streamlined a process to make crude extract into a heroin product people will buy. Mexican cannabis is the same way, it’s not about quality it’s about how much and how fast it can be produced.

-GC
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Time MIGHT be a factor. But you understand that the Afghans pipeline the process? While the barrels of crude morphine are settling out overnight, they start the next batch. By your streamlining theory, someone's time would have to be worth a HUGE amount.

But It's the fact the US WILL accept the product. If anything, all the smarter Mexicans work in fentanyl labs so maybe these really are people with little to no knowledge just doing the best they can.

I see it sells for $1075-2000 Kg in bulk. One 6th to one 3rd the price of Afghan brown heroin.

Oh, and fentanyl is worth about $4000/kg and that does require some real-ish chemistry.

If you can get tar for $1075, you can convert to $6000 brown and as long as the cost is under $2000/Kg,
you have a profit. MAYBE tar was intended to be purified by intermediates? But they are all off making F now.
 
Fertile said:
Time MIGHT be a factor. But you understand that the Afghans pipeline the process? While the barrels of crude morphine are settling out overnight, they start the next batch. By your streamlining theory, someone's time would have to be worth a HUGE amount.

But It's the fact the US WILL accept the product. If anything, all the smarter Mexicans work in fentanyl labs so maybe these really are people with little to no knowledge just doing the best they can.

I see it sells for $1075-2000 Kg in bulk. One 6th to one 3rd the price of Afghan brown heroin.

Oh, and fentanyl is worth about $4000/kg and that does require some real-ish chemistry.

If you can get tar for $1075, you can convert to $6000 brown and as long as the cost is under $2000/Kg,
you have a profit. MAYBE tar was intended to be purified by intermediates? But they are all off making F now.
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Remember too that tar isn’t pure…

“..black tar heroin seems to plateau at about 25–30% pure…”

So $1500 for a kg of black tar is the same as $6000 for pure heroin. Except no processing.

The only downside is ease of transport which is why black tar has not made it far from source of production.

-GC
 
But I see it sells for as little as $17/gram.... (UNODC figures).

So with all the middlemen (and their will still be several), almost no profit.

But the STREET price of proper Afghan brown is $90/gram if you know people. (here in the UK) but it's a lot more for much less pure in the US, I believe.

I mean - how much do people pay for 87% pure Afghan? Because that is how pure it is......

People ARE desperate if they will risk 20-life for the amounts involved. Madness - and in a nation where so many scaffolds are still not legally controlled. Seems like first out were medicinal chemists when fentanyl hit - they presumed they wold never need anything else.
 
Not to talk prices but no way a gram goes for 17$, that’s not right. That’s probably the absolute lowest it’s ever been ever.

-GC
 
G_Chem said:
Not to talk prices but no way a gram goes for 17$, that’s not right. That’s probably the absolute lowest it’s ever been ever.

-GC
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UNODC figures.

But how do they GET them? Maybe a GOG threw in for a weight?
 
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