09-30-2013, 05:58 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Krokodil
Quote:
Methadone (a synthetic opioid) is a strong pain killer that is only recently being used as such in the US. It does, however, have some links with some heart problems which is why Lee can no longer take it and is back on opioids again. Chronic pain sucks.
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09-30-2013, 06:07 PM | #13 | |
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Satsuma, Fl
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Re: Krokodil
Quote:
Last edited by Libertine; 09-30-2013 at 06:08 PM. Reason: Spelling |
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10-01-2013, 04:24 AM | #14 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Krokodil
Quote:
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10-01-2013, 02:04 PM | #15 |
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Athens, GA
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Re: Krokodil
Is there any reason why an acid-base extraction wouldn't clean this up? Some of the meth that comes from home labs is ridiculously pure (much more so than it used to be) and it is, as far as I can tell, the same reaction (RP/I).
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10-01-2013, 02:09 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Krokodil
Poor quality drugs are not usually made because it's actually impossible to make them better -- just more expensive, and the makers are rarely concerned with the health of their buyers.
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10-01-2013, 02:10 PM | #17 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Krokodil
Pure desomorphine can be extracted, I'm sure. I don't know if it makes sense to do the extraction on a protonated solution or not (I really try to avoid working out pathways for controlled substances). I doubt that it can be easily extracted with stovetop methods and household chemicals by somebody with no organic chemistry background while withdrawing from heroin.
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10-01-2013, 02:29 PM | #18 |
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Athens, GA
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Re: Krokodil
You'd be surprised. I always found crystallization to be a bear, but I know meth cooks that can do it blindfolded. How would you get the codeine without an a/b extraction to begin with? In the US ephedrine has all kinds of glue in it so you can't just chuck it into your reaction. What level of chemistry knowledge is required to synth basic illegals? Is it a technique? Can I have a 15 in Birch reduction and know nothing about o-chem? I could probably rank the various reactions: distilling alcohol, Birch reduction, RP/I, Sandemeyer reduction of GABA, etc with LSD as the holy grail.
My gut feeling is that the culture hasn't caught up and that you'll be having pharmaceutically pure desomorphine on the streets within a few years. My reading suggests other paths that produce much stronger drugs with uncontrolled reagents. The only thing that keeps heroin down is the availability of acetic anhydride. If the cooks have found a way around that...well, maybe we'll have legalization before too many people die horribly. |
10-01-2013, 02:32 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Krokodil
The chemistry skill is for figuring out a recipe for turning your available ingredients into finished product. If a recipe is available, the skill to turn it into a finished product isn't even chemistry, it's pharmacology -- except, of course, that whenever a good recipe is available for one set of ingredients, they go and make one of those ingredients unavailable.
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10-01-2013, 02:49 PM | #20 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Krokodil
The specific details of these processes are not really suitable for discussion here, but we can speak in generalities . . .
While I'm a physicist and not a chemist by education, I was friends with many people my age whose parents were doing this stuff in the 1960s. Most of it starts with basic solvent extractions: find something that the desirable stuff dissolves in but the binders/impurities do not. That's the simplest process, but while it's safe when it's cold water (e.g., getting codeine out of acetominophen-codeine mixtures), it's far from safe when it's something like CCl4 stolen from the janitor's closet or an old fire extinguisher. The same goes for any synthesis involving surface catalysis . . . just bust open an old car exhaust or battery and go for it. The dangers are often more in the cost-cutting and use of poorly understood gear than in bad chemistry per se – I absolutely agree that it should be possible for total non-chemists to learn these processes, probably as One-Task Wonder perks, but that those without Chemistry can't follow up with good judgment on cleaning up the end product.
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