Creation Of Heroin

[motts]

I have been wondering this for a long time.

Powder vs. Tar

I am not really familiar with the creation of heroin.

Basically I am wondering how it's made....It goes from the Poppy Plant, to I am assuming some sort of chemical process. I am not wanting to actually do it but,

How does tar differ from powder? Is it just skipping some step in the process? Because powder is powder, and tar is a gooey sometime hard substance, so I am just wondering for the people that know the chemistry behind it what is actually happening and making the difference.

Thanks all.

[clonaze-whammed]

I have been wondering this for a long time.

Powder vs. Tar

I am not really familiar with the creation of heroin.

Basically I am wondering how it's made....It goes from the Poppy Plant, to I am assuming some sort of chemical process. I am not wanting to actually do it but,

How does tar differ from powder? Is it just skipping some step in the process? Because powder is powder, and tar is a gooey sometime hard substance, so I am just wondering for the people that know the chemistry behind it what is actually happening and making the difference.

Thanks all.

This article describes the Heroin creation process and difference between smokable and injectable forms of Heroin:

http://www.poppies.org/news/104267739031389.shtml

[Raz]

I gotta feelin this might of been answered b4, but i too am interested in this one..So hopefully one of the evil genuises will give us the lowdown???

In simple laymans terms or "Heroin for dummies" terms

[rachamim18]

Since we are not allowed to talk synth here, I will give you an outline, first a note.
The previous hyperlink is a DEA paper with ALOT of mistakes.

First, harvest your opium, lance at 3 mm, let sit during the afternoon hours to oxidise and thicken, harvest by scraping with a flat b;aded implement.

Take your opium, weight it out, and get your self an OUTDOOORS fire going although if you are smart you will use a lab burner to control the temps because it is all important during acetylation. You NEVER want to boil any part of this, including the opium.

Being vague again, combine opium with water and heat over your heat source until total dissolution. Filter through a very porous filter, taking your filtrate and returning it to simmer. First you add calcium in one of many forms, then ammonia, then again roughly filter.


The hyperlink is correct that this filtrate will be coffee coloured. Dry it thoroughly. If you want, and this is rarely done illicitly, you can convert that filtrate,m which is actually morphine freebase up to 70% pure, back into a salt, usually hcl. It is time consuming and outside the region I am in now rarely done.


Using either the freebase or salt, add a glacial acetic acid (GAA), usually Acetic Anhydride which works the best although Acetyl Chloride,etc. all wok as wel with adjustments to time and temp.

Heat for 3.5 to 6 hours , never exceeding 95 C, and you will have heroin acetate, a salt. This is converted to freebase by the addition of sodium carbonate (baking soda), then reconverted into salt via ether, ethyl alcohol, and so on.

You can decolourise it as well. Besides making it more palatable, it increases your overall purity by more than a few percentage points.

Hope I did not exceed the Mod's limits here with this.

[Papa Verine]

I have been wondering this for a long time.

Powder vs. Tar

I am not really familiar with the creation of heroin.

Basically I am wondering how it's made....It goes from the Poppy Plant, to I am assuming some sort of chemical process. I am not wanting to actually do it but,

How does tar differ from powder? Is it just skipping some step in the process? Because powder is powder, and tar is a gooey sometime hard substance, so I am just wondering for the people that know the chemistry behind it what is actually happening and making the difference.

Thanks all.

From what I understand, powder heroin is made by extracting mophine from opium and acetylating the morphine with Acetic andydride to form heroin (diacetyl morphine).

Black tar heroin is made by Acetylating opium, so the morphine in the opium turns to heroin but the final product is actually opium with heroin in it instead of opium with morphine.

If I'm correct, you can see why black tar heroin is considerably weaker then powder heroin (depending on how much the powder heroin is cut).

This is by no means a detailed description of the processes mentioned, but just to get the general idea of what the difference is between the two products... this is my understanding of it.

I could also be wrong whereas hopefully somebody corrects me.

[Thebane]

From what I understand, powder heroin is made by extracting mophine from opium and acetylating the morphine with Acetic andydride to form heroin (diacetyl morphine).

Black tar heroin is made by Acetylating opium, so the morphine in the opium turns to heroin but the final product is actually opium with heroin in it instead of opium with morphine.

If I'm correct, you can see why black tar heroin is considerably weaker then powder heroin (depending on how much the powder heroin is cut).

This is by no means a detailed description of the processes mentioned, but just to get the general idea of what the difference is between the two products... this is my understanding of it.

I could also be wrong whereas hopefully somebody corrects me.

This is what someone said in another thread, and while it makes sense wouldn't this mean that there is unreacted codeine sitting in tar? And doesn't codeine cause a horrible reaction when injected? Or is the dosage so small it doesn't matter? But at the same time isn't there at least 1/10 as much codeine as morphine, so it wouldn't be a negligible amount if someone was shooting many bags at once?

[SpecialGuy69]

From what I understand, powder heroin is made by extracting mophine from opium and acetylating the morphine with Acetic andydride to form heroin (diacetyl morphine).

Black tar heroin is made by Acetylating opium, so the morphine in the opium turns to heroin but the final product is actually opium with heroin in it instead of opium with morphine.

If I'm correct, you can see why black tar heroin is considerably weaker then powder heroin (depending on how much the powder heroin is cut).

This is by no means a detailed description of the processes mentioned, but just to get the general idea of what the difference is between the two products... this is my understanding of it.

I could also be wrong whereas hopefully somebody corrects me.Kinda.

You can't just mix acetic anhydride (AA) and opium and get black tar.

Basically the #4, "raw" type powder goes through extra purification steps before being acetylated w/AA. The tar guys make a trade-off: less pure product for more bulk. And the way you do that is by leaving some of the other stuff in with the morphine when you "cook" it into heroin.

And the #3 smoking heroin they get in europe is just the free base version- if you mixed it with solvent and bubbled HCl gas through it, you would get #4. Probably pretty clean stuff, too. I'm surprised more people dont do that in europe. Its almost the same thing they do in the spoon when they mix with citric. That converts the heroin freebase into heroin citrate instead of heroin hcl, but both are acid salts of the free base. End off topicness.

When it comes right down to the molecular level, though- they are the same exact deal. You can purify black tar into a straight 99% pure white powder if you have the chemicals, equipment and skills.

[Papa Verine]

This is what someone said in another thread, and while it makes sense wouldn't this mean that there is unreacted codeine sitting in tar? And doesn't codeine cause a horrible reaction when injected? Or is the dosage so small it doesn't matter? But at the same time isn't there at least 1/10 as much codeine as morphine, so it wouldn't be a negligible amount if someone was shooting many bags at once?

I'm not sure. This is why I asked someone to correct me if I was wrong. But once I read that tar was made from acetylating opium it made some sense. After all, why the fuck would heroin look like "black tar"?

You get some morphine, you acetylate with Acetic Anhydride and you get Diacetyl morphine. Why the "Black tar" appearance??? I just never understood it. And the only time I've ever done tar was when a friend brought some back from California and compared to the powder I was used to in chicago, I thought the tar was absolute garbage.

[motts]

Thanks for all the responses,

I hope we are not crossing any lines illegally or on this board. I just have access to tar/powder and was sitting down thinking about it...people make both substances. I have the potential to figure this out and make it or one day travel some where and see the process "in the works" I dunno it's just fascinating to me ...chemistry and taking a plant and processing it into such an addictive substance.

[SpecialGuy69]

I'm not sure. This is why I asked someone to correct me if I was wrong. But once I read that tar was made from acetylating opium it made some sense. After all, why the fuck would heroin look like "black tar"?

You get some morphine, you acetylate with Acetic Anhydride and you get Diacetyl morphine. Why the "Black tar" appearance??? I just never understood it. And the only time I've ever done tar was when a friend brought some back from California and compared to the powder I was used to in chicago, I thought the tar was absolute garbage.
pv- look above your post- I tried to 'splain it

[mollywopped]

Tar is not acetylated opium. It is made in a very similar way as powder heroin but the morphine they use to make it is not nearly as pure and they sub out some chemicals. Rachamin has pointed this out several times---The max morphine content in opium is usually 10-15%. So if tar were acetylated O, the max amount of heroin it could be would be 15%, the rest would be acetylcodeine, etc, etc. Since tar can be much much more pure than 15%, that shows that it is not acetylated O.

I have some good stuff from around the web from the DEA, UN and some other places that shows (w/ pics) how they make it, but that is not allowed here, so find it yourself.

[Woody Bear]

The problem with knowing what black tar heroin is, is that the DEA studied heroin from South East Asia and published a report on it. But whether they studied it or not, they haven't published a manufacturing report for black tar heroin.

Now the DEA did publish a report in the June 2007 edition of the Microgram Bulletin of a single 31.82 kilo seizure of 8 bricks of black tar heroin , which showed that ranged from 5.2 - 12.7 percent heroin. This would put it in line with the average morphine content of opium, which would make it seem that black tar heroin is purely acetylated opium.

But other people on here have said that black tar heroin can be much stronger then opium, if the black tar heroin is has more 15% heroin, then some sort of morphine enrichment must have been done first. However, DEA's report on tar's composition show that it contains “large amounts” of other opium alkaloids such as noscapine in it. So that's why people report that it just doesn't feel the same as powdered heroin.

In South East Asia heroin processing, they separate the morphine from the other alkaloids. They do this when they extract the morphine, by adding calcium compounds to the opium tea. This binds with the morphine, changing it into the water soluble calcium morphenate salt. This also raises the pH, and causes the other opium alkaloids to drop out of solution. So when the solution is filtered, it only contains dissolved calcium morphenate, and smaller amounts of codeine which is still water soluble. The pH is adjusted and morphine freebase drops out. This process separates the morphine from the other opium alkaloids. This process is NOT used in the creation of black tar heroin, as it still contains the other alkaloids.

Now no one except the Mexican cooks really know how to make black tar heroin, but this is how my best guess on how they purify the morphine:

1.) Dissolve raw opium in boiling water.
2.) Filter it to remove twigs and dirt.
3.) Adjust the solution to pH 9 with ammonia. Both the morphine and other opium alkaloids will drop out of solution.
4.) After letting it settle for several hours siphon off the water layer, leaving the precipitated alkaloids on the bottom. How well the water and precipitated alkaloids are separated depends on how pure the resultant tar will be.
5.) Pour the precipitated alkaloid rich sludge into large flat dishes, aim a fan on them, and heat them gently from below. This is to dry the alkaloid rich sludge. Any excess ammonia will evaporate off, which is why ammonia has to be used, not sodium hydroxide or another base. The sludge has to be completely dry otherwise the acetylation step won't work.

Glacial Acetic Acid (GAA) is just concentrated vinegar, with no water in it. If acetic anhydride comes in contact with water, it will convert it into Glacial Acetic Acid. Now GAA can't convert morphine into heroin, but it can convert it into 3-monoacetylmorphine and 6-monoacetylmorphine. Several analysis of black tar heroin showed that it contained a fair amount of these two compounds and not much heroin. So either the black heroin heroin was made with not completely dried morphine sludge, or the black tar heroin broke down from being stored wet.

[jdub]

Now GAA can't convert morphine into heroin, but it can convert it into 3-monoacetylmorphine and 6-monoacetylmorphine. Several analysis of black tar heroin showed that it contained a fair amount of these two compounds and not much heroin. So either the black heroin heroin was made with not completely dried morphine sludge, or the black tar heroin broke down from being stored wet.

I am stoned and a chemistry retard to begin with, but doesn't GAA turn a morphine base or salt to H in Rach's method below?


If you want, and this is rarely done illicitly, you can convert that filtrate,m which is actually morphine freebase up to 70% pure, back into a salt, usually hcl. It is time consuming and outside the region I am in now rarely done.


Using either the freebase or salt, add a glacial acetic acid (GAA), usually Acetic Anhydride which works the best although Acetyl Chloride,etc. all wok as wel with adjustments to time and temp.

Heat for 3.5 to 6 hours , never exceeding 95 C, and you will have heroin acetate, a salt.

[Papa Verine]

pv- look above your post- I tried to 'splain it

AO, you are a wealth of knowledge man. You seem to know something about everything. Thanks for clarifying!!!

Reading through this thread I realize there's another factor to consider here. The cook, or chemist is the guy who really decides how potent his tar is going to be. If he wants to cut corners and add weight to his product, being greedy, he can. But the actual process for making tar heroin, if done correctly and for quality, can produce a very potent high percentage heroin.

I just have no experience with tar. But I've heard plenty of people from the West coast who say the quality and purity of tar heroin ranges from shit to excellent. (The stuff I tried was the "shit")

[Woody Bear]

I am stoned and a chemistry retard to begin with, but doesn't GAA turn a morphine base or salt to H in Rach's method below?
I am stoned and a chemistry retard to begin with, but doesn't GAA turn a morphine base or salt to H in Rach's method below?

Originally Posted by Rachamim18
Using either the freebase or salt, add a glacial acetic acid (GAA), usually Acetic Anhydride which works the best although Acetyl Chloride,etc. all wok as wel with adjustments to time and temp.

Heat for 3.5 to 6 hours , never exceeding 95 C, and you will have heroin acetate, a salt.
Rachamim18 said to: add a glacial acetic acid (GAA), ..., not add glacial acetic acid. He's refering to Acetic Anhydride and Acetyl Chloride as being glacial acetic acid's. But GAA is a different compound in it's own right and it can't convert morphine into heroin. I think it's just a language mistranslation, because it's like saying, "Add three eggs, and then a teaspoon of a sodium chloride, usually potassium chloride or sea salt", instead of saying, "Add a teaspoon of salt".

Rachamim18 is right in that either Acetic Anhydride or Acetyl Chloride can be used to convert morphine into heroin. Also the reason why acetic anhydride is favoured, is that it's a very clean reaction and has higher yields because it doesn't create as much side-products.

[1 Eyed Whyleeguy]

I have been wondering this for a long time.

Powder vs. Tar

I am not really familiar with the creation of heroin.

Basically I am wondering how it's made....It goes from the Poppy Plant, to I am assuming some sort of chemical process. I am not wanting to actually do it but,

How does tar differ from powder? Is it just skipping some step in the process? Because powder is powder, and tar is a gooey sometime hard substance, so I am just wondering for the people that know the chemistry behind it what is actually happening and making the difference.

Thanks all.

WOW!! You guys blow me away. Here I thought I was a knowledgeable dope fiend. When he said tar I assumed he meant opium tar. An incredibly sweet aromatic black goo that was once common in the opium dens of San Francisco's Chinatown. I've had it twice and I still recall the smell and rush like it happened yesterday. That stuff was a short hop from the raw product scraped off of the bulb of the poppy plant. Y'all are goin into the chemical process of converting it into heroin, while I just figured he was referring to the stuff I rolled into a little BB sized ball and stuck on a pin and smoked by using an inverted glass over it that I slid to the edge of the table and inhaled. This was a rush to easily rival that of smokin coke. Thanks for the chemistry lesson

[SpecialGuy69]

I am stoned and a chemistry retard to begin with, but doesn't GAA turn a morphine base or salt to H in Rach's method below?

I am stoned and a chemistry retard to begin with, but doesn't GAA turn a morphine base or salt to H in Rach's method below?

Originally Posted by Rachamim18

Rachamim18 said to: add a glacial acetic acid (GAA), ..., not add glacial acetic acid. He's refering to Acetic Anhydride and Acetyl Chloride as being glacial acetic acid's. But GAA is a different compound in it's own right and it can't convert morphine into heroin. I think it's just a language mistranslation, because it's like saying, "Add three eggs, and then a teaspoon of a sodium chloride, usually potassium chloride or sea salt", instead of saying, "Add a teaspoon of salt".

Rachamim18 is right in that either Acetic Anhydride or Acetyl Chloride can be used to convert morphine into heroin. Also the reason why acetic anhydride is favoured, is that it's a very clean reaction and has higher yields because it doesn't create as much side-products.
Woolybear is right. Glacial Acetic Acid is a different chem from Acetic Anhydride, and cannot turn M to H. Here's why:

Morphine:........................................H eroin:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Morphine-2D-skeletal.png/200px-Morphine-2D-skeletal.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Heroin-2D-skeletal.png/220px-Heroin-2D-skeletal.png
Okay. Look at the left edges of both molecules. See the difference? This is called acetylation. Basically, the heroin has an acetyl group (see below) where the Morphine just has a hydrogen (H) atom.

This is an acetyl group- the R is where it attaches to the rest of the molecule- This is what you need to add to morphine to create heroin.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Acetyl.png/180px-Acetyl.png

Now here's Glacial Acetic Acid (GAA) compared to Acetic Anhydride (AA):
GAA:..........................AA:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Acetic-acid-2D-skeletal.svg/120px-Acetic-acid-2D-skeletal.svg.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Acetic-anhydride-2D-skeletal.png/200px-Acetic-anhydride-2D-skeletal.png
So you can see that while they are very similar, they are not identical. Here's why AA works where GAA does not:
The oxygen that joins the two acetyl groups (in AA) combines with the two hydrogen atoms from the left edge of the morphine (remember? above...) to make H2O- water. Then the two acetyl groups bond to the (now alone) oxygens. Two acetyl groups + morphine = diacetylmorphine.

PLEASE TELL ME HOW I DID EXPLAINING THIS- LET ME KNOW IF THIS MAKES SENSE...

[Black_Pony]

I believe the codeine gets acetylized as well forming Acetylcodeine. At that point you can bang away.

This is what someone said in another thread, and while it makes sense wouldn't this mean that there is unreacted codeine sitting in tar? And doesn't codeine cause a horrible reaction when injected? Or is the dosage so small it doesn't matter?

[jdub]

Thanks AO. That was a great explanation. You should have a druggie/explosive Mr. Wizard type show on the local cable network.

New question- It is the acetylization that allows H to penetrate the BBB faster correct? Why is this?

[OxyContinuously]

Woolybear is right. Glacial Acetic Acid is a different chem from Acetic Anhydride, and cannot turn M to H. Here's why:

Morphine:........................................H eroin:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Morphine-2D-skeletal.png/200px-Morphine-2D-skeletal.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Heroin-2D-skeletal.png/220px-Heroin-2D-skeletal.png
Okay. Look at the left edges of both molecules. See the difference? This is called acetylation. Basically, the heroin has an acetyl group (see below) where the Morphine just has a hydrogen (H) atom.

This is an acetyl group- the R is where it attaches to the rest of the molecule- This is what you need to add to morphine to create heroin.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Acetyl.png/180px-Acetyl.png

Now here's Glacial Acetic Acid (GAA) compared to Acetic Anhydride (AA):
GAA:..........................AA:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Acetic-acid-2D-skeletal.svg/120px-Acetic-acid-2D-skeletal.svg.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Acetic-anhydride-2D-skeletal.png/200px-Acetic-anhydride-2D-skeletal.png
So you can see that while they are very similar, they are not identical. Here's why AA works where GAA does not:
The oxygen that joins the two acetyl groups (in AA) combines with the two hydrogen atoms from the left edge of the morphine (remember? above...) to make H2O- water. Then the two acetyl groups bond to the (now alone) oxygens. Two acetyl groups + morphine = diacetylmorphine.

PLEASE TELL ME HOW I DID EXPLAINING THIS- LET ME KNOW IF THIS MAKES SENSE...

excellent post, AO

on a quick side note, i've heard some tar, depending on where you're at, can be really very good...i mean i've never had it; also i never heard of it being dealt with at all in ny, at least to my knowledge...?? i got the idea that it's more of a mid-west to western type deal...like here in the northeast, powder is the norm, and elsewhere, tar's what's on the menu...i've chased w/ powder D, and it was chill, you know? but i would like to try it w/ a form of diesel that welcomes smoking...:-)

[OxyContinuously]

i was gonna say the same,^^^ woody u beat me to it..."a" glacial acetic acid, -not- "glacial acetic acid" itself

[rachamim18]

Tar is NOT acetylated opium. While the published purity of that DEA sample puts it in line with the avergae purity of morphine, what about Tar with 85% purity?

As for the question about unreacted codeine, you would have acetylcodeine, and so on.

The numbering system for heroin was devised by the DEA (showing how stuoid they are) in the mid 70s.

#1: This is simply morphine and receives a number because in SE Asia it used to be (very rarely now) a separate commodity. They would highly refine the morphine and then sell it in trademarked stamped units (units being 700 grams). It was bought by producers of #3.

#2: This applies to heroin freebase.

#3: This is heroin, only created in SE Asia tailor made for smoking. It contains 40% caffeine, barbitone, colouring, fragrance, and strychnine (yes, you read correctly).

#4: Top of the line, tailor made for injection.

The numbers progree according to price and purity...#2 is weaker and less expensive than #3,etc.

As for #3 being in Europe, nope. They are smoking #2. Even here in the Golden Triangle you will not see it, probably ever.

Tar and Homebaked (basically one and the same in the end) escaped numerical classification because the numbering system predated them. Because both can be injected without any kind of catalyst (like citric acid for #2), they come under #4.

[SpecialGuy69]

I wasnt sure about the #s, when i was talking about european dope i was referring to freebase, so according to that number system, it would be #2.

[Crow]

Cough cough cough NERDS cough cough cough...


Man, I think I might be getting sick. I gotta get that check out....

Just kidding guys, you know I am just jealous of your super chemistry skills. I must have watched like every Bill Nye episode, and I still suck at it. Waaaaah!

[clonaze-whammed]

I dunno it's just fascinating to me ...chemistry and taking a plant and processing it into such an addictive substance.

Ditto, bigtime.

I never studied chemistry in school, one of biggest regrets to date, I wish I could have forseen my future fascination with pharmaceuticals and clandestine chemistry.

[rachamim18]

I am no chemist. My degree is in Botany of all things but we dd take a few courses. I have managed like the best f them, on my own. All it takes is common sense and good reading skills (many say good math as well but not needed for this kind of chemistry). If you can follow a cookbook recipe, you can "cook."

[Crow]

I am no chemist. My degree is in Botany of all things but we dd take a few courses. I have managed like the best f them, on my own. All it takes is common sense and good reading skills (many say good math as well but not needed for this kind of chemistry). If you can follow a cookbook recipe, you can "cook."

Rach, by dd I assume you mean designated driver, right?



I kid, I kid.

[mollywopped]

The problem with knowing what black tar heroin is, is that the DEA studied heroin from South East Asia and published a report on it. But whether they studied it or not, they haven't published a manufacturing report for black tar heroin.

Now the DEA did publish a report in the June 2007 edition of the Microgram Bulletin of a single 31.82 kilo seizure of 8 bricks of black tar heroin , which showed that ranged from 5.2 - 12.7 percent heroin. This would put it in line with the average morphine content of opium, which would make it seem that black tar heroin is purely acetylated opium.

But other people on here have said that black tar heroin can be much stronger then opium, if the black tar heroin is has more 15% heroin, then some sort of morphine enrichment must have been done first. However, DEA's report on tar's composition show that it contains “large amounts” of other opium alkaloids such as noscapine in it. So that's why people report that it just doesn't feel the same as powdered heroin.

In South East Asia heroin processing, they separate the morphine from the other alkaloids. They do this when they extract the morphine, by adding calcium compounds to the opium tea. This binds with the morphine, changing it into the water soluble calcium morphenate salt. This also raises the pH, and causes the other opium alkaloids to drop out of solution. So when the solution is filtered, it only contains dissolved calcium morphenate, and smaller amounts of codeine which is still water soluble. The pH is adjusted and morphine freebase drops out. This process separates the morphine from the other opium alkaloids. This process is NOT used in the creation of black tar heroin, as it still contains the other alkaloids.

Now no one except the Mexican cooks really know how to make black tar heroin, but this is how my best guess on how they purify the morphine:

1.) Dissolve raw opium in boiling water.
2.) Filter it to remove twigs and dirt.
3.) Adjust the solution to pH 9 with ammonia. Both the morphine and other opium alkaloids will drop out of solution.
4.) After letting it settle for several hours siphon off the water layer, leaving the precipitated alkaloids on the bottom. How well the water and precipitated alkaloids are separated depends on how pure the resultant tar will be.
5.) Pour the precipitated alkaloid rich sludge into large flat dishes, aim a fan on them, and heat them gently from below. This is to dry the alkaloid rich sludge. Any excess ammonia will evaporate off, which is why ammonia has to be used, not sodium hydroxide or another base. The sludge has to be completely dry otherwise the acetylation step won't work.

Glacial Acetic Acid (GAA) is just concentrated vinegar, with no water in it. If acetic anhydride comes in contact with water, it will convert it into Glacial Acetic Acid. Now GAA can't convert morphine into heroin, but it can convert it into 3-monoacetylmorphine and 6-monoacetylmorphine. Several analysis of black tar heroin showed that it contained a fair amount of these two compounds and not much heroin. So either the black heroin heroin was made with not completely dried morphine sludge, or the black tar heroin broke down from being stored wet.


You're basing this whole theory on 1 paragraph about 1 seizure of some shitty dope? What about tar that is 30% heroin? Or 40%? Or 50%? and on and on. In that microgram they happened to get some shitty, cut up dope, but I assure you there is tar way more pure than 15%.

[robojunkie]

From experience European (well at least Northwestern German) smack is the freebase cut to shit, and one needs to use ascorbic or citric acid with it and to cook it as well. As for tar, I've seen different accounts as to how its made, and I have seen accounts showing the presence of acylated codeine and sometimes other compounds of the benzylisoquinoline group, as well as thebaine, which would lead me to believe its likely not simple opium as is, but the product one would get by bringing the pH up to around 12 or 13 with the slaked lime they use, but then just doing a crude evaporation instead of a precipitation with ammonium chloride (which can take a day or several days to cause precipitation, even at pH 9, which is the target zone to drop out morphine). That's just my opinion, I've never seen Mexican tar in person, only read about this stuff. The good shit, the Northeastern white, is the real #4, made from the clean "999" morphine base, and after acylation with acetic anhydride (NOT acetic acid, glacial or otherwise, see "Woods"), a good methylene chloride wash of the hydrolyzed solution (heroin acetate, acetic acid, water and other crap) which takes out the "other crap", is basified and concentrated, dissolved in minimal ethanol and precip'd with a mixture of ethanolic HCl and ether (ether does the precipitating). This is a clean WHITE powder when done properly.

Yes ao, that is a good explanation, but let me extend on it a bit: if you look at the two structures, drawing a mental line through the carbony/OH or OAc bonds, you'll see that GAA must lose an -OH group and AA must lose a CH3COO- group. This is the crux of the uselessness of GAA. -OH is hydroxide, a strong base, much stronger than the phenolic or allylic alcohol the acetyl "part" is electrophilically attacking. On the other hand, acetate ion, which is lost with AA, is a good "leaving group", as it is a pathetically weak base, and is actually an acid once the proton (H) is lost from the morphine molecule's two OH groups. In other words its a thermodynamic/equilibrium process, where the weakest acids and bases are the ones to come out in the end. With AA, you start with morphine and a weak acid and would have to make hydroxide and then via the proton water. But with AA you have to make acetate then acetic acid, which is a much more favorable process. Another way to look at it, the -OH lost by GAA (if it worked) is not stabilized in any way, the negative charge would just sit there, whereas acetate (look at the picture) has "resonance" meaning the electrons on the two oxygens can move back and forth making the two oxygens truly 1 and 1/2 bonds not a single and double bond. This stabilizes the negative charge making it a much more favorable pathway. Not to mention with GAA as the name implies, you have an acid, and the only thing that will get lost is an H+, leaving acetate, just like AA does. That's the main point, with either, you'll lose acetate, so AA will put a acetyl group on, GAA will just exchange one proton for another.

I explained this with an analogy once, where morphine is a mugger, the acetyl group is a purse, acetate is a weak old lady and OH is a juiced steroid fiend. Mugger tries for acetyl group, and succeeds with old lady, but with steroid dude, gets knocked out leaving only with what he started, nothing. In other words any time you do an acylation of any type, you need a good leaving group, ie you form something that is both a weak base and poor nucleophile (something that can substitute by knocking something else out). Often it is helped with a hindered base like triethylamine or pyridine, which acts as a proton scavenger and as an activator (attacking the acetyl or whatever group giving a stabilized acetyl-triethylammonium acetate/chloride/whatever complex which never stays due to the positive charge). Can anyone imagine why triethylamine is unnecessary when acetylating morphine? Hint: it is an alkaloid after all...and diethylamine or another non tertiary amine would not help here.

I am no chemist. My degree is in Botany of all things but we dd take a few courses. I have managed like the best f them, on my own. All it takes is common sense and good reading skills (many say good math as well but not needed for this kind of chemistry). If you can follow a cookbook recipe, you can "cook."

I disagree with this. Most syntheses, even meth via direct reduction, require some knowledge of what is happening in the flask, not just a list of 20 steps to follow and a magic glass box. If you don't know why you're adding this or heating that, the moment something unexpected happens, and it will somewhere, if you know what's going on it's no problem to resolve, if you don't, no product and maybe a small fire (or a big one if you love the smell of ether on a cold winter day). What if one were making some 10 kilo heroin batch (no shit who has that much morphine, but some do in other countries, some you've been to I bet, rach) and "the recipe" says "heat to 100 C for four hours, then add 50 liters water after cooling" at this scale adding that water too fast will have your pot going through a massive exotherm and spattering everything everywhere, not to mention the reaction may not even be finished, in which case you now may have some partially acylated morphine, some heroin and some morphine, and it will be all over the ground in a 10,000 square foot area. But if you knew why, you'd prevent this from happening, or at least know what to have on hand in case it did. (Me, I'd have a hundred kilos of ice, cooled to -78 C over dry ice, and that would get chucked right in, as well as anything and everything teflon I could cool to -78 C.) That or a reflux condenser to reattach quite quickly! See what I'm saying, fine on a 10 gram scale one can hydrolyze acetic anhydride in water no problem, but with large scale stuff shit can happen. But more often than shit happening is nothing happening, including no reaction, which if all one knew was a recipe, would stay no reaction. But if one can figure out why, again not a problem.

In other words, would you want a poet (or Homer Simpson) working at a nuclear reactor (or for that matter a nuclear physicist working as a poet)?

[rachamim18]

Crow: It is fine, my English, and its spellinbg is far from acceptable...but I do do my best.

Robo: The acid is not needed to cook it per se, but to adjust its pH to an acceptable (body wise) level. The reason you do not need to do it when insufflating is because your mucous and its alinity already does this for you.

"Acetylcodeine.": I is present in almost all illicit heroin including almost pure #4. They use it as a geographical marker. The percentage though is the tipoff, that and the fact that you will never find a poppy with an 85% morphine content.

"Can take several days to crash/drop out...": It takes all of 45 minutes. The pH is the key but it is adjusted very easily.

As fr "slaked lime," you can use any form of calcium. Slaked lime just happens to be the most accessible.

"Acetic anhyhydride.": Ask anyone with a couple of semesters of chemistry, no offence. If you wanted bonafide refs, check the 2006 UNODC paper on Afghani Synth. You will see that A. Chloride is used. I can also tell you, and I do not want to get too deep on this, any GAA will work. If you adjusted your temps and time you could use pure vinegar.

"Heroin acetate, acetic acid, etc.": Srry but that makes no sense. Heroin Acetate is heroin that has already been treated with a GAA. You would not retreat it with a GAA or yopu would destroy it (so much for all those Ask Frank crap in England about treating #2 with vinegar).

"Clean, whiute powder when done correctly.": No, there is no need to make it white unless you want a better product by up to 15% points. Decolourisation is simply done with activated charcoal, and that is a case of choice, not really necessity. There is no true need to decolourise.

I cannot understand the analogy so I will not go near it, not putting you down,etc., just I fail to understand it.

"Robo disagrees about cooks needing to be chemists.": Marquardt would disagree since he barely beat highschool and he is as good as they come. I can write a workup that an intelligent chimp could be trained to accomplish. It does not take understanding of anything,simply follow a to z EXACTLY as given and voila! Same with that cat in Big Bear Lake, and so on. If you have an innate intelligence, you can do it and you do not even need to be taught in alot of cases.

How many cooks do you think even have one semester? Is there a danger? Sure, but I would offer that there is also a danger walking out your door any day of the week. Before setting off to accomplish something, I always research it to death and that would be my most stringent recommendation.

"10 kilo heroin cookup.": Anyone going into it who has even briefly examined the workup will know that you never go near boiling, 85 to 95 C is all you need. You would not add water once it enters Reflux.

I argue the point not because of animosity but because I truly believe anyone with a modicum of common sense and who can read a given language well can accomplish what they set out to do. The best cooks in the biz are people with GEDs,and so on.

[jonny-5]

AgentOrange, robojunkie, and especially rachamim are my freaking heros.

AO has a way of explaining all the stuff i dont understand from robojunkie.

but i learn so much from almost every post that the three of you throw out there.

rachamim, you have the experience and knowledge of 30 junkies lifetimes all rolled into one.

that being said, i get the tar that is closer to 85% pure, although there is no way of me really knowing. all i know is its better than any powder ive ever had. it is powder when i get it, humidity turns it to tar.

heres why i like STRONG tar better. powdered heroin reminds me more of dilaudid. it has a great rush, but no legs. i feel the tar i get has a great balance of rush and legs, a good shot in the morning will keep me well until the evening. that would never happen with powder. but ive only ever run into the really good tar from one source, luckily being my main daily source.

[SpecialGuy69]

Rach- you may have the real-life experience (I wouldn't doubt it for a second, in that part of the world) but robojunkie is an experienced chemist, and I would defer to his knowledge on any aspect of chemistry. The point is, he knows how to do it not from experience making h, but from knowing how molecules work. With that knowledge, you don't need to try it to know it will work.

about the heroin acetate, he was describing the reaction mechanism, and what happens during the reaction, not end products.

what he was sayin about the scale-up is that if you dump 10L of hot water into 10L of acetic anhydride, you are most likely going to die.

I always thought it had to be acetic anhydride or propionic anhydride to completely acetylate morphine into heroin.

As far as the GAA thing, thats more semantics than anything.

[SpecialGuy69]

AgentOrange, robojunkie, and especially rachamim are my freaking heros.

AO has a way of explaining all the stuff i dont understand from robojunkie.

but i learn so much from almost every post that the three of you throw out there.

rachamim, you have the experience and knowledge of 30 junkies lifetimes all rolled into one.

that being said, i get the tar that is closer to 85% pure, although there is no way of me really knowing. all i know is its better than any powder ive ever had. it is powder when i get it, humidity turns it to tar.

heres why i like STRONG tar better. powdered heroin reminds me more of dilaudid. it has a great rush, but no legs. i feel the tar i get has a great balance of rush and legs, a good shot in the morning will keep me well until the evening. that would never happen with powder. but ive only ever run into the really good tar from one source, luckily being my main daily source.j5- have you ever tried cleaning your tar? That would be a good way to know how pure it is- Get like 5 grams, weigh it on a digital scale before and after you purify it. Like say you started with 5 grams, and ended up with 3.5 grams of pure(ish) when you were done- that would mean you had 70%.

[Crow]

Crow: It is fine, my English, and its spellinbg is far from acceptable...but I do do my best.

Robo: The acid is not needed to cook it per se, but to adjust its pH to an acceptable (body wise) level. The reason you do not need to do it when insufflating is because your mucous and its alinity already does this for you.

"Acetylcodeine.": I is present in almost all illicit heroin including almost pure #4. They use it as a geographical marker. The percentage though is the tipoff, that and the fact that you will never find a poppy with an 85% morphine content.

"Can take several days to crash/drop out...": It takes all of 45 minutes. The pH is the key but it is adjusted very easily.

As fr "slaked lime," you can use any form of calcium. Slaked lime just happens to be the most accessible.

"Acetic anhyhydride.": Ask anyone with a couple of semesters of chemistry, no offence. If you wanted bonafide refs, check the 2006 UNODC paper on Afghani Synth. You will see that A. Chloride is used. I can also tell you, and I do not want to get too deep on this, any GAA will work. If you adjusted your temps and time you could use pure vinegar.

"Heroin acetate, acetic acid, etc.": Srry but that makes no sense. Heroin Acetate is heroin that has already been treated with a GAA. You would not retreat it with a GAA or yopu would destroy it (so much for all those Ask Frank crap in England about treating #2 with vinegar).

"Clean, whiute powder when done correctly.": No, there is no need to make it white unless you want a better product by up to 15% points. Decolourisation is simply done with activated charcoal, and that is a case of choice, not really necessity. There is no true need to decolourise.

I cannot understand the analogy so I will not go near it, not putting you down,etc., just I fail to understand it.

"Robo disagrees about cooks needing to be chemists.": Marquardt would disagree since he barely beat highschool and he is as good as they come. I can write a workup that an intelligent chimp could be trained to accomplish. It does not take understanding of anything,simply follow a to z EXACTLY as given and voila! Same with that cat in Big Bear Lake, and so on. If you have an innate intelligence, you can do it and you do not even need to be taught in alot of cases.

How many cooks do you think even have one semester? Is there a danger? Sure, but I would offer that there is also a danger walking out your door any day of the week. Before setting off to accomplish something, I always research it to death and that would be my most stringent recommendation.

"10 kilo heroin cookup.": Anyone going into it who has even briefly examined the workup will know that you never go near boiling, 85 to 95 C is all you need. You would not add water once it enters Reflux.

I argue the point not because of animosity but because I truly believe anyone with a modicum of common sense and who can read a given language well can accomplish what they set out to do. The best cooks in the biz are people with GEDs,and so on.

Hey there Rach, I wasn't picking on your english, I was just making a joke......believe me dude, I respect you more than most people here on the boards, you are like the opiophile enlightened one! Hope I didn't cause you to think I was making fun of you, I was just being silly. DD can stand for designated driver in english, which is the person who stays sober at parties to drive everyone else home. Given your knowledge of opiates and other intoxicants, I think we can all assume you are far from anyones designated driver. Catch my drift? Sorry if you thought I was bieng a dick, I love you man.

[jonny-5]

j5- have you ever tried cleaning your tar? That would be a good way to know how pure it is- Get like 5 grams, weigh it on a digital scale before and after you purify it. Like say you started with 5 grams, and ended up with 3.5 grams of pure(ish) when you were done- that would mean you had 70%.

if i had the know-how/tools/chemicals/enough money to not care if i fucked up the experiment, i would definitely try it. all i know is ive had H from all over, but never came across anything more potent than what i get from these mexicans in the san fernando valley. if i go 10 minutes south to hollywood, i can get 1.2 grams for 50 bux, which gets me high 4 times. if i get a 40 dollar half gram from my guys, it gets me high six times, and a much better high.

to equate this to "normal" tar, or the shit i used to get in seattle, it would take a half gram of that shit to get me high.

im not really too concerned with the exact potency, cause its just good shit. it would be nice to know for curiosity and braggings sake tho....:D (j/k)

[motts]

typical i cannot sleep on heroin AGAIN, well....it is usually hour on, hour off. awakening multiple times during the night, only to toss an turn some more. because we are talking about creation, lets discuss physiological aspects of heroin! I am just wondering why ?!, what is the chemical background regarding the way heroin reacts in the brain, and what sets off the triggers to resist sleep.