From: a@b.c (Bayer Baby) Subject: Re: This Newsgroup is a Fucking Drag (Will be: proposed new group: alt.fan.dope Date: 1995/10/20 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard [...] >Actually, if anyone could tell me a bit about the brown that'd be cool. >Whats the difference between the white and the brown? A process not >carried out with the brown that has been with the white? Just curious... [...] Re "White" vs "Brown" heroin. You were on the right track but had it backwards: "white" heroin is heroin that has been processed _further_ than brown heroin. Strictly speaking, and as far as the body is concerned (least as far as I'm aware...), heroin is heroin is heroin is diacetylmorphine. Essentially one heats morphine (from opium) in certain acids and creates heroin (chemists: your detailed explanations/corrections are welcomed, but I think this suffices for babs and me...ok???). It's fairly easy to create crude heroin with lots of contaminants from morphine, but to get it to anything like the near pure white powder that transports so efficiently and gets top doller from wholesalers is a bit of a process. The most prized end product is known as "Number 4" heroin. It is a "salt" of diacetylmorphine (_here_ I could use you chemists...). Number 4 heroin will dissolve readily in water. If it is near pure it requires no assistance to do so in the way of heat, if less pure heating is generally needed. When most of North America's illicit heroin was still controlled by organized syndicates, it was generally processed in Marseilles by very experienced chemists in decent labs. The result was high quality number 4 dope, as things became decentralized more and more of the heroin was processed at or near the point of origin of the opium, and the end product was often only "Number 3" heroin _base_. This base is generally brown or beige, and contains many more leftover bits of the parent opium, including generally a distinct opium aroma/taste when smoked or cooked. Very good Number 3 can be quite strong itself however, and here I could really use some help in a comparison of the potencies of each when in their purest forms. Heroin base will not dissolve in water without the addition of some sort of acid: lemon juice, vinegar, vitamin c, whatever. I've always thought this acid converted the base more or less to heroin salt...is this correct chemists??? Anyway, I don't know what "number 2" or "number 1" heroin is, and sadly, my dope library not being what it once was, I don't have enough source material handy... Complicating the matter is "tar" heroin and it's decendents. If you've never seen tar it's an obsidian black form of heroin that can be gooey as smoking opium or hard as a rock, but which despite obvious having even more of the essence of opium remaining than number 3 dope can also be quite strong, AND (to further confuse me) dissolves readily in water without addition of an acid. The hard tar is often ground up and cut producing much (if not all, I can't say...) of the brown heroin found on the west coast of the US. The most common cut for this type of brown is roasted lactose (milk sugar). The one time I've seen this cut prepared the lactose was shaken while broiled to slightly caramelize it, and then was mixed with the rock hard tar in a coffee grinder. Beat artists have been known to literally pull paving tar from the street, wrap it in a swatch of plastic, and sell it to the unwary as tar... Your cocoa is definitely a common cut for brown heroin...can't think of any others off the top of my head... Do you have to hit your brown with lemon or another acid?? The brown I used to get in A'dam needed lemon. One of my favorite memories is of being taken to a sex shop there to get a rig, and the proprieter also offering to sell me in turn a spoon and a cut lemon. One stop shopping! Anyway, if anyone has more information on the whole subject, I'd be interested as well... ==================================================================== From: fzvfpu@gvnp.arg (Samson) Subject: "Heroin No. 3" Date: 1997/05/25 Newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard In article , news@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote: > >Interesting. Traditional "Chinese Heroin No. 3" is described in the > >literature as a 50/50 mixture of heroin HCl and caffeine, with a little > >strychnine or quinine thrown in for flavor, manufactured specifically for > >smoking. > > What 'literature' is this? I've never seen a breakdown of the > various grades of heroin, my own knowledge comes from junkie lore. > I'd be intersted in any refs. Here are some excerpts: (From the 'Glossary' of _Opium Poppy and Heroin Cultivation in Southeast Asia_, DEA Intelligence Division, 1993 (DEA-92004)) "_Southeast Asian heroin no. 3_: A smokable form of Southeast Asian heroin. Not as highly refined as no. 4. Color ranges from purple to tan to off-white. Although considered a smoking heroin, it may also be injected intravenously. Caffeine is a necessary component of heroin no. 3. In contrast, strychnine and heroin are adulterants which are sometimes added to heroin no. 3, alledgedly to modify the taste of the product." (From Eskes, D. & Brown, J. "Heroin-Caffeine-Strychnine mixtures - Where and why?" _Bulletin on Narcotics_, Vol 28:1 (1979) 67-69) "During May, June and the first half of July, 1974 the Amsterdam police made 49 seizures of illicit heroin...28 (57) percent of these seizures contained strychnine in addition to heroin and caffeine, 21 samples contained heroin and caffeine only...[We] wrote to 14 different forensic laboratories (representing 8 countries) asking if their laboratory had any experience with these types of heroin...The [reply from the Hong kong Government Laboratory] was the most informative. 'The granules you describe are similar to those which are made in Hong Kong. Here they are known as No. 3 heroin. They are consumed by smoking...With regard to the composition of the granules, it is true that a strychnine salt is occasionally added... The heroin, incidentally, is present as the hydrochloride salt.' Current evidence would suggest that this granular heroin seen in Amsterdam was prepared for smoking purposes but has 'escaped' into those illicit markets where intravenous injection is the usual method of use...The amount of strychnine...is probably insufficient to be a threat to life...The amount of strychnine injected each time would probably not exceed 5 mg. For an adult, the lethal dose of orally ingested strychnine is reported to be between 60 and 100 mg." Naturally, I wondered why 'strychnine-flavoring' was desirable. The only suggestion I found was: (From Wijesekera, A.R, et al. "The detection and estimation of arsenic in opium and strychnine in opium and heroin, as a means of identification of their respective sources", _Forensic Sci Int_, 36 (1988), 193-209) "One suggestion as far as heroin is concerned is the current belief that adulterants such as strychnine and quinine originated from the Chinese heroin pills of the 1920's and that their continued use is due to the characteristic flavor they impart to the smoke. Heroin of S.E. Asian origin enjoys this dubious distinction." ==================================================================== From: Olaf Titz Subject: Re: nicomorphine (was Re: acetic anhydride) Date: 1996/01/06 newsgroups: alt.drugs.chemistry,alt.drugs.hard,alt.drugs,sci.med.pharmacy Igor wrote: > Empirically, it certainly sounds like the original heroin was heroin > base; thus, the heroin base was not soluble and did not make it into > the blood stream in any appreciable quantities. > The lemon juice added citric acid, forming heroin citrate and becoming > very water soluble. Police sources from Germany used to call heroin base "Heroin No.2", to be found rarely on the market because it had to be administered in the way you tell. From that stuff, the market forms "Heroin No.3" and "Heroin No.4" (hydrochloride salt) were derived. ("Heroin No.1" was morphine base.) olaf