gunsmoke on 26/5/2010 at 18:54
(
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37319358/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts) Link
This shit is everywhere in the midwest. It has overtaken powdered Heroin almost completely, at least where I live. This is not going to end well (if it ends at ALL).
Odd point...Black Tar was the shit of the shit 15 years ago. No one did it unless they had no other options. Strange how time has reversed the roles.
Rug Burn Junky on 26/5/2010 at 19:21
Typical news media sensationalism claiming that some barely-worth-mentioning alteration in the consumption of any given drug (or any other "vice") is actually OH MY GOD ARMAGEDDON AND ITS GOING TO FUCK UP EVERYTHING IN SOCIETY! Scare tactics sell.
The only thing more consistent than the average purity of heroin is the regularity of scary stories by the news proclaiming that the current wave of heroin is stronger than everything that's gone on before. A small sampling of AP news stories, as compiled by (
http://www.slate.com/id/2254975/pagenum/all/#p2) Slate:
Quote:
Aug. 15, 2006: "Mexican black tar heroin, a dark and sticky substance, is usually only 30 percent to 40 percent pure, well below the purity of Colombian heroin. But some heroin seized in this case was 85 percent pure, officials said."
Dec. 12, 2004: "Federal Drug Enforcement [Administration] tests of heroin samples obtained from New Jersey streets showed 71.4 percent purity in 2002, nearly twice the national average."
July 4, 2004: "New England heroin can be up to 90 percent pure, while the national average is 57 percent. ..."
Nov. 16, 2002: "Officers recently intercepted a 'significant' amount of white heroin that was 87 percent pure. ..."
Dec. 9, 2001: "Some heroin being sold is as much as 95 percent pure."
June 16, 2001: "The DEA was alarmed to find that the ring was selling $10 street doses of heroin, weighing .05 grams, that were 60 percent to 85 percent pure heroin. ..."
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June 16, 2000: " 'This is the first time we've seen a Mexico-based criminal organization go coast-to-coast, also hitting Alaska and Hawaii, with heroin at 60 to 90 percent purity levels,' Donnie R. Marshall, DEA administrator, said. ...."
June 15, 2000: "A user could buy a half-gram of 60 percent to 85 percent pure heroin for $10."
July 15, 1999: "While heroin trafficking is not a new phenomenon in northeast Massachusetts, [U.S. Attorney Donald] Stern said recent shipments of confiscated heroin have shown purity levels of more than 90 percent."
Jan. 17, 1999: "While South Florida heroin tests 30 percent pure, the [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] crime lab in Orlando routinely finds street-level doses up to 97 percent pure."
July 23, 1998: "We were finding heroin up there that was 37 to 70 percent pure," [Julio] Mercado [head of the Dallas DEA office] said."
July 2, 1998: "Mexican heroin now averages at 50 percent to 60 percent purity, according to U.S. DEA figures."
July 15, 1996: "Tests done on traces of heroin found in the musicians' room at the Regency Hotel revealed a purity of 60 to 70 percent, police said. Most street heroin hovers between 50 and 60 percent—considered high enough to snort or smoke, yet low enough to inject, which is riskier."
Sept. 30, 1994: "A decade ago, purity levels of heroin sold on the street averaged 7 percent. Most street heroin hovers between 50 and 60 percent—considered high enough to snort or smoke, yet low enough to inject, which is riskier."
Aug. 31, 1994: "Today, the purity of street heroin hovers between 45 percent and 65 percent—high enough to smoke or snort, yet still low enough to inject with syringes."
Sept. 21, 1992: " 'This is kind of scary,' said [Boston] Deputy Police Superintendent James Wood, commander of drug control. 'All of a sudden we've got 65 percent purity on the street at $20 a bag.' "
Oct. 3, 1989: "Tests showed the heroin had a 36 percent to 38 percent purity, said [San Francisco Police Department] Lt. Jim Mollinari."
Dec. 26, 1988: " 'When I first joined the force you'd see heroin 5, 10 percent pure. Now it's 50 to 60 percent pure,' said [New Bedford, Mass.] Detective Richard Spirlet."
Jan. 20, 1985: "Two men died from 57 percent pure heroin on Jan. 11 and one on Jan. 14, compared with only one heroin-related death in all of 1984, [Miami] authorities said."
DDL on 26/5/2010 at 19:52
Quote:
Dec. 26, 1988: " 'When I first joined the force you'd see heroin 5, 10 percent pure. Now it's 50 to 60 percent pure,' said [New Bedford, Mass.] Detective Richard Spirlet."
Man, that must've been some really
really shitty heroin. "Here: this stuff is 95% vein-fucking crap, but if you do enough if it you might
just get enough of a buzz to stop caring about the fact you just shot up with something made of 95% vein-fucking crap!"
Namdrol on 26/5/2010 at 21:23
First off I would be surprised if anyone, anywhere was selling 10 bags at over 50% pure.
You just don't need to. These guys are in the money business and why would they rip themselves off?
Even the tablets you get prescribed from the doc aren't 100%, they contain bulkers, colouring, binding agents etc.
This story reminds me of all this bullshit about how skunk is some super fucked shit that causes permanent mental scaring just by being in the same room as it.
I lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years in my late teens/early twenties, working in the bulb farms. Because of weed (and the fact that the UK was fucked in the late 80's).
I rode on my little bromfiets to coffeeshop after coffeeshop, chasing the mythical best dope money could buy, spending a fortune and never finding it.
I realised in the end it just doesn't exist, if you're a heavy smoker, once you've had that first hit of the day, that's it. You ain't getting more stoned.
(and anyway most skunk now sold here in the UK is farmed by the Chinese gangs who really don't give a fuck about strength and quality.)
The most stoned I have ever been in my life was in Sweden (one truly fucked up country for weed back in the 90's, prison for a roach end).
I was there coming of smack, visiting my girlfriend and hadn't had a smoke for 10 days. (At that point the longest break since I'd started toking). I went to the central station and bought a bit of the shittiest Moroccan soap bar, the size of a fingernail, for stupid money. It had been in the dudes mouth so long it was as soft as if it had just been burnt.
And it sent me out the top of my head.
The point I'm making with this is that it's not necessarily the drug, it's what you bring to the drug.
About heroin, speaking from personal experience, as soon as someone dies from an OD every fucking dealer in town is selling the gear that killed 'em, because it's what everyone wants to buy.
So scare stories like this actually create demand.
That article also contains a very dubious 'fact' -
Quote:
Heroin metabolizes in the body so quickly that medical examiners often cannot pinpoint the drug as a cause of death unless there is other evidence to back it up
gunny, I'm not negating the horror of heroin though and what it does to people and poor communities.
It really is fucked up shit.
SubJeff on 26/5/2010 at 22:18
Quote Posted by Namdrol
Even the tablets you get prescribed from the doc aren't 100%, they contain bulkers, colouring, binding agents etc.
I'm curious as to what you mean by this sentence. I guess it's the word "Even" that is confusing me. Medical opioids aren't supposed to be 100% pure, they are supposed to give a
set mass of the drug. They will not be 100% pure because of the preparation they are in, and even then mass for mass of actual drug (knowing how much medical diamorphine costs per gram) is probably much cheaper than the stuff you'd buy on the streets.
This is sometimes used as an arguments for legalising heroin - it'd be that cheap to give 100% safe stuff (not in OD obviously, but then what is?) that you'd cut the criminal dealers out of the loop.
Namdrol on 26/5/2010 at 22:46
The 'even' was just there for emphasis, it was actually a late addition to the sentence, just to highlight the nonsense of the media/law enforcement obsession with % purity of drugs (and a way of pointing out no one sells 'pure' drugs), looking back at the sentence it wasn't necessary.
Anyway from what I understood, the dudes in Afghanistan cut their heroin with inert bulking agents before it leaves the country so even assuming they were capable of producing 100% pure diacetylmorphine no one would ever get to see it anyway.
What about that 'fact' I highlighted from the article?
I thought that heroin metabolised into morphine, which then hung around for a few days.
SubJeff on 26/5/2010 at 22:54
It does get metabolised into morphine but it's active on its own anyway, and in a profoundly different way despite all the similarities. The primary effect is from the diamorphine itself. You may still have remnants in your body for a few days afterwards, but it will likely not be morphine but other metabolites/metabolites further down the pathway. Hey, I only give the stuff, I don't test for it!
I suppose the purity is important for law enforcement because the purer the more dangerous. And of course, the more of actual drug you have.
gunsmoke on 27/5/2010 at 23:13
I was just sayin'
Tar heroin was absolute CRAP 15 years ago. It was the malt liquor of the heroin world. You got a huge chunk for next to nothing. Cut to hell and back. Now, it is reaching 60%+ and is EVERYWHERE. A lot of people still do the amount they think is fine (based on %10 doses) and wind up face down in the gutter.
Sad. True. And I thought I'd share.
SubJeff on 28/5/2010 at 22:00
Why do you care?
henke on 29/5/2010 at 13:28
SE, I'm looking at the Comm Chat forum right now and only the top 5 topics have had new posts added today(6 with this one). Things are kind of slow around here. If gunsmoke wants to strike up a conversation about tar, how about we leave it at that?
