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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
 Posted - 09/29/2005 : 00:54:34
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Reading a post last night on SFN mentioning Courtney Love's unfortunate oxycontin habit distressed me; I knew the drug problem was getting serious when my hero, Rush Limbaugh was busted, giving a black-eye to my beloved Republican Party, so something has to be done; us Republicans want to solve the drug problem on the "demand side," unlike our economics, but more cops cost money we need in Iraq and the hurricane zone, and there's no way we want to decriminalize anything, or cut druggies slack- a dilemma. I brainstormed it over a bottle of American vodka last night, and had a "demand side" idea that could help Rush, Courtney, and could reduce the heroin/Oxycontin "epidemic" by 75%. It goes like this. Junkies inject heroin, which has a half-life of 8 hours, or Oxycontin freaks, like Rush and Courtney, crush pills and down'em (oxycodeinone has a shorter half life)... that means 24 hours later over 90% of it will have been excreted as morphine glucuronide in the urine, to be flushed down the toilet, and they go on throwing more American money at the Talaban, Chinese Triads, and all the rest of the thugs. I think they should be more patriotic, at least, and recycle opiates from their urine. I'll describe how junkies could do it, and how this could help those with liver disease, the prison overcrowding problem, save tax money, and could have made Rush more popular through positive publicity following his plea bargain (helping our Party) as I'll explain. If you're not interested in technicalities, preferring Faith like most of my Republican comrades (I do, too, but I can't explain this with Fundamentalist Science alone) skip paragraphs (2. and 3.)
2. Overview:
The human body converts opiates (heroin, codeine, Oxycontin, Loratab... any of that stuff) into morphine, thus, they all have the same qualitative effects, the differences being primarily potency (per unit-mass), rate of metabolism (half-life), efficiency of absorption, and side-effect profiles. But essentially, when one takes any opiate (proper, but not the synthetics, like Demerol) they're on morphine. Heroin is diacetylmorphine, which is roughly 3 times more potent by mass than plain ole' morphine, since it takes the liver a few extra steps to detoxify it, and the intermediary metabolites have opiate activity (that's why they sell it illicitly, instead of morphine sulfate, for instance- 3 times more potent, 3 fold easier to smuggle.) The kidneys get rid of almost all of the morphine in the urine after the liver conjugates it (straps something onto it so the kidneys can grab it) as morphine glucuronide and hydrolyzes it (adds water)... that's what's detected in the urine by drug tests. Morphine is a really tough molecule- it doesn't easily degrade. That's why coroners can exhume a body a long time after death, and still find morphine if it was involved in the death; the stuff just hangs around forever until the kidneys get around to flushing it out. Here's what Rush could have paid his maid to do, instead of having her roam the hood, looking for dope:
3. The Nitty Gritty:
He collects his urine for a week, and evaporates the water away with a hotplate and fan, maybe- that would be the disgusting part, I suppose... maybe he could have his maid do it on the roof, or on his yacht. Add solvent to the residue, let it diffuse on chromatography paper, and cut out the stripe with the morphine glucuronide. Put it in a cup, and add a few drops of concentrated sulfuric acid- that will both eat up impurities (called a digestion) and convert the morphine glucuronide to morphine sulfate. Dilute with distilled water, add drops of sodium hydroxide until the pH is neutral, add a little ether and shake it in a jar, and pour it through a coffee filter. Let it settle, and carefully pour-off the (top) ether layer... that has the crud from the digestion in it. The water layer has morphine sulfate- slowly evaporate away most of it... what remains is morphine sulfate, USP. If done carefully, maybe 75% of the metabolized morphine molecules could be reconstituted as morphine sulfate- the druggie must write down how much they take each day, to approximate the mass excreted. If they're not satisfied with that and want heroin, they should evaporate the water, add acetic acid anhydride to the residue and heat (with ventilation and a fan- I imagine that would really stink- tell the butler to inform the neighbors he's cooking German cabbage, but they're not invited) let cool, add distilled water, adjust pH to neutral, wash with ether, filter, and evaporate water as above. What remained would be mostly heroin, almost certainly more sanitary and pure than what they buy from dope dealers.
4. How This Helps Solves The Drug Problem:
This should work for heroin addicts, and pill junkies, alike... Oxycontin freaks, too... suppose they get arrested, like Rush Limbaugh and Courtney. They explain that they have a legitimate prescription for Oxycontin, and they weren't entirely responsible for the evil that followed- the culprit was primarily only their livers, which converted a perfectly legal prescription drug to a heroin precursor... what they did thereafter was a patriotic effort, to keep their money out of the hands of the gangs, cartels, and Talaban. Thus, they plea bargain that they be allowed to donate part of their livers to suitable recipients on the transplant waiting list, instead of prison time. This would help solve the drug problem from the "demand side" as us Republicans promote, keeping TV sets from being ripped-off, helping the prison overcrowding problem, and giving folks like Courtney and Rush a chance to be true philanthropists, in the spirit of their verbiage... Rush could really "put straps on someone's boots" by giving them part of his liver, and save tax dollars needed in Iraq from being used in building state prisons. I gotta' admit, the neighbors might complain about the smell, but hey- politics is a smelly business.
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Edited by - ronnywhite on 09/29/2005 01:16:49
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