Any hard facts on effectiveness of CWE?

[erriksen]

SWIM was recently thumbing through the frequencies on his radio when he intercepted what must have been a conversation between two amateur radio enthusiasts. The chap's name seemed to be Reginald K. Picklebum, but it was rather static.

Reginald had been taking codeine phosphate for over a year - pure codeine prescribed from his doctor. Much to his distress the doctor suddenly stopped prescribing it. Silly Reginald had found out that if he took a few at a time the effects were pleasureable, and was soon taking up to 330mg, once a week (silly fellow!). These dosages are of course potentially dangerous to those with no tolerance.

He read avidly on the precedure of CWE, using a range of different medicines containing codeine and dihydrocodeine. He followed the instructions very closely, but even after extracting 400mg+ (which, accounting for loss should be at least 300mg?) it was found the results were disapointing, certainly nowhere near that of 300mg of codeine from the codeine tablets. Reginald said that an extraction which should result in 400mg felt like 120mg.

Has anyone else compared REAL codeine dosages to CWE? Reginald is losing faith in CWE.

[Tortoise]

Hmmm.... Reginald is probably doing some wrong then. Swim thinks it is likely that you lose a fair bit in the process of CWE and he occasionally compares the amount of water he is left to the amount of water he started with and surmises that the amount of codeine lost is proprtional to the amount of water lost. With a good extraction he may lose 15% to 20%.

Is Reginald losing a lot of water with his CWE? Perhaps he needs to refine his method....

[Psych0naut]

If SWIY loses too much SWIY should use more water to dissolve the tablets in, this way less dissolved codeine is lost during filtering, and the paracetamol won't dissolve, as long as the solution is put in the fridge during filtering(the solution has to be pre-cooled before filtering!
SWIM never looses more than just a few percent of the solution.

[Big Fella]

Augustine always filters the solution twice, and has noticed no loss of potency. It could be a case that Reginald's tolerance has increased.

Augustine, in cases like this, takes a two week break, then on his return he finds that things are much better.

[Tortoise]

Originally Posted by Big Fella

Augustine always filters the solution twice, and has noticed no loss of potency. It could be a case that Reginald's tolerance has increased.

Augustine, in cases like this, takes a two week break, then on his return he finds that things are much better.

Does Augustine find that there is anthing left in the filter paper after the 2nd filtration?

[Big Fella]

Augustine finds non in the muslin he uses, bar a slight white shading, however he is not known to pour the goup in as well, he usually stops before it runs down the glass.

[erriksen]

Cheers for the ideas. It was found that using more water and double filtering did make a slight difference for the better.