UK codeine sources?

[pixeljuice]

First post - hi everyone!

I expect this gets asked every couple of days, but I couldn't find any comprehensive posts which deal with it. I'm only interested in sources available in the UK.

1) Are there any off-the-shelf supermarket products containing codeine?


2) What none prescription codeine products are available, and how do you go about obtaining them?

(what specific product do you ask for, what justification do you give for wanting it, which are the best pharmacies to buy from)


3) Is there an area in the forums specifically for sources? - I think an old post referred to something like that, but I couldn't find anywhere.

[Alfa]

There are two different definitions of sources: one is vendors, which are discussed in the sources forums. Discussion of vendors is not allowed outside the sources forums (gold members only) as you should have read in the rules.
The other meaning is products where specific substances can be derived from, which are allowed to be discussed in open forum.

[Panthers007]

It should be added that only sources of legal materials are allowed in the Sources Forum. This community does not allow any illegal material sources whatsoever.

[davestate]

Originally Posted by pixeljuice

First post - hi everyone!

I expect this gets asked every couple of days, but I couldn't find any comprehensive posts which deal with it. I'm only interested in sources available in the UK.

1) Are there any off-the-shelf supermarket products containing codeine?


2) What none prescription codeine products are available, and how do you go about obtaining them?

1. There are no products available in the supermarket which contain codeine, codeine based medicines are PoM (prescription only medicine)

2. SWIM finds the the generic co-codamol which contain 8mg's of codeine and 500mgs of paracetamol are the best for a cold water extraction, details of this procedure can be found by using the forum search engine. Just go into any chemist and ask for a packet of co-codamol, dead cheap, dont bother with branded products.

[pixeljuice]

Originally Posted by Alfa

There are two different definitions of sources: one is vendors, which are discussed in the sources forums. Discussion of vendors is not allowed outside the sources forums (gold members only) as you should have read in the rules.
The other meaning is products where specific substances can be derived from, which are allowed to be discussed in open forum.

Point taken - I didn't really make the distinction between vendors and products, also didn't notice the bit about 'gold members only'.

Originally Posted by Panthers007

It should be added that only sources of legal materials are allowed in the Sources Forum. This community does not allow any illegal material sources whatsoever.

Noted, but not relevant - I have no intention of obtaining illegal materials, and I wouldn't be posting it in the forum if I did.

Originally Posted by davestate

1. There are no products available in the supermarket which contain codeine, codeine based medicines are PoM (prescription only medicine)

2. SWIM finds the the generic co-codamol which contain 8mg's of codeine and 500mgs of paracetamol are the best for a cold water extraction, details of this procedure can be found by using the forum search engine. Just go into any chemist and ask for a packet of co-codamol, dead cheap, dont bother with branded products.

Thanks - that helps a bit

[Solinari]

Codeine products can be found in any pharmacy and you do not require a prescription, however the maximum dose of codeine per pill is 8mg, a miserable amount if you ask me. I would agree with no brands as they are cheaper, but a brand that i know of with codeine in it is Nurofen Plus.

A cold water extraction is a must.

Reasons for wanting it would be anything that hurts really, toothache, headache, sore thumb, sore face, whatever. The pharmacist may ask questions about taking other paracetamol containing products and may ask what it's for. I think these things are usually behind the counter.

The other thing is, i am fairly sure it is legal to buy over the counter pain medication with dihydrocodeine in it and according to Wikipedia it is "100 to 150 percent as strong as codeine". I believe there is an over the counter dihydrocodeine product known as Paramol, but i can not be certain. A cold water extraction will work with this as well.

Finally do not take more than the recommended dose (read the label) without taking the paracetamol out first, i am being serious, this is not a kid on wink wink joke.

[pixeljuice]

Big thanks Solinari! - thats exactly what I was looking for

APAP hepa toxicity warning noted - hate the stuff.

SWIM was thinking of doing a chloroform extraction on the freebase (a la teragon) after CWE as I really do not like APAP.

Still researching, but this is very well trodden ground so I doubt the extraction will present any challenges.

[yaba]

Nurofen plus 200mg ibuprofen 12.8mg codeine.
Co-codamol 500mg paracetamol 8mg codeine.
Paramol 500mg paracetamol 7.46mg dihydrocodeine.

This is all available (otc) in the UK together with some codeine and other opiod's containing cough syrups.

[Solinari]

12.8mg of codeine right enough, must be because it's ibuprofen and not paracetamol which i completely forgot about to be honest. I have heard that a cold water extraction can be done with ibuprofen as well, but i would check that out first.

The brands are usually much more expensive than generic pharmacy own make, so i imagine that pharmacy own brand co-codamol would give you more codeine for the money than Nurofen Plus.

[0utrider]

it can be done with ibuprofen but a lot better results are achieved with paracetamol! read the faq in my link and many threads experience the same, actually it doesnt matter that its a lil less in the pills if its cheap since SWIY can remove close to all by doing one or two well done CWEs which can be done as a one (using several filters to speed things up). if SWIY buys a lot he can do that and will have a homogenic solution, so he just has to try carefully one good dosage and can use the same amount of solution everytime. he could also let the water evaporate and do the same with powder.
the apparently "bad" ratio is really not bad actually, especially since one, if he wants to be careful, can filter a lot more precise & also take an antidote "after" just for the sake of it (which is apparently also a good antioxidant) which doesnt exist for ibuprofen. more in the faq in my signature..

[stevec]

Originally Posted by yaba

Nurofen plus 200mg ibuprofen 12.8mg codeine.
Co-codamol 500mg paracetamol 8mg codeine.
Paramol 500mg paracetamol 7.46mg dihydrocodeine.

Also..
Cuprofen Plus
Same active ingredients as Nurofen Plus (200mg Ibup + 12.8mg Codeine) - but MUCH cheaper.
£2.24 for 24, at the pharmacy of a large UK supermarket chain - as opposed to about £5 for N+

[jb2008]

SWIM has just done his first CO-COD. 500/8 CWE. Ended up with around 50% yield which is pretty poor but he doesn't mind that much. He has just mixed it with fruit juice and ice and shaken it around in a bottle to make a nice punch. However, SWIM currently doesn't feel like drinking any today, is it OK to leave codeine at room temperature for a day or more? Does it degrade in quality etc.?

Thanks, SWIM told me he would be grateful for a reply.

[Solinari]

It should be fine to leave it at room temperature, i can't see any reason why that would be a problem. I am bit unsure as to why it's thought to be a 50% yield, why is was this mentioned? I don't think it's a good idea to assume it's 50% unless the solution was evaporated away and the residue was weighed, best to assume it's 100% and not take any chances unless you know better (for a fact).

[jb2008]

Thanks for the reply Solinari, glad to see it's ok to leave it.

SWIM just drank half the bottle 10 mins ago, it was mixed with really sweet fruit juice but still SWIM says it is bitter as anything!!!

SWIM also wonders how long codeine takes to kick in on a full stomach, as he drank 10 mins ago and is wondering if he took enough ??? Assuming a 100% yield, that would be 300mg, and SWIM has never done this before. But SWIM honestly thinks it was about 50% as he filtered twice and the volume he came out with was a bit less than half the original solution. Plus, SWIM bitterly remarks, if SWIM had in fact taken 300mg, then he would surely feel at least something ;P

[Solinari]

By half the original volume, is this half the original volume of water? If so then this shouldn't really have any bearing on the yield unless it is related to the solubility in milligrams per millilitre, but this shouldn't matter. Being left with half the amount of liquid shouldn't matter much either because it would all be dissolved in the water and even if half the water is lost it doesn't mean half the codeine is lost but i imagine some may well be. Another possibility could be down to displacement of the water by the amount of paracetamol, this will increase the volume of the water, albeit not by much, but when the paracetamol is removed then the volume should go back down. It's probably best to start with a measured amount of water without anything added to it, and then see what is left after the extraction, if that is what was meant, then i think the above still stands.

I have only ever seen one cold water extraction done (by someone else) so i don't know much about it, but i imagine that there shouldn't be that much water lost in this extraction. If there is a lot of water left in the paracetamol after filtration then the water should be squeezed out and then re-filtered. Of course i am not an expert on this and only seen it done once, so i could be completely wrong, so maybe another member that has seen this done many times will be able to comment on determining yields.

[robshaka]

Originally Posted by jb2008

Thanks for the reply Solinari, glad to see it's ok to leave it.

SWIM just drank half the bottle 10 mins ago, it was mixed with really sweet fruit juice but still SWIM says it is bitter as anything!!!

SWIM also wonders how long codeine takes to kick in on a full stomach, as he drank 10 mins ago and is wondering if he took enough ??? Assuming a 100% yield, that would be 300mg, and SWIM has never done this before. But SWIM honestly thinks it was about 50% as he filtered twice and the volume he came out with was a bit less than half the original solution. Plus, SWIM bitterly remarks, if SWIM had in fact taken 300mg, then he would surely feel at least something ;P

Swim never does codeine or dihydrocodeine on a full stomach as he's convinced at least half of it gets wasted or degraded. Try doing it on as empty a stomach as you can (i don't mean don't eat ) maybe eat your dinner at 5 and then take the drug at 11 with nothing in between. dihydrocodeine tends to work better on a full stomach( though it's expensive) as it's better armoured and can survive your stomach acids more.

[stevec]

SWIM has noticed that after an hour or more, when the effect starts to fade, and the inevitable thirst develops, by drinking a large glass of fruit juice the effect can often re-intensify a little, for a short period.

[pixeljuice]

From memory (I cant ref. this so...) a text book CWE yields ~60% codeine on the first wash, ~30% on the second and ~5% on the third.
I'll try and find out where the hell I read that, likelyhood is it was mushroomery or rhodium, and I havent recalled the numbers correctly.

Since I have yet to find a _really_ specific CWE method with exact temperatures and yields, I take the results with a pinch of salt ( since you are not going to be doing exactly the same thing as the person writing up the method ).

I've been doing an extraction based on panadol 15x 500mg apap/12.5mg codeine with 2ml water/tablet @ 50 degrees c agitated into solution, dropping to 1-2 degrees c and vacuum filtered.

This seems to precipitate most of the apap, but I'm a bit fuzzy (read: knew it, forgot it, to idle to look it up again) on codeine solubility at 1-2 deg. c, or the dynamics of simultaneous codeine/apap solubility in water.

The solution is very clear, but based on my subjective experience with straight 60mg codeine phosphate tablets the overall combined yield for 3 of the above washes is ~50% of the expected codeine content assuming 100% efficiency in extraction.

pixeljuice added 10 Minutes and 45 Seconds later...

PS. try searching for "opiate potentiators" on this forum, or google it.

IME grapefruit juice etc has little effect with _codeine_. Dramamine may be a different matter though ( I have no experience - cant find any allergy tablets with it in / ).

pixeljuice added 4 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...

PPS. my CWE is of course from the awsome guide in outriderx's sig.

[Yata]

Yeh boot's do there own brand co-codamols as well which are pretty cheap. I would look at them

[sirdrugalot]

Originally Posted by Yata

Yeh boot's do there own brand co-codamols as well which are pretty cheap. I would look at them

an old lady with false teeth told swim
"dont buy boots own brand there a load of crap.
there hard to filter and more expensive then the ones you get from the chemist.
when you freeze the boots own brand ones the binders seem to swell up and clog up your coffee filters"

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[darkglobe]

Originally Posted by davestate

1. There are no products available in the supermarket which contain codeine, codeine based medicines are PoM (prescription only medicine)

2. SWIM finds the the generic co-codamol which contain 8mg's of codeine and 500mgs of paracetamol are the best for a cold water extraction, details of this procedure can be found by using the forum search engine. Just go into any chemist and ask for a packet of co-codamol, dead cheap, dont bother with branded products.

Erm - contradiction? Co-Codamol does contain Codeine lol. You won't find any Codeine-containing products outside of a licensed Pharmacy, though. Many supermarkets have Pharmacies though.

Codeine is available upto and including 8mg without a prescription, anything more requires one. The UK "normal" prescription Codeine pill would contain 30mg Codeine and 500mg Paracetamol. This is, of course, the best way to obtain Codeine in order to extract, but only for legitimate painkilling purposes.
OTC works out rather expensive apparently, but still does the same job.

Just remember - whatever SWIY uses, be careful not to ingest more than the recommended Paractemol amount per day (I believe it is 1g per dose, no more than 2g per day, and SWIY REALLY wouldn't wanna do those dosages regularly, either). Always extract the Codeine safely.

[flipper70]

hi just wondering to confirm - swim's been taking nurofen + but only 6 tablets at once - about once a week. Havent bothered extracting as the ibuprofen amount was low. Now swim is on citalopram which blocks the good effects of codeine so need to up dosage to get a high therefore cwe needed. swim tried cwe with N+ but no effect at all. Is it better to do paracetamol/codeine? does ibuprofen not seperate properly? Has anyone tried and tested this? cheers

[sirdrugalot]

swim finds nuro+ are just hard to extract they just turn into a puddle of slop and get it hard to filter. there a bit pricey to. ibuprofen in general is not very good for a cwe. and dont take large amounts of ibuprofen it will cut your guts to bits you probably have felt a bit sick after taking 6 n+? well thats not nausea from the codeine.
go for Co-Codamol they contain paracetamol and codeine. paracetamol is much easier to do a cwe on. you also get a lot more codeine for your money with them (around 250mg per pack) and there far cheaper than n+. just make sure you use 2ml per tab and you cool the solution to 4c before you filter them.
hope this helps.

[flipper70]

Thanks for that swim will def try c codamol next time, guess swim tried n+ coz its a higher codeine content per tab but it obviously evens out price wise. would swim need to use about 15 co codamol? ( i believe some gets lost in process? )

[SexMonkey]

just wanted to say swim is also on citalopram and if anything the effects of codine is stonger, swim wonders why this is...........hmmmm....strange

staciefoster added 3 Minutes and 13 Seconds later...

swim has pure codine tablets that are 10mg, swim takes 6 of these and feels very happy, and like to say again swim is taking citalopram 20mg and it doesnt seem to effect the codine at all. Any one no why this is? Also how much do other swims take and what effects do they feel? Swim just feels relaxed, happy and rather then wanting to sleep feels more motivated to do things