The other night swim and a few other people were at his place. They were all injecting black tar heroin. Swim noticed two girls were not filtering their mixtures and inquired as to why. They said that when one filters the tar that some heroin is lost in the cotton filter. Swim was told by another swimmer on this sight that when one dissolves tar in water and filters it, none is lost because diacetylmorphine is a water soluble molecule so it goes through the cotton along with all the water. The girls disagreed and swim just told them that even if they were getting ALL the heroin they were also getting all the particulate shit that is in the black nastiness as well.
Swim's question is this: When dissolving tar in water and preparing it for injection, is any heroin lost in the cotton by filtering the solution?
Re: Does one lose heroin when using a cotton filter?
SWIM is sure that some H is lost but the amount is negligible. But it's clear that if SWIM adds 30 units of water to the H and ends up only drawing 25 units to the syringe, something is left behind. And that "something" is probably more than just bacteria and fillers.
Re: Does one lose heroin when using a cotton filter?
Yeah some stuff is lef behind in the filter, but not much, and when you run out of gear, you can normally get a decent hit from 5/6 filters.
Just make sure that you leave the filters out to dry straight after using them, and keep them spaced apart. And read the thread on how to avoid cotton fever.
Re: Does one lose heroin when using a cotton filter?
Swie used to get filters from a site called Exchange Supplies, which filter down to less than 5 microns and don't really retain any gear. They fit on the end of BD syringes. On the site it only mentions quantities of 1000+ but you can call and order smaller quantities if it's for personal use. They're not expensive, and you probably almost save the cost anyway as they really don't retain any heroin in the same way as cottons. It's a UK site though.
I've heard that in some countries they give out wheel filters. I wish they'd do that here.
From the site:
"The sterifilt has been shown in laboratory studies conducted by Jenny Scott at the University of Bath to remove 90% of the particles measuring less than 5 microns, and 99% of all particles greater than 5 microns from the solution. The sterifilt has been tested with brown heroin, white heroin, cocaine and many types of crushed tablets and has been shown to be an effective filter that stops particles being drawn through, but does not retain the drug."
Re: Does one lose heroin when using a cotton filter?
What may or may not be lost through the filter is worth losing, and do not re-use filters or 'boil' with in an attempt to reclaim that lost H. Swim used to do this and got 'cotton fever' and it was absolutly hellish. Swim didn't get why she was ill. The symptoms were like acute wds, but came on full force within an hour and the head ache was unbelievable. Consequently, Swim pinned more to try alleviate the symptoms (again using a re-used filter) and this just made it so much worse.
If y'going to be a very economical junkie...also be a wise one. Cotton fever is not nice.
ISmokeCigarettes added 4 Minutes and 18 Seconds later...
In some of the exchanges in the UK they give stericups with filters...and they're brilliant, not like cotton, like plastic, work perfectly and don't retain the gear like cotton seems to. Still, they never gave Swim more than about ten a pop and Swim, being lazy and often desperate, would re-use her pins and the filters, cups etc and run out of vitc so often. If it is possible to buy them online, Swim would recomend it, and buying vitc if possible.
Last edited by ISmokeCigarettes; 03-04-2009 at 16:18.
Reason: Automerged Doublepost
Re: Does one lose heroin when using a cotton filter?
Sure you loose a little tiny tiny bit, but its nothing and if you add 20 units of water to the dry cotton after you draw the gear up and re draw the water thru the cotton you will get all that you lost. Its negligible anyways.
