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cooked or raw opium ?

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hello, does anybody here cook opium ? is that preffered rather than raw ? what if you only have a few bulbs worth ?

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isn't it illegal? hmmm??

:D

i remember reading that its better not to cook fluid from the bulbs. but i may be wrong, it was read off the net.

EDIT :- i think i was erowid who told me

[ 28. March 2005, 16:35: Message edited by: Amulte ]

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well for starters it is illegal, but cook opium is not worth the hassle unles you have alot of it, it just removes the bits of plant matter and stuff caught up in the opium.

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yeah cool i know, its for an assignment i am doing atm on afghanistan and the opium trade, it seems that they cook it, but i suppose that they have heaps so that they can.

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Of course no one here does anything illegal,

But in countries were this sort of thing is done. First of when dealing with mass quatities its generally purified with ammonium nitrate(I think) before anything is done with it. That gets about 20% waste off straight away. After that it would be sold to the local populace in that form or manufactured into heroin for ease of shipping. If they needed to sell it to opium houses (Chandries and such) they would sell it as impure black tar heroin.

If however some "criminals" had just a few bulbs, they would definately not bother cooking it and would just settle with opium tea.

Personally I'd theorise that cooked opium would be much better then raw as this was definately preferred in the 19th century. It kept an asian population in england at the time busy, they cooked raw opium into pure balls that could be put into traditional opium pipes. Anyone at the time could buy opium from an apothecary but few westerners knew how to cook it. The uncooked stuff

is probably the reason some modern experimenters snort at the stuff, it would be difficult to smoke effiecntly unprepared.

Also if a "criminal" was going cook, I'd definately advise against the modern way is dangerous for the unskilled and the traditional way will leave said "criminal" stinking of opium. I'm talking time over a frying pan here, I'd theorise that this scent is gonna stay in the hair for a while.

Keep in mind this highly illegal.

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benzadrine--a very informative post but i think you might be mistaken when you say

If they needed to sell it to opium houses (Chandries and such) they would sell it as impure black tar heroin. ---AFAIK black tar heroin comes solely from Mexico, & it is some form ov heroin---surely no opiate user is going to believe that opium--washed or not--is heroin?

i've never heard ov that ammonium nitrate thing- not that that means anything, but could you provide some more info?

what do you mean by "the modern way" to wash opium? & why is it dangerous?

i know folks who've reduced poppy pod tea to "putty" w/the frying pan, & they didn't stink;

but i'm abit confused.

is that the traditional "washing" process"

ie:dissolve in hot water. filter out impurities, then boil off the water?

wouldn't heating the water+opium mix, even only to the simmering point, degrade alot ov the morphine? & as the mix is open to the air, wouldn't the combo ov heat & oxygen oxidise some ov the morphine too?

i can't see how washing the few impurities out would result in "better" opium, if much ov the morphine has been broken down by heat or oxidised. :confused:

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www.poppies.org

Quite a lot of people with no idea there, but if you're looking for people with knowledge and/or experience in the area, this is definitely a good place to start.

There is a section of archived posts relating to various techs.

If someone in a country where such things are legal had no tolerance to opiates, little experience with natural product extractions and a small quantity of product, I'd suggest they just smoke it straight, or make poppy tea.

If they went for the latter option though, they should be very careful with dose (grind all pods together, try an initial dose of less than one pod, don't raise the dose too quickly- better to waste product than kill yourself. Repeat this whenever you get new pods, they can vary by 10:1 Remember that three times a pleasant mild dose can easily lead to unconciousness and vomiting, a potentially lethal combination).

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The Akka people of Northern Laos (I've had contact with them in Southern China as well )smoke raw opium. My understanding of the cooking is that it does not do much more than reduce the water content (and weight ) apparently the other aboriginal people of the golden triangle region all cook their opium ? Eg: Hmong.

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Nabraxas:

First off I never said that opium smokers would be "fooled" into smoking black tar heroin. Its just that its widely available and opium no longer is. Also its easier to ship and it has a better rush.

By modern way I just meant a morphine or codeine extraction, I should of explained that better.

Well I have to disagree with you about the opium smell thing. Any worthwhile amount of opium is gonna stink in my experience.

I don't know where this smoking uncooked thing is coming from. Yeah screw purification why drink vodka when you can drink the dirty mash of potatoes that comes before. Hell why drink cider when you can just wait for apples to rot and ferment on the tree and eat them. I mean why buy that expensive petrol when a car can probably thump along on crude, at least for a little while.

Stolen from http://opioids.com/jh/

"Before opium is smoked, it is usually 'cooked'. Uncooked opium contains moisture, as well as soil, leaves, twigs, and other impurities which diminish the quality of the final product. The raw opium collected from the opium poppy pods is placed in an open cooking pot of boiling water where the sticky globs of opium alkaloids quickly dissolve. Soil, twigs, plant scrapings, etc., remain undissolved. The solution is then strained through cheesecloth to remove these impurities. The clear brown liquid that remains is opium in solution, sometimes called 'liquid opium'. This liquid is then re-heated over a low flame until the water is driven off into the air as steam leaving a thick dark brown paste. This paste is called 'prepared', 'cooked', or 'smoking' opium. It is dried in the sun until it has a putty-like consistency. The net weight of the cooked opium is generally only eighty percent that of the original raw opium. Thus, cooked opium is more pure than its original, raw form, and has a higher monetary value."

Thats one way of doing it.

2B:

Ahhh but the removal of the water content and dirt , allows a far more efficient smoke. Its like trying to smoke soggy waterlogged weed.

[ 29. March 2005, 21:25: Message edited by: Benzedrine ]

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keep in mind that there is a difference between "cooked opium" and "smoking opium".

you need half an hour to transform raw op in cooked op. the advantages are a more clean and homogene product with a controlled humidity level.(farmer & whole sellers are using it because it is more easy to control this kind of stuff during a transaction (quality, adjuvants etc))

you need months to make chandoo, the true smoking opium (indian name, there is also some other famous name like the chinese and libanese).

Nabraxas, why do you think that oxydation is a bad thing ? the oxidation process (fire, air)is always describe as a true part of the op manufacture.

instead of comparing vodka and potatoes i prefer the image of the coffee : there is some cafein in fresh coffee and also in your cup...but the important thing is not the quantity of cafein, it is more the way it will be metabolize in the body and the taste of the drink. this is why they carrefully make a torrefaction.

this is the same thing with opium, chinese and english have devellopped it into an art. with subtil tools and rituals, then they will not use a raw product

[ 30. March 2005, 05:59: Message edited by: VIN'S ]

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can u not simply hang the bulbs upside down with a few good scratches on skin of the bulb let the goo drip, dry and scrape it up and smoke by adding a little heat from underneath??????? :)

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vins--"Higher temperature, particularly when combined with an alkaline reaction or when the solution is in contact with the air, can be deleterious to morphine"

web page

"pseudomorphine (pseu·do·mor·phine) (soo²do-mor¢fin) a compound occurring in opium and prepared by the oxidation of morphine; called also dehydromorphine."

web page

i guess i've just always assumed morphine would be more potent than pseudomorphine. can't actually find any useful info on the properties ov pseudo morphine.

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thank youfor the link Nabraxas,

i just check it and it is more scientistic than my reference. i like the odc infos (just sorry to see only olds (1920 to 1960) studies about poppies, op etc )

i think that the target is really not only the drug power of the stuff but more all the taste and smoking qualities which lead people to transform the 1h-cooked opium into chandoo.

anyway i never meet somebody who cooked or tried true opium, so i can't talk about the difference in effects between the raw and the cooked.

in what i understand Nabraxas, you said that the level of pseudomorphine is higher in cooked opium. i don't know the particularity of pseudo morphine but i suppose that of course the alkaloids proportions and forms are differents when opium is cooked.

think about hashisch ; the oxidation is bad for thc which turn into another form. there is more oxidation in hashich than in hemp,but this is not a bad thing because it give it a personnality, a taste.(even if there is less true thc)

[ 31. March 2005, 06:32: Message edited by: VIN'S ]

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vins--i see what you mean, though the analogy is abit thin, hash being traditionally made from low THC plants the collected resin glands would push the potentcy ov the hash way above that ov the plant, so any oxidisation would be minor, in its effect on the strength ov the hash was made for easier trade.

dried opium cakes too.

have a good read ov this page

visit to an opium factory , try & ignore the imperialist attitude.

it shows how the cakes were made in india under the brits.

i still can't work out what the "washing" actually is.

[ 31. March 2005, 05:59: Message edited by: nabraxas ]

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will try to read and translate that soon. thanks

i do agree that the analogy is a bit thin, that's always the matter when we use it. all i mean is : behind the "easier trade" reasons, there is some rituals and guenine socials reasons to cook it as they do (or did).

i am like you regarding the "washing" meaning but it take a little bit of sens if you think about dross. dross is a residu but with a really high M level (it was made by the action of air and fire).(and it is an opium ingredient....but i am confusing my explaination, i didn't talk about dross because of that)

when all the removable waxes are out of the solution, the only way is maybe to use the fire to increase the alkaloids level and to destruct the other compounds.....which are washed (ash-residu are maybe not water-soluble instead of waxes and alkaloids)

maybe someone with a chemical knowledge can answer that.....if not you will have to go in india in hollidays and to report.

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vins--i've been to india twice.

i sampled opium in Dehli that was probably not washed or dried, it was just a blob ov very sticky goo. it didn't seem that strong, but i was opium nieve then :)

most ov the opium i tried came from further north. i've no idea where it came from or how it had been treated but it was more the consistancy ov putty, usually melting & sticking to the fingers abit if handled too long. i tried many different types & there did seem to be quite subtle but obvious variations in effect.

twice i came across opium allegedly from pakistan

which was rock hard, jet black & smooth, so it shone like a black mirror. you couldn't break bits off it too easily as it would fracture & small shards would go everywhere, they were small enough that they'd melt as you tried to pick them up & stick to your fingers.

when you did manage to get some in a pipe it was very nice stuff. the second time i saw this stuff was in Nepal.

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