Using chili peppers to burn drug abusers

[apothecary]

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/...-capsaicin.html

Two years ago, Clifford Woolf and some colleagues discovered that chili peppers and the burning pain of arthritis have something in common. Capsaicin, the chemical responsible for the "hot" in peppers, acts on a protein that also responds to the heat and high acidity associated with painful inflammation in the joints and skin.

Recently, the Richard J. Kitz Professor of Anesthesia Research at Harvard Medical School hit on the idea of using the same irritating chemical to "burn" people who illegally use pain medications. When an abuser of a medication like OxyContin snorts, chews, or injects the drug, he or she would get intense hot pain instead of an expected happy high. A patient taking the same capsaicin-laced pill could get needed relief and avoid unpleasant sensations simply by swallowing the pills whole, as directed.

"If a formulation containing capsaicin is swallowed whole, release of the irritant in the stomach and small intestine would not cause discomfort," Woolf maintains. "The majority of the capsaicin would be cleared by the liver on first pass."

Those who obtain opium-based drugs, including morphine and methadone, by theft or subterfuge usually crush the pills and snort or chew the powder to get "high." Laced with capsaicin, such a snort or chew would produce intense pain.

"Imagine snorting an extract of 50 jalapeno peppers and you get the idea," Woolf says. "On a one to 10 scale, the pain is about a thousand. It feels like a mininuclear explosion in your mouth. It does not harm you, but you never want to experience that feeling again."

"Moreover," Woolf adds, "inhalation of the capsaicin elicits a powerful cough reflex and severe pain if it leaks into certain tissues after an intravenous injection. In human volunteers, intravenous administration of capsaicin produces a widespread burning feeling of the chest, face, rectum and extremities as well as paroxysmal coughing." Otherwise, capsaicin appears to be safe.

Woolf thus sees capsaicin as one possible way to stem the rising tide of abuse of opium-based painkillers. "Such abuse is now a major societal problem, with an incidence that appears to exceed the use of street narcotics such as heroin and cocaine," he told a meeting called the Research and Policy Forum in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 15.

More in the link if you're interested.

[gerbil]

Wouldn't it be more productive to spend the money on drug reform and not on ways to harm or deter so called 'abusers'?

We are still not really looking at why people are using substances, simply trying to mask the problem in society, which IMO causes more people to turn to substances as an escape from societies bollocks. Doesn't make too much sense to me.

...but it is pretty painful packing a pipe after you've chopped up chilli. Ouch it hurt...but i wouldn't say it stopped me.

[ 11. September 2005, 09:43: Message edited by: gerbil ]

[trixxy3]

So arthritis(?) medicines will help inhibit the effect of the capsaicin if I understood that article correctly?

If so, what will this do for sufferers of arthritis and their medications?

[apothecary]

I think the gist of the concept is that if they inhibit the capsiacin receptors, arthritis pain will go down.

Rather than current arthritis medication inhibiting the receptors.

[gerbil]

"It is only a relatively trivial task to formulate a product that would not release active capsaicin to patients taking the drug legally, that is, swallowed whole," he notes. "But the capsaicin would be released if the drug is crushed, injected, or chewed."

I'm confused with how the oral dose would work. If you ingest something you ingest it and the compound does it's thing, end of story. ...Or not??

[naja naja]

I think that the gist of that was that the Pain outweighs the effect of the drug, probably only helps to stop the pain of the chilli though as thats what pain killers do. They only get u properly high if u take them when u have no pain.Otherwise they just do their job.

Personally I think this is a pretty good idea actually. I know it would stop me straght up if I used such things. And since many people just use and abuse them purly because they are addicted, not because they want to escape the world.(anymore)I also think it would be a great idea to put it on all ciggarette butts too.

But hey, If your a real chilli lover, I reakon an oral dose might actually be quite nice.you just have to build up your tolerance to capsiasum. After all, do you think a mexican or indian would have a prob eating them?

Snorting and I.V. would be fuct, but they are anyway!Would also help prevent hospital break in's, but would make it impossible for the legitimate user to just take half a tab if they only wanted half.

Lots of pro's and cons. Certainly worth researching a bit more.

[Auxin]

People would still do IV injection, they'd just quickly figure out to shake the aqueous extract with lighter fluid or gasoline and slurp the water layer into the syringe... in which case theyd also be injecting MTBE, MIBK, benzene, and who knows what else. The smart ones with lots of pills might do proper extracton but they are the minority.

It might stop the snorting though.

I handle all my dads meds- oxycodone, demerol, percocet, methadone, xanax... I dont have any urge to touch any of em but if they start laceing oxycodone with capsaicin I'm gonna chew one up just to see if they beat my hot peppers I doubt they would... its probably being formulated by northern gringos Heck! It might even be the next macho fad! How many oxycodones can you snort before crying like a little girl.

[Benzito]

 

quote:

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How many oxycodones can you snort before crying like a little girl.

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Just one does it for me! And they haven't even put this stuff in them yet!

I think I'm just emotionally fragile.

[Talby]

What about all the oral users? I assume that people who chew them up or just swallow them are alright, and the people who don't are dirty drug users who deserve chilli pepper in their nose (shades of Idi Amin torture)...

Not to mention possible heart attacks and bad reactions from combining an oxycontin rush with that nasal jalepeno explosion...anyone wanna volunteer for that?

Of course, you would only expect U.S. companies to jump on the bandwagon, Mexican companies would not, and their drugs would make it into the USA as they always do...

I know nothing about this study, but it has that reek of fraudulence and party-line toeing that the Nat'l Institute on Drug Abuse loves to hear, and wouldn't be surprised if they or someone similar funded it.

This is such a misguided and idiotic idea (you don't take care of the opiate craving by switching a snorter to a pill-popper) that it might just get tried out in the US, "science" in the servitude of neo-con politics is a big national malaise.

[ 16. September 2005, 22:00: Message edited by: Talby ]

[incognito]

how about shelving!!!!

lol..

now the repercusions of that practice with chilli infused pills i would just luuuuurv to see with camcorder in hand!!!

p.s when i used to get into the eccys i used to rate shelving!!!its the only way to take a pill!!! lol-memories......

[Anodyne]

 

quote:

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Personally I think this is a pretty good idea actually.

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Yeah let's just put neurotoxins in ALL injectable meds. No wait, why stop there, let's just ban all opiates, cut off the needle-exchange programs, and decapitate all the filthy junkies we can get our hands on.

So naja-naja, you think that it's OK for people to take opiates to "escape the world", but not if they've got a tolerance? Did I read that right? And I think you've misunderstood the point: an ORAL dose doesn't release the capsaicin until it's in the stomach, so no burn. But if you break up the tablet before then by chewing it or crushing it for snorting/injection, (or if you have trouble swallowing tablets, and it starts to dissolve before you can get it down) then the capsaicin is released.

I think this is fucking obscene. I've already posted a reply to this thread over at poppies.org, but it's worth saying it again: capsaicin is a neurotoxin. When used as "pepper spray", it can cause permanent nerve damage & temporary (but potentially severe) bronchoconstriction. So I object to Woolf's claim that "it does not harm you". I know some people eat a lot of chillies, but think about the people who are likely to be taking opiates outside a hospital (another point you seem to have missed naja-naja - this idea is for oral medications only - hospitals must have injectable opiates for emergencies, and these can't have capsaicin in them), arthritis patients, say, or just the elderly in general - who have a high rate of stomach ulcers; are you going to tell me that "50 jalapeno peppers" into a compromised stomach-lining or perforated intestine is going to be painless? Why should these patients have to suffer just because of a bunch of Puritans?

And even if people are taking their medications in a manner other than that recommended by the manufacturer (eg, snorting), do they really deserve to get pepper-sprayed in their veins? Many patients take their medicines by these methods not because they are "addicts", but simply because most doctors are reluctant to prescribe an amount that gives the patient adequate relief, for fear of producing dependency, or fear of persecution/prosecution by government authorities.

I really hope this stays in the realm of "really stupid misguided inventions" - I hope the FDA, TGA, etc are bright enough to realise that putting an unnecessary & possibly dangerous additive into people's medications, just because they disapprove of the route of administration some people choose to take that medicine by, is a really dumb idea - right up there with paraquat on marijuana crops.