Filters.... 'Sterifilt' VS Micron

These are the only available filters on the market designed specifically for IDU's..

     And this is the clinical study commissioned by the manufacturers of the 'sterifilt'

        I can see they would be useful for filtering heroin/ and or crack for a single shot.

But when it comes to pills they're pretty useless!

Even after twice filtering with cigarette filters, I managed to get around 0.2ml through before it blocked, the solution also had a speck of paper fibre floating in it!

My honest opinion? They're a bit 'gimicky' and money would be better spent elsewhere!

As I said before, in Australia, wheel filters are supplied as standard.. (Heroin is in short supply there, more often than not, when you buy 'heroin' you would get some MST/MS-Contin AND a small bottle of Acetic Anhydride ((A precursor for manufacturing heroin)).

When preparing pills this proper filtration is a necessity!

I got some samples from my local exchange to try,..... issues:

• They are designed to fit on 1ml insulin syringes (with needle tip intact), not normal barrels (2-10ml)
• The filter is small, paper (around 8mm diameter)  and  blocked up within seconds (although what I did get through was pretty clear!
• As I said, the finished solution had a paper fibre floating in it!.. Not great if your trying to avoid cotton fever!

       Now I understand micron filters are extremely expensive, (best I've found is £80 for 100pcs) but compared with he amount of irreversible damage talc/cellulose and wax can do to you the capillaries in your lungs I think justifies this?

I've even offered to pay towards the cost, so here's hoping I'm listened too!

There are lots of great resources online with regards to pill injecting, here are a few links...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_injection


http://www.heroinhelper.com/curious/chemistry/internet_pills.shtml
http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=139166
http://forum.opiophile.org/showthread.php?28507-Injecting-Pills
http://www.aivl.org.au/database/sites/default/files/resources/Safer%20Injecting.pdf
http://www.needle.co.nz/fastpage/fpengine.php/templateid/56

Pill injecting is obvoiusly taboo, especially at a time of workdwide; recession, obviously drug users and other 'non essential' serices suffer first in budget cuts but does this really make sense?

The gist of the main study I posted below:

• Hot VS cold prep yields minimal differences in returned morphine (within a couple of percent)
• Cigarette filters are nowhere near fine enough to rid the mix of talc an binders
• 0.22 micron syringe filters really are the only way to eliminate talc sized particles
• Even small amounts of talc/wax can lodge in the small bronchial tube, causing a whole host of pulmonary conditions
• The contaminants that pass the lungs can adhere to the main heart valve/artery and cause granulomas, the knock on effect of this is pulmonary hypertension (dangerously high blood pressure)
• In one extreme case a lung transplant was needed
• Once the damage is done, it's done, it can be very difficult to treat and the evidence from the studies confirms a significant of early death. (One case of granuloma was from a patient who reported injecting approximately ONLY 200 pills.

 Other points worth mentioning:

• Service users are nervous about presenting as pill injectors due to anxiety about loosing their script
• There is a hell of a lot of conflicting 'recipes' online for extraction, more research needs to be done!
•  Lack of client engagement and feedback to the exchange and they're suppliers means nothing will change until someone stands up!

Ambivalence towards treatment will always be an issue with heroin addicts, I wish more of us would stand up for our rights!

If you, or anyone you know injects pills, please pass this information on, and go visit your needle exchange, if enough people ask it's more likely micron filters will become an option for us...