I had heard somewhere years ago about a professional chemist that had in secret synthed a extremely potent opioid and started using it HIGHLY diluted.
Apparently this kept up for years with him addicted and dosing literally every few minutes, apparently the drug he was using was so potent it was the equivalent to an outrageous amount of morphine. He was caught and cut off from his supply he quickly commited suicide rather than face withdrawl of that level.
Is this a real event? Who was it?
I cannot imagine someone using literally every few minutes.
On the other hand, acute opioid withdrawal is not actually “that bad” in that it lasts only a few days for most opoids. For a hypothetical opioid that lasted only a few minutes (lol - how did this guy sleep?) it would last hours. Hours of hell, but what can you do.
It’s the stuff afterwards that really sucks. Post Acute Withdrawl Syndrome they call it. Google it.
The basic problem you have with opioids is that they are the most wonderful thing ever, at least for some people, and while you can get through the most harsh withdrawal stuff fairly soon (except for long lasting shit like methadone) your brain is not an idiot and it remembers how wonderful life was. Ergo, enormous depression, for months and possibly for life, once you stop the stuff. Since this only happens to some people it’s my view that those susceptible to opioid addiction and relapse are blatantly missing something and should be given opioids for the rest of their lives, but this is a minority view.
However that doesn’t take you any closer to info about your chemist. So I will relate another story about an opioid-luving chemist.
A gentleman named Barry Kidston, a 23-year-old chemistry graduate student in Maryland, US, synthesized MPPP, an opioid analgesic drug developed in the 1940s by researchers at Hoffmann-La Roche. At the time MPPP was legal and he handed it out to a few of his friends.
What he hadn’t appreciated is that the intermediate tertiary alcohol is liable to dehydration in acidic conditions if the reaction temperature rises above 30°C, and, since Kidston did not realize this and esterified the intermediate with propionic anhydride at an elevated temperature, MPTP was formed as a major impurity. Several days after trying this new batch of his homemade drug, Kidston developed serious Parkinson’s Disease symptoms, as did several friends he had shared the drug with.
This was not reversible and while I don’t know their fate, if him and his mates are still alive (which I doubt) they were completely fucked over by this. So there’s an opioid synthethis gone wrong story for ya.
Now write to your lawmakers and support opioid legalisation for all at once!
Interestingly enough, Barry Kidston died of a cocaine overdose.