# Heroin users using ammonia? UL? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 4, 2004, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708 "2004-01-04T22:48:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![effac3d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@effac3d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/effac3d)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708/1 "2004-01-04T22:48:21Z")
I’ve heard a friend of a friend type story that long time heroin users will use ammonia to cook the heroin instead of water. And that somehow injecting ammonia into their veins will give them a better high,one they can no longer acheive otherwise because of years of tolerance. I call bullshit on it since injecting ammonia into your veins seems like a suicide method to me,dopers? ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708/2 "2004-01-04T23:21:32Z")
Ammonia is used in the manufacturing process (opium to heroin), and some users also use ammonia to purify thier heroin (remove the “cut” and other impurities, but it never cooked with ammonia before injecting. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708/3 "2004-01-04T23:27:38Z")
That’s been garbled somewhere down the line. Some heroin users use ammonia in the process of _purifying_ street heroin. (Hydrochloric acid and ether are used as part of the same process.) Basically, the heroin is put in solution and its ph is manipulated to alter is solubility. After a few steps, everything is seperated into two layers, an ether layer and a water layer, with additives in one layer and Impurities are discarded, and the ph is adjusted again to convert the heroin back into its alkaloid form, and the solution is evaporated. Yes, dangerous substances are used, but in the end the user has a known quantity of pure heroin (or heroin and relatively-benign sodium chloride), so the method actually makes them safer by reducing the chance of an accidental overdose. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708/4 "2004-01-04T23:28:58Z")
Darned dawdling hamsters. ---
**Author:** ![Roches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc8723/32.png) [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708/5 "2004-01-05T00:14:41Z")
I just saw something on TV where someone was discussing this, but with crack. I think they were probably using it to turn cocaine into crack, via the acid-base extraction procedure Larry Mudd mentioned, but without the final acidification step. The same person then went on to have someone inject crack _into her neck_. I never knew people actually did that – I thought it was just something drug fiction writers like Burroughs used to shock audiences. ---
**Author:** ![Headcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@Headcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Headcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708/6 "2004-01-05T01:16:48Z")
Are you sure you’re remembering it properly, Roches? Ammonia is used to cook up cocaine hydrochloride to make FREEBASE (crack), so that its smokable. Once its in crack form, it can’t be injected because its no longer water soluble. So they’d have to acidify the base thus negating the whole process. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708/7 "2004-01-05T02:36:51Z")
That’s right **Headcoat**. The rocks are crushed up and lemon juice or vinegar is added to it and then cooked up and injected. A longer but less intense high than smoking it. ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroin-users-using-ammonia-ul/222708/8 "2004-01-05T09:23:52Z")
Addicts can develop amazing skills with needles. They’ll find a vein long after all the nurses, residents and attendings have given up. Some are fearless about going for central veins (in the upper chest or near the heart) that always make _me_ nervous. Not that I’d dare let them - but I do recall being rushed out of the room by a resident in med school, and when we returned, the tap had been mysteriously done. In re: ammonia. Ammonia was surreptitiously added to cigarettes in the 70s (IIRC) because it essentially caused the smokers to unwittingly freebase their nicotine, which gave more of a rush, and was more addictive.