• jordanlund@lemmy.worldOPM
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      2 days ago

      Sooo… it’s complicated.

      To produce heroin you need a specific species of poppy, called oddly enough an “opium poppy”.

      You gently slice the heads of the poppy to extract a milky liquid. That’s the base for a whole HOST of drugs depending on how you process it, but yes, it starts life as a liquid.

      Opium sap -> Morphine -> Heroin.

      Man, now I’m envisioning a whole series of black market “How It’s Made” videos.

      https://youtu.be/6o4zOMNlSco

    • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      It’s typically sold as a powder, “cooked up” into a liquid by dissolving in water, then injected.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      It has different bases it can be in, depending how its processed or how many steps its processed. Street heroin in america could be water soluble or not depending on location. Sometimes you need to add something to make it react to make it water soluble, other times its already in water soluble form. You need it to be water soluble to snort or inject it.