I do not use a filter for drawing up MS Contin. This is because the buff components within Contins do not remain solid or gritty. When cooking up pharmaceuticals, you only need to use a filter to keep out solid bits. Luckily contins, unlike many pills, do not have any solid bits - there are only portions that haven't entirely melted down into the liquid and therefore remain as a mass. However, when you cook contins correctly, slowly and thoroughly, there will be no solid bits remaining within the liquid that you need to filter out.

On the other hand, an example of a pill that has solid grit is Dilaudid, which even when most clear liquid, still contains very small gritty chaulk-like parts that need to be filtered out.

The ingredients of a MS Contin all breaks down (melts into liquid) and are relatively beniegn, so it isn’t a problem if little amounts slip into the syringe when drawing it up. The buff (inactive ingredients) of a MS Contin are: cetostearyl alcohol, hydroxyethyl cellulose, hypromellose, magnesium stearate, polyethylene glycol, talc and titanium dioxide. Whether you use a filter or not, you still get this stuff into your mixture - right?

Just be careful to not draw up larger unmelted chunks as it has the tendency of plugging the needle when it cools off. As well, by not using a filter I get the maximum morphine content as I don’t have to worry about morphine getting trapped in the wax in the filter.

Here’s my method. I break down the MSContin as thoroughly as possible with a pistal/mortar routine using the bottom end of a small peeling knife (black hard rounded plastic end) in the spoon. It really breaks it down to light, fluffy power. Then I use the bottom end of the syringe’s plunger to break down even more finely the few little sand size balls that might remain.

Once it is the finest powder I can possible make, I add 130 units of water for a whole pill (each marking on syringe barrel is one unit, so that's a full syringe and another third of water). I hold the spoon with watery mixture over an electric stove (or a candle) and watch as the powder melts into the water, shaking the spoon a bit so it all breaks down thoroughly. Once it is completely melted, I put the center of the spoon directly onto the stove’s element and a quick boil begins in the middle. The boil point creates a clear liquidy pocket right in the middle of the mixture which is where I put the needle point to do the drawing up into the syringe.

I put a clean needle right in the middle of the liquid pocket and draw up the just boiled liquid. I draw up slowly enough that a strong suction current is avoided, and thus none of the gunk within the spoon gets pulled up into the barrel. Gunk might start collecting around the tip but very little actually goes inside it - only the very smallest of particles. Once all the liquid is drawn up, I withdraw the needle point from the spoon, and clean the end with a tissue, and clear any air bubbles from the syringe.

The syringe’s barrel might now be 60% full. I now add another 15 units of water into the spoon, and repeat the cooking. Again I draw up from boiled clear pocket of liquid and now the syringe might be 85% full.

I add about 15 units more of water, re-cook, and this last draw is very liquid. This is so that the liquid in the end of the syringe will easily start out of the needle as I’m shooting. I want that initial flow as I begin injecting so that the remaining thicker mixture comes out easily from the needle and any little chunks can pass out and not plug it up.

Try not to get any solid undiluted chunks of the pill’s powder into the needle while drawing up the boiled liquid. By avoiding little chunks the mixture in the syringe will stay fine when it cools and not reform into little solid chunks that might block it from passing back out the needle tip. I sometimes will prepare several fixes in a row and they remain fine and liquidy in the syringe for hours. Remember, this is even when not using a filter as long as care is employed to slowly draw up the morphine mixture so as to avoid getting any gunk into the syringe.

If I have a pill and a half crushed up in the spoon, I’d initially use 145 units of water in the first cook. Two whole MS Contin pills would take 160 units of water in the first cook. Then, depending on how much liquid is drawn into the syringe on the first pull up, I determine how much more water to add into the spoon for the second cook. But its usually no more than 20 units of water needed to ensure the second cook is appropriately liquid. Usually after the second cook/pull up the syringe is filled right to the 100 units point - leaving just enough space to flag to determine I’m in a vein.

And by the way, often I’ll be using a 29 guage ultra-fine 1 cc needle and they rarely plug. Of course, the larger, more common 28 guage needle is even less likely to plug. However, if there is a little wax plug right in the tip after you draw up the heated mixture, just a tap the needle point onto the hot stove element and the plug melts. You’ll always want to always check for any blockage by pushing up on the plunger until a little drop of the mixture appears at the tip of the needle. As long as a little drop appears in the tip of the needle when you apply a slight push on the plunger, you know the mixture is good and liquid. And therefore should easily flow out of the needle when you do your injection.