Homebake (slang)

Homebake is a slang name for monoacetylmorphine mostly used in New Zealand and Australia.

Description

In Australia most manufacture was limited to Western Australia. Homebake can be manufactured from over-the-counter and prescription painkillers containing codeine, and was popular in the late 1970s to 1980s due to the crackdown on the heroin supply in this time period. Clandestine drug laboratories established to homebake heroin have existed in New Zealand since the 1980s¹

Manufacture

The “homebake” process involves use of the reagent pyridine hydrochloride to convert the codeine to morphine by removing the methyl- group. The brown morphine powder produced by this process is in the form of crude morphine base. This is generally reacted with acetic anhydride to give a brown or black tarry residue which contains a mixture of heroin, 3- and 6-monoacetylmorphines, morphine and other impurities.²

References

¹Horne, B. (1997) Policing the Illicit Use of Amphetamine Related Drugs in New Zealand, Wellington Regional Drug Squad, New Zealand Police, Wellington.

² Thompson, Paul Ivan (1991) Pharmacology of morphine and the active metabolite morphine-6-glucuronide; University of Auckland