Do chemical drugs expire?

Question

I'm doing a research task at school and I was just wondering about it. I'm talking about drugs such as LSD or Ecstacy or Heroin.

Answer 1

yes, they expire... all chem drugs expire... they may vary, losing of potency is one... another is mixture to other chemicals... due to that, impurities make the chem drug to either expire or its efficacy be weak...

Answer 2

EVEN THIS

THE ANSWER IS Yes, all drugs drop in potency over time due to natural chemical breakdown

GOOD LUKE

Answer 3

Yes, most drugs will degrade if left unused. A good example of this is aspirin, which decays into acetic acid slowly. If you take an old bottle of aspirin, it will smell like vinegar. The same principal applies to all other chemicals and drugs. Most of them are not stable unless stored properly for more than a few months.

Answer 4

Yes, all drugs drop in potency over time due to natural chemical breakdown

Answer 5

depends on what you mean by expire...

pills come with an expiry date, that means you can't take them after that date cause it'd dangerous...

tht's a different expiry...

it means tht the buffers in tht tablet have lost their capacity to maintain the pH and hence may produce harmful results if used...

also you have no clue what chemical changes have occoured in the medicine due to the change in pH...

however, some drugs are unstable compounds and after a certain point in time, they will decompose on their own regardless of other conditions...

that's why you get some syrups in dark bottles, to stop them from decomposing any faster...

now some drugs like zinc sulfadizine neither need a specific pH to act nor are they unstable...so they don't have any specific expiry...

drugs with high abuse potential like what you're looking for have a pH based expiry...which means tht after a certain amount of time, the pH of the containing medium will make the drug unfit for use...

100% pure drugs do not expire, unless they decompose...

Answer 6

They will degrade over time.  I don't know exact figures, and those change depending on storage conditions anyway... but virtually everything that your body can metabolize or use will degrade in a matter of months to years.  It's a good bet that any drug will have lost a significant amount of potency after 3-5 years at most.  There are some exceptions of course, and many drugs don't actually go bad at their expiration date... it's more of a time frame when that substance is likely to have lost enough potency that it will no longer produce significant effect.