Heroin

General 11: What happens in the kidneys?

The heroine, morphine and metabolites arrive at the filter elements of the kidneys, the nephrons.

Together with the blood fluid, or plasma, they go through the filters (1) and become part of the primary urine. The largest part of the primary urine is then returned to the blood, including some drug molecules that have not yet been processed (2). The rest stay behind in the primary urine. This becomes the final urine and is transferred from the kidneys to the bladder (3).

The heroin is eliminated from the body in the form of morphine and its metabolites.