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> People wouldn't overdose if they knew exactly how strong the drugs they injected were This is not how tolerance works. The same dose can have vastly differen

> People wouldn't overdose if they knew exactly how strong the drugs they injected were This is not how tolerance works. The same dose can have vastly different effects depending on how long it was since your last dose, other drugs in your system and your body's natural tolerance that might be diminished by exhaustion or infection. The dose someone uses to feel baseline today might have them completely dysfunctional in a few days or kill them after a couple of weeks.

nnfy 10y ago
Everything you said outside of tolerance is exceedingly rare. If you're not taking one of a handful of herbal supplements, you are extremely unlikely to have a measurably different response to the same dosage of opioid. And the effects will not be vastly different. Just varied in intensity.
- darpa_escapee 10y ago
  > If you're not taking one of a handful of herbal supplements, you are extremely unlikely to have a measurably different response to the same dosage of opioid. If you've taken any common CNS depressant, such as alcohol, benzodiazepines, psychiatric drugs, drugs that are metabolized by the same pathways as opioids, even blood pressure medication or sedatives including antihistamines, you are going to potentiate the CNS depression from opioids. > And the effects will not be vastly different. Just varied in intensity. The scale of intensity of effects from a dose of an opioid varies from: enough to get a patient out of withdrawals to completely stopping breathing. Titration of dose is the only way to more accurately determine a safe and effective dosing schedule for opioids.
  - nnfy 10y ago
    I concede that I neglected drug interactions; however when you said vastly different effects, I interpreted it as meaning unique effects based on dosage, similar to something like DXM, as opposed to two ends of a relatively linear scale of analgesia->sedation->death. Which is untrue.

nnfy 10y ago

Everything you said outside of tolerance is exceedingly rare. If you're not taking one of a handful of herbal supplements, you are extremely unlikely to have a measurably different response to the same dosage of opioid. And the effects will not be vastly different. Just varied in intensity.

darpa_escapee 10y ago
> If you're not taking one of a handful of herbal supplements, you are extremely unlikely to have a measurably different response to the same dosage of opioid. If you've taken any common CNS depressant, such as alcohol, benzodiazepines, psychiatric drugs, drugs that are metabolized by the same pathways as opioids, even blood pressure medication or sedatives including antihistamines, you are going to potentiate the CNS depression from opioids. > And the effects will not be vastly different. Just varied in intensity. The scale of intensity of effects from a dose of an opioid varies from: enough to get a patient out of withdrawals to completely stopping breathing. Titration of dose is the only way to more accurately determine a safe and effective dosing schedule for opioids.
- nnfy 10y ago
  I concede that I neglected drug interactions; however when you said vastly different effects, I interpreted it as meaning unique effects based on dosage, similar to something like DXM, as opposed to two ends of a relatively linear scale of analgesia->sedation->death. Which is untrue.