13 ms·

Phenethylamines I have feared and loathed (2020)

154 points by kvee 5y ago

inglor_cz 5y ago
For anyone who is confused by the title: this is a variation of the book name "Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved", published by a scientist couple in 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL
- ArnoVW 5y ago
  And "fear and loathing in Las Vegas" I imagine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Veg...
  - capableweb 5y ago
    Probably referring to the book/novel rather than the movie, as the book is autobiographical in nature and a fascinating read, while the movie is more pure entertainment. Edit: actually scratch that, I have no idea (obviously) what the author had in mind, and could be either.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      The book had two of the most enduring images in all of modern literature. The first, that occurs in a Cadillac convertible bombing toward Las Vegas at 90 mph, has the author seeing big black, bat-like things swooping around the car, and choosing not to mention them to his companion: "He'd see them soon enough, poor bastard." The second is in the lounge of a hotel on the Strip, when the author suddenly realizes that everyone else in the room is a vicious, bloodthirsty reptile, and the whole floor is a puddle of shed blood.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        https://noputhyfooting.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/no-point-mentioning-those-bats-i-thought-the-poor-bastard-will-see-them-soon-enough/ https://noputhyfooting.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/no-point-men...
      - jack_pp 5y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQCFdcEXknc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQCFdcEXknc
    - Zababa 5y ago
      I wouldn't call the movie pure entertainement, quite the opposite. It can be seen as that, but there are a few scenes that really stays with you if you've ever fooled around with drugs. The most obvious ones are when the narrator talks about San Francisco in the 60's, and when he talks about the "fallacy of acid culture" near the end. There's also something to be said about the "white rabbit" scene, though it's hard to put into words.
      - chasd00 5y ago
        The scene in the casino waiting room/bar where things start to drift from normal to absolutely crazy (reptiles and all the blood) and then snaps back to reality is a pretty accurate depiction of LSD Edit: I’ll add that “snaps back to reality” happens if you’re lucky and somehow stay in control
        Zababa 5y ago
        I don't think there's any "accurate depiction of LSD". This wasn't at all my experience with LSD, but this looks like it is for some people.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  I wish there was something like PIHKAL for non-chemists. I had a fascination for chemistry as a young lad but Shulgin's books are impenetrable for me.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    You can just read the subjective reports, those are interesting in their own right.
    - pmoriarty 5y ago
      The first part of PiHKAL, written by Ann Shulgin, is also completely non-technical and is a spellbinding story. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject matter of the book, whether they know chemistry or not.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      I recommend reading them back to back with SCP https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/
  - el_benhameen 5y ago
    If you’re aware of PIHKAL then you’re probably already aware of Erowid, but if not, it’s a good source for interesting subjective reports.
  - kant_adorn_arts 5y ago
    There is, its the first half of PIHKaL. It about the experiences and the society, not the chemistry. The second half of the book is the chemistry. Often in free dls they dont include the first half.
netizen-936824 5y ago
I would likely agree with all the conclusions here besides one of them. 2C-P is a fascinating compound and while it may be difficult to administer orally in therapy, there may be other viable routes. The subjective headspace of extreme introspection induced by this compound is absolutely incredible and will make you seriously examine how you feel about your self.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Anyone care to explain the down votes?
perardi 5y ago
Not mentioned in the post, but mentioned in the book that inspired the post: 2C-B is a fun one. Good times have been had there.
- c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  Seemed overrated to me. Maybe I got the dose wrong but the purity can be so inconsistent that everyone's going to have a different experience. I'd much rather take some classic LSD, you know what you're in for and it doesn't end disappointingly early like 2C-B.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    2C-B was enjoyable but seriously lacks introspection from my experience. It felt like "psychedelic-lite" where the visual effects are quite pronounced... but that's about it LSD is a different ballgame from the 2C family IMO, its difficult to compare. From my experience (again this is quite subjective) the visuals from LSD weren't as "thick" and deeply colorful. They had a sort of whispyness to them and (usually) a much deeper headspace
    - oceanghost 5y ago
      > the visual effects are quite pronounced This is what I remember about 2CB. It looked like the Matrix effect to me but in translucent rainbow colors.
  - loves_mangoes 5y ago
    I'm surprised, because you don't often hear that particular criticism of 2C-B. Mostly, people complain about nausea, or the fact that it burns very painfully when people insuflate it Purity and accurate dosage is a function of your vendor. Buying 2C-B pills will be more dangerous, they are notoriously underdosed and should ideally be sent to a lab first, but at the very least spot-checked with a reagent test kit. Duration is a subjective preference, I feel. LSD is nice, I like it very much, but I can understand than 12 hours uninterrupted is not something everyone can allocate in their schedule.
philipkglass 5y ago
This post was a real trip down memory lane, back to the days of the Hive [1]. Before Shulgin published Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved and Tryptamines I have Known and Loved, Donald Cooper of the Drug Enforcement Administration wrote this prescient 1988 document titled "Future Synthetic Drugs of Abuse": https://erowid.org/library/books_online/future_synthetic/future_synthetic.shtml https://erowid.org/library/books_online/future_synthetic/fut... It's like looking into the 2000s from a vantage point of the 1980s. What was really necessary for wild and woolly synthetic drugs to take off was digital infrastructure. That is, tools for collaborative and secret discussion, research tools [2], and (more recently) darknets. The thing that finally made me stop following the scene was that I liked the how-to hacking aspect of the chemistry. There were tons of threads about how to make equipment, source chemicals from unexpected places, and synthesize the critical intermediates that were on watch-lists so they were difficult/inadvisable to buy commercially. The last forum I followed closely ("Blacklight") ended up with members just theorizing about interesting points in chemical space and then outsourcing the manufacturing to commercial contract labs, mostly in China [3]. The only actual chemistry that would be done outside China was instrumental analysis (to confirm composition/purity of products). And the scene became secretive and scheming about people spotting chemicals that were subjectively good enough to become popular and commercializing them in Europe before the law caught up. (It's globalization in miniature! Keep marketing and management domestic, but offshore the low margin manufacturing work.) The Hive wasn't like that. Most of the chemicals the members wanted to make were old stalwarts -- amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDA, and MDMA were the most popular. All the close analogs were illegal already so members were united in finding ways to hack around the restrictions. Nobody expected to hack around the law itself, i.e. to escape without consequences if the law caught them with the output of their clandestine labs. All questions that indicated someone was trying to scale up to major commercial manufacturing would get banned anyway. So users were generally collaborative rather than competitive. Everyone would pitch in on e.g. trying to figure out how to remove pill binders from OTC decongestants so that the purified pseudoephedrine was suited for downstream transformation to methamphetamine. Even people who wanted to manufacture less popular or more obscure compounds really wanted to do it in their own garage -- not in a contract lab. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20040103031950/http://the-hive.ws/ https://web.archive.org/web/20040103031950/http://the-hive.w... [2] Back when The Hive was active, there were huge ongoing request threads for people trying to source research papers. Other members would have to go to a library, photocopy articles from the stacks, and upload scans. It was a huge breakthrough when the American Chemical Society actually scanned its complete print run and made those available to subscribers online; then members could just download requested papers from their company's/university's account. Then sci-hub solved even the part where someone has to manually request a paper. [3] This preceded the rise of imported fentanyl by several years. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if small time (but technically advanced) Western drug dealers actually kickstarted the trend of getting potent opioids manufactured in China.
Jerrrry 5y ago
25b was a very commonly found compound in 2012-2014 gen 1 Silk Road era. A visual, not too uncomfortable cousin of LSD. Except the risk profile was completely different. 25i, 25c, 25b, 25d nBome's. The "fake acid" that your high school administration actually had a reason to fret about. Ironically, xanax is what actually should had had the attention. Maybe the high school administration were taking/selling too much Xanax to see the issue.
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  Xanax is terrifying. Psychedelics I can handle.
  - kleene_op 5y ago
    And benzodiapeines withdrawal is insanely painful to overcome. Benzos are bottom of the barrel drugs as far as I'm concerned. The fact that they are still regularly prescribed by some doctors to the elderly (for no other good reason than to get them off their face) is borderline criminal.
    - Nursie 5y ago
      I like them. They make me feel beautifully relaxed and allow me to get a wonderful night’s sleep. I used to take a dose once every week or two, and I would always wake up feeling wonderful. They are horribly addictive and withdrawal can kill, as can OD and mixing with anything else has potential to kill, so clearly they aren’t without issues. But when used in a measured way I found them to be lovely. I’ve never taken Xanax though, it’s a lot longer lasting than the stuff I tried.
      - wholinator2 5y ago
        Really? I'd be interested in knowing what it was you had. As far as I understand, xanax is one of the quickest acting benzos on the market. With something like valium being the traditional interpretation of 'long acting'.
newbie789 5y ago
I’m glad to hear people discussing this! I love how most of the hippies that love “natural psychedelics” have a loophole for LSD. Just because a drug has a precursor found in nature doesn’t make the drug itself natural. As somebody that experimented heavily with psychedelics when I was much younger, my opinion is that the 2C-B/E/I group have definite possible therapeutic value, and the main thing causing stagnation is the ridiculous hippy mindset that it’s ~synthetic~ and therefore bad. It’s ridiculous. Over the past few years it’s been interesting watching polite society “discovering” psychedelics. I really can’t wait for these people to find the therapeutic value of smoked/IV DMT, especially considering that it’s WAY safer than ayahuasca. I would love to see a study on the possible therapeutic value of dextromethorphan, but as far as I’ve seen it’s not really on the radar. I know it seems weird, but from subjective experience I found it to be very helpful a few times as a teenager. I used to jokingly call it “therapy in a bottle.” It’s a real shame that most DXM-containing products nowadays in the US come mixed with other compounds that make it dangerous to take at a recreational/therapeutic dose.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  DXM is being studied in combination with bupropion as an antidepressant.
  - briHass 5y ago
    See also, Nuedexta, which is used to treat pseudobulbar affect (PBA.) I agree with GP. If ketamine works for depression, there's no reason to think similar effects wouldn't occur with DXM. I've always found the 'next day' glow to be quite nice.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      > I agree with GP. If ketamine works for depression, there's no reason to think similar effects wouldn't occur with DXM. I've always found the 'next day' glow to be quite nice. From what I understand, ketamine's rapid antidepressant effect was once thought to have been mediated by NMDA antagonism. However, countless NMDA antagonists have been studied for depression, and their efficacy was nowhere near the S-enantiomer of ketamine, suggesting that NDMA antagonism alone isn't responsible for the full effect. DXM acts as a dirty serotonin reputake inhibitor before it's metabolized into DXO, which is actually an NDMA antagonist like ketamine. By combining DXM with bupropion, the bupropion prevents the DXM from rapidly metabolizing into DXO through enzyme inhibition, leaving more SSRI-like DXM in the blood to affect the brain. Bupropion itself is a potent inhibitor of enzymes that metabolize many pharmaceuticals. So the idea behind combining DXM+bupropion to treat depression doesn't really come from the same mechanism of action that esketamine has. It's more about the SSRI-like properties DXM has in the body as long as it isn't metabolized into DXO. Also, combining two medications that are off-patent for a new treatment means that you can patent the new combination as if it's a new drug. I suspect that's why it's being investigated. Both DXM and bupropion have pretty good safety profiles, they're cheap to manufacture, and the combination can be patented.
capableweb 5y ago
The author mentions that 2C-P has "notable physical discomfort" and I can attest to that, although I didn't have effects for as long as stated (my trip was more around 7-8 hours, author states "up to 20 hours", and my onset was also faster) it had a significant discomfort, especially when compared to 2C-B which induces a loud, unstoppable euphoria. It wasn't as much of a physical discomfort but a mental one. Eventually what calmed me down from the 2C-P was watching a newly released movie I never really bothered paying attention to before, Avatar. None the less, interesting to see this list on HN, and read about some new compounds I haven't heard about before (hello 25B-NBOMe).
- tepitoperrito 5y ago
  I'd stay far away from any compound in the 25x-NBOMe series. The risk of life threatening episodes are real and understated in TFA with erratic responses to even low doses in experienced and first time users. One summer when 25i first hit the scene SWIM was taking 1000 to 5000 microgram doses weekly until one week SWIM dosed 1000 micrograms (pre dipped blotter) and the short version of the story is SWIM woke up in the hospital and was being monitored to prevent kidney failure due to elevated proteins in SWIM's blood. Similar events which were all preceded by psychotic breaks with reality happened to quite a few of SWIM's friend group if you want some anecdata to add there. It's scary stuff whose unpredictability means I wouldn't recommend touching it with a 10 foot pole.
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    The universe works in funny ways when absolute euphoria or utter hell are just a different dice roll away.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    FYI, SWIM means "somebody who isn't me", often used on drugs forums.
    - pnut 5y ago
      In that case, it sounds just like transparent obfuscation in the vein of "asking for a friend"
ipnon 5y ago
The Controlled Substances Act needs a carve out for substances so strange, obscure and nerdy they would never achieve mainstream popularity or public health effects, but that would require drug policy having some character of consistency and reasonability. A cruel joke where you can only laugh to keep from crying!
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  The Controlled Substances Act really just needs to be entirely rewritten or thrown out altogether. Same with the DEA.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Won't happen because the CSA is policy to create make-work jobs for law enforcement and the justice system. It also ensures that there's a steady stream of the incarcerated to keep prisons occupied and prison labor programs populated.
FollowingTheDao 5y ago
I cannot even eat food high in trace amines or I get anxious as all get out and I am up all night. Seriously, chocolate gives me insomnia. So I have no idea how someone could handle these drugs. I think this happens to me for two reasons. I am low in BH4 which limits my ability to metabolize amino acids down the common pathway and thinks like phenylalanine get metabolized dow the alternative pathways creating PEA and Tyramine. But also I have the mental illness associated changes in TAAR1 and VMAT1 and VMAT2. (I have schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder.) I never understood why people would want to take drugs to see the shit and live the suffering I have all my life but that's where we are...
- ipnon 5y ago
  New York is fine for a visit but I'd never want to live there.
  - FollowingTheDao 5y ago
    My whole life has been "Escape from New York". :)
- capableweb 5y ago
  > I never understood why people would want to take drugs to see the shit and live the suffering I have all my life but that's where we are... Well, it sounds like you're having a bad time in your life with all of those things, and as a drug user myself, that's not the goal with my usage, and neither the effects it has on me.
  - FollowingTheDao 5y ago
    Yes, I can see how a bit of this would help someone not as sensitive to trace amines as I am. I am in no way ADHD and when I was fist seeing a doc for my mental illness they thought I was an prescribe me methamphetamines which threw me into a horrific manic state. It seems like the whole world need to get "up" and I feel like I am the only one trying to get "down". =/ Anyway, vodka is the greatest drug for me, as is klonopin. Klonopin can take me right out of my schizoaffective states. But I eat low protein, only seafood and take a bunch of zinc which all seems to help. I wonder, if people do well on these trace amines, what is the blockage in the genetics? Not enough B6 to make the trace amines I wonder? Too much zinc?
version_five 5y ago
This is not subject I know anything about, but I just realized that "betaphenethylamine" is (I think) the drug Case is taking in Neuromancer because normal drugs can't get him high due to a modification in his pancreas. Maybe not entirely accurate vs this list, but William Gibson continues to amaze me with little details like that.
- fancy_pantser 5y ago
  A chemist's blog took a look at the drugs mentioned in Neuromancer. He speculates about the nature of the surgery to put in a new pancreas and "liver plugs". > Here Gibson quite clearly took artistic license with his chemistry, and I don’t necessarily blame him. Beta-phenethylamine refers to an extremely broad class of compounds (of which amphetamines are the best-known members), similar to how “tropane alkaloids” does. http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2018/04/16/the-chemistry-of-william-gibsons-neuromancer/ http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2018/04/16/the-chemistry-of-wi...
mwattsun 5y ago
I can't imagine trying unknown drugs on myself. That's so risky. But people did it and found out the hard way like with Bromo-DragonFLY: subjective effects have been described as “like being dragged to hell and back again. Many times. It is the most evil [thing] I’ve ever tried. It lasted an eternity.” Oh and it lasts up to 3 days. No gracias.
- loves_mangoes 5y ago
  The way to test these things is by starting with an alergy test, a dose low enough that it definitely won't have any effect, and also definitely will not kill you. If you feel fine, you wait several days and try a bigger dose, then see if you feel any effects. Stop when it becomes unpleasant or unwise. This is not safe. There is no safe way to ingest dozens of unknown chemicals. Somehow, chemists like Shulgin show that it's possible to test all those compounds on yourself and still live a long healthy life. Still, I would not recommend tempting fate.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "The way to test these things is by starting with an alergy test, a dose low enough that it definitely won't have any effect, and also definitely will not kill you. If you feel fine, you wait several days and try a bigger dose, then see if you feel any effects. Stop when it becomes unpleasant or unwise." If you absolutely must experiment, this method is a good for hopefully avoiding short-term adverse effects, but not long-term ones. Much safer is to stick to substances that have a long history of safe human use.
    - capableweb 5y ago
      Long-term effects tends to come from prolonged use or very high amounts, not from doing smaller tests. > Much safer is to stick to substances that have a long history of safe human use. Yeah, so much is clear, but saying "stick to the classic ones" when one brings up experimentation with new ones doesn't bring much new to the table. Much better to provide education up front on how to dosage new drugs (not just new to the world, but new to your body too) for the ones who do want to exist in that space.
gavinray 5y ago
I can add to the list, once made the terrible mistake of thinking of it was a good idea to take DOB: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/DOB https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/DOB 24 hour nightmare trip, felt like I'd been awake being haunted for weeks.
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- celdon25 5y ago
  Not sure I would want to put that kind of information in the cloud where a paper trail could be potentially used in court to argue impairment in ANY kind of dispute.
psythrowaway 5y ago
So for others wanting to go down the psychedelic road I recommend reading a lot of psychonautwiki.org and picking a lighter experience and working your way up, for sourcing the psychedelics it's quite painful and requires reading up on reviews for sketchy sites that accept payments by non-refundable means and have sometimes not filled orders for customers.
kvetching 5y ago
Most of these are extremely toxic at overdose amounts, as opposed to tryptamines which generally just give a stronger trip. I know someone that snorted some 25i-NBOME thinking it was something else and started seizing, and nearly died. In hospital for 2 weeks. Kidneys almost didn't make it.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
> On a cultural level, we’ve decided that if a therapy is run with a shaman using a completely chemically-uninterpretable drug cocktail: totally a-okay. But if it’s run with a synthetic pure compound of known quantity: immediate banishment. This goes deeper. For example, the stimulant-antidepressant herbal brew known as coffee is a staple at offices, but someone taking caffeine pills is seen as a drug addict, even though they are the one who knows what they are taking and how much. Similarly, tobacco smoking, even if disliked, is more acceptable than vaporizing nicotine liquid, even though vapers know what they are taking (pure nicotine) and how much - commercial tobacco smoke contains hundreds of psychoactive substances in addition to nicotine. BUT, for some reason, natural cannabis is looked down upon, and extracts and synthetic compounds are somehow considered more a-okay.

154 points by kvee 5y ago

For anyone who is confused by the title: this is a variation of the book name "Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved", published by a scientist couple in 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL

ArnoVW 5y ago
And "fear and loathing in Las Vegas" I imagine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Veg...
- capableweb 5y ago
  Probably referring to the book/novel rather than the movie, as the book is autobiographical in nature and a fascinating read, while the movie is more pure entertainment. Edit: actually scratch that, I have no idea (obviously) what the author had in mind, and could be either.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    The book had two of the most enduring images in all of modern literature. The first, that occurs in a Cadillac convertible bombing toward Las Vegas at 90 mph, has the author seeing big black, bat-like things swooping around the car, and choosing not to mention them to his companion: "He'd see them soon enough, poor bastard." The second is in the lounge of a hotel on the Strip, when the author suddenly realizes that everyone else in the room is a vicious, bloodthirsty reptile, and the whole floor is a puddle of shed blood.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      https://noputhyfooting.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/no-point-mentioning-those-bats-i-thought-the-poor-bastard-will-see-them-soon-enough/ https://noputhyfooting.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/no-point-men...
    - jack_pp 5y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQCFdcEXknc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQCFdcEXknc
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I wouldn't call the movie pure entertainement, quite the opposite. It can be seen as that, but there are a few scenes that really stays with you if you've ever fooled around with drugs. The most obvious ones are when the narrator talks about San Francisco in the 60's, and when he talks about the "fallacy of acid culture" near the end. There's also something to be said about the "white rabbit" scene, though it's hard to put into words.
    - chasd00 5y ago
      The scene in the casino waiting room/bar where things start to drift from normal to absolutely crazy (reptiles and all the blood) and then snaps back to reality is a pretty accurate depiction of LSD Edit: I’ll add that “snaps back to reality” happens if you’re lucky and somehow stay in control
      - Zababa 5y ago
        I don't think there's any "accurate depiction of LSD". This wasn't at all my experience with LSD, but this looks like it is for some people.
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c7DJTLrn 5y ago
I wish there was something like PIHKAL for non-chemists. I had a fascination for chemistry as a young lad but Shulgin's books are impenetrable for me.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  You can just read the subjective reports, those are interesting in their own right.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    The first part of PiHKAL, written by Ann Shulgin, is also completely non-technical and is a spellbinding story. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject matter of the book, whether they know chemistry or not.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    I recommend reading them back to back with SCP https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/
- el_benhameen 5y ago
  If you’re aware of PIHKAL then you’re probably already aware of Erowid, but if not, it’s a good source for interesting subjective reports.
- kant_adorn_arts 5y ago
  There is, its the first half of PIHKaL. It about the experiences and the society, not the chemistry. The second half of the book is the chemistry. Often in free dls they dont include the first half.

netizen-936824 5y ago

I would likely agree with all the conclusions here besides one of them. 2C-P is a fascinating compound and while it may be difficult to administer orally in therapy, there may be other viable routes. The subjective headspace of extreme introspection induced by this compound is absolutely incredible and will make you seriously examine how you feel about your self.

netizen-936824 5y ago
Anyone care to explain the down votes?

perardi 5y ago

Not mentioned in the post, but mentioned in the book that inspired the post: 2C-B is a fun one. Good times have been had there.

c7DJTLrn 5y ago
Seemed overrated to me. Maybe I got the dose wrong but the purity can be so inconsistent that everyone's going to have a different experience. I'd much rather take some classic LSD, you know what you're in for and it doesn't end disappointingly early like 2C-B.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  2C-B was enjoyable but seriously lacks introspection from my experience. It felt like "psychedelic-lite" where the visual effects are quite pronounced... but that's about it LSD is a different ballgame from the 2C family IMO, its difficult to compare. From my experience (again this is quite subjective) the visuals from LSD weren't as "thick" and deeply colorful. They had a sort of whispyness to them and (usually) a much deeper headspace
  - oceanghost 5y ago
    > the visual effects are quite pronounced This is what I remember about 2CB. It looked like the Matrix effect to me but in translucent rainbow colors.
- loves_mangoes 5y ago
  I'm surprised, because you don't often hear that particular criticism of 2C-B. Mostly, people complain about nausea, or the fact that it burns very painfully when people insuflate it Purity and accurate dosage is a function of your vendor. Buying 2C-B pills will be more dangerous, they are notoriously underdosed and should ideally be sent to a lab first, but at the very least spot-checked with a reagent test kit. Duration is a subjective preference, I feel. LSD is nice, I like it very much, but I can understand than 12 hours uninterrupted is not something everyone can allocate in their schedule.

philipkglass 5y ago

This post was a real trip down memory lane, back to the days of the Hive [1]. Before Shulgin published Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved and Tryptamines I have Known and Loved, Donald Cooper of the Drug Enforcement Administration wrote this prescient 1988 document titled "Future Synthetic Drugs of Abuse": https://erowid.org/library/books_online/future_synthetic/future_synthetic.shtml https://erowid.org/library/books_online/future_synthetic/fut... It's like looking into the 2000s from a vantage point of the 1980s. What was really necessary for wild and woolly synthetic drugs to take off was digital infrastructure. That is, tools for collaborative and secret discussion, research tools [2], and (more recently) darknets. The thing that finally made me stop following the scene was that I liked the how-to hacking aspect of the chemistry. There were tons of threads about how to make equipment, source chemicals from unexpected places, and synthesize the critical intermediates that were on watch-lists so they were difficult/inadvisable to buy commercially. The last forum I followed closely ("Blacklight") ended up with members just theorizing about interesting points in chemical space and then outsourcing the manufacturing to commercial contract labs, mostly in China [3]. The only actual chemistry that would be done outside China was instrumental analysis (to confirm composition/purity of products). And the scene became secretive and scheming about people spotting chemicals that were subjectively good enough to become popular and commercializing them in Europe before the law caught up. (It's globalization in miniature! Keep marketing and management domestic, but offshore the low margin manufacturing work.) The Hive wasn't like that. Most of the chemicals the members wanted to make were old stalwarts -- amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDA, and MDMA were the most popular. All the close analogs were illegal already so members were united in finding ways to hack around the restrictions. Nobody expected to hack around the law itself, i.e. to escape without consequences if the law caught them with the output of their clandestine labs. All questions that indicated someone was trying to scale up to major commercial manufacturing would get banned anyway. So users were generally collaborative rather than competitive. Everyone would pitch in on e.g. trying to figure out how to remove pill binders from OTC decongestants so that the purified pseudoephedrine was suited for downstream transformation to methamphetamine. Even people who wanted to manufacture less popular or more obscure compounds really wanted to do it in their own garage -- not in a contract lab. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20040103031950/http://the-hive.ws/ https://web.archive.org/web/20040103031950/http://the-hive.w... [2] Back when The Hive was active, there were huge ongoing request threads for people trying to source research papers. Other members would have to go to a library, photocopy articles from the stacks, and upload scans. It was a huge breakthrough when the American Chemical Society actually scanned its complete print run and made those available to subscribers online; then members could just download requested papers from their company's/university's account. Then sci-hub solved even the part where someone has to manually request a paper. [3] This preceded the rise of imported fentanyl by several years. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if small time (but technically advanced) Western drug dealers actually kickstarted the trend of getting potent opioids manufactured in China.

Jerrrry 5y ago

25b was a very commonly found compound in 2012-2014 gen 1 Silk Road era. A visual, not too uncomfortable cousin of LSD. Except the risk profile was completely different. 25i, 25c, 25b, 25d nBome's. The "fake acid" that your high school administration actually had a reason to fret about. Ironically, xanax is what actually should had had the attention. Maybe the high school administration were taking/selling too much Xanax to see the issue.

dr_dshiv 5y ago
Xanax is terrifying. Psychedelics I can handle.
- kleene_op 5y ago
  And benzodiapeines withdrawal is insanely painful to overcome. Benzos are bottom of the barrel drugs as far as I'm concerned. The fact that they are still regularly prescribed by some doctors to the elderly (for no other good reason than to get them off their face) is borderline criminal.
  - Nursie 5y ago
    I like them. They make me feel beautifully relaxed and allow me to get a wonderful night’s sleep. I used to take a dose once every week or two, and I would always wake up feeling wonderful. They are horribly addictive and withdrawal can kill, as can OD and mixing with anything else has potential to kill, so clearly they aren’t without issues. But when used in a measured way I found them to be lovely. I’ve never taken Xanax though, it’s a lot longer lasting than the stuff I tried.
    - wholinator2 5y ago
      Really? I'd be interested in knowing what it was you had. As far as I understand, xanax is one of the quickest acting benzos on the market. With something like valium being the traditional interpretation of 'long acting'.

newbie789 5y ago

I’m glad to hear people discussing this! I love how most of the hippies that love “natural psychedelics” have a loophole for LSD. Just because a drug has a precursor found in nature doesn’t make the drug itself natural. As somebody that experimented heavily with psychedelics when I was much younger, my opinion is that the 2C-B/E/I group have definite possible therapeutic value, and the main thing causing stagnation is the ridiculous hippy mindset that it’s ~synthetic~ and therefore bad. It’s ridiculous. Over the past few years it’s been interesting watching polite society “discovering” psychedelics. I really can’t wait for these people to find the therapeutic value of smoked/IV DMT, especially considering that it’s WAY safer than ayahuasca. I would love to see a study on the possible therapeutic value of dextromethorphan, but as far as I’ve seen it’s not really on the radar. I know it seems weird, but from subjective experience I found it to be very helpful a few times as a teenager. I used to jokingly call it “therapy in a bottle.” It’s a real shame that most DXM-containing products nowadays in the US come mixed with other compounds that make it dangerous to take at a recreational/therapeutic dose.

heavyset_go 5y ago
DXM is being studied in combination with bupropion as an antidepressant.
- briHass 5y ago
  See also, Nuedexta, which is used to treat pseudobulbar affect (PBA.) I agree with GP. If ketamine works for depression, there's no reason to think similar effects wouldn't occur with DXM. I've always found the 'next day' glow to be quite nice.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > I agree with GP. If ketamine works for depression, there's no reason to think similar effects wouldn't occur with DXM. I've always found the 'next day' glow to be quite nice. From what I understand, ketamine's rapid antidepressant effect was once thought to have been mediated by NMDA antagonism. However, countless NMDA antagonists have been studied for depression, and their efficacy was nowhere near the S-enantiomer of ketamine, suggesting that NDMA antagonism alone isn't responsible for the full effect. DXM acts as a dirty serotonin reputake inhibitor before it's metabolized into DXO, which is actually an NDMA antagonist like ketamine. By combining DXM with bupropion, the bupropion prevents the DXM from rapidly metabolizing into DXO through enzyme inhibition, leaving more SSRI-like DXM in the blood to affect the brain. Bupropion itself is a potent inhibitor of enzymes that metabolize many pharmaceuticals. So the idea behind combining DXM+bupropion to treat depression doesn't really come from the same mechanism of action that esketamine has. It's more about the SSRI-like properties DXM has in the body as long as it isn't metabolized into DXO. Also, combining two medications that are off-patent for a new treatment means that you can patent the new combination as if it's a new drug. I suspect that's why it's being investigated. Both DXM and bupropion have pretty good safety profiles, they're cheap to manufacture, and the combination can be patented.

capableweb 5y ago

The author mentions that 2C-P has "notable physical discomfort" and I can attest to that, although I didn't have effects for as long as stated (my trip was more around 7-8 hours, author states "up to 20 hours", and my onset was also faster) it had a significant discomfort, especially when compared to 2C-B which induces a loud, unstoppable euphoria. It wasn't as much of a physical discomfort but a mental one. Eventually what calmed me down from the 2C-P was watching a newly released movie I never really bothered paying attention to before, Avatar. None the less, interesting to see this list on HN, and read about some new compounds I haven't heard about before (hello 25B-NBOMe).

tepitoperrito 5y ago
I'd stay far away from any compound in the 25x-NBOMe series. The risk of life threatening episodes are real and understated in TFA with erratic responses to even low doses in experienced and first time users. One summer when 25i first hit the scene SWIM was taking 1000 to 5000 microgram doses weekly until one week SWIM dosed 1000 micrograms (pre dipped blotter) and the short version of the story is SWIM woke up in the hospital and was being monitored to prevent kidney failure due to elevated proteins in SWIM's blood. Similar events which were all preceded by psychotic breaks with reality happened to quite a few of SWIM's friend group if you want some anecdata to add there. It's scary stuff whose unpredictability means I wouldn't recommend touching it with a 10 foot pole.
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  The universe works in funny ways when absolute euphoria or utter hell are just a different dice roll away.
- 1_player 5y ago
  FYI, SWIM means "somebody who isn't me", often used on drugs forums.
  - pnut 5y ago
    In that case, it sounds just like transparent obfuscation in the vein of "asking for a friend"

ipnon 5y ago

The Controlled Substances Act needs a carve out for substances so strange, obscure and nerdy they would never achieve mainstream popularity or public health effects, but that would require drug policy having some character of consistency and reasonability. A cruel joke where you can only laugh to keep from crying!

netizen-936824 5y ago
The Controlled Substances Act really just needs to be entirely rewritten or thrown out altogether. Same with the DEA.
heavyset_go 5y ago
Won't happen because the CSA is policy to create make-work jobs for law enforcement and the justice system. It also ensures that there's a steady stream of the incarcerated to keep prisons occupied and prison labor programs populated.

FollowingTheDao 5y ago

I cannot even eat food high in trace amines or I get anxious as all get out and I am up all night. Seriously, chocolate gives me insomnia. So I have no idea how someone could handle these drugs. I think this happens to me for two reasons. I am low in BH4 which limits my ability to metabolize amino acids down the common pathway and thinks like phenylalanine get metabolized dow the alternative pathways creating PEA and Tyramine. But also I have the mental illness associated changes in TAAR1 and VMAT1 and VMAT2. (I have schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder.) I never understood why people would want to take drugs to see the shit and live the suffering I have all my life but that's where we are...

ipnon 5y ago
New York is fine for a visit but I'd never want to live there.
- FollowingTheDao 5y ago
  My whole life has been "Escape from New York". :)
capableweb 5y ago
> I never understood why people would want to take drugs to see the shit and live the suffering I have all my life but that's where we are... Well, it sounds like you're having a bad time in your life with all of those things, and as a drug user myself, that's not the goal with my usage, and neither the effects it has on me.
- FollowingTheDao 5y ago
  Yes, I can see how a bit of this would help someone not as sensitive to trace amines as I am. I am in no way ADHD and when I was fist seeing a doc for my mental illness they thought I was an prescribe me methamphetamines which threw me into a horrific manic state. It seems like the whole world need to get "up" and I feel like I am the only one trying to get "down". =/ Anyway, vodka is the greatest drug for me, as is klonopin. Klonopin can take me right out of my schizoaffective states. But I eat low protein, only seafood and take a bunch of zinc which all seems to help. I wonder, if people do well on these trace amines, what is the blockage in the genetics? Not enough B6 to make the trace amines I wonder? Too much zinc?

version_five 5y ago

This is not subject I know anything about, but I just realized that "betaphenethylamine" is (I think) the drug Case is taking in Neuromancer because normal drugs can't get him high due to a modification in his pancreas. Maybe not entirely accurate vs this list, but William Gibson continues to amaze me with little details like that.

fancy_pantser 5y ago
A chemist's blog took a look at the drugs mentioned in Neuromancer. He speculates about the nature of the surgery to put in a new pancreas and "liver plugs". > Here Gibson quite clearly took artistic license with his chemistry, and I don’t necessarily blame him. Beta-phenethylamine refers to an extremely broad class of compounds (of which amphetamines are the best-known members), similar to how “tropane alkaloids” does. http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2018/04/16/the-chemistry-of-william-gibsons-neuromancer/ http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2018/04/16/the-chemistry-of-wi...

mwattsun 5y ago

I can't imagine trying unknown drugs on myself. That's so risky. But people did it and found out the hard way like with Bromo-DragonFLY: subjective effects have been described as “like being dragged to hell and back again. Many times. It is the most evil [thing] I’ve ever tried. It lasted an eternity.” Oh and it lasts up to 3 days. No gracias.

loves_mangoes 5y ago
The way to test these things is by starting with an alergy test, a dose low enough that it definitely won't have any effect, and also definitely will not kill you. If you feel fine, you wait several days and try a bigger dose, then see if you feel any effects. Stop when it becomes unpleasant or unwise. This is not safe. There is no safe way to ingest dozens of unknown chemicals. Somehow, chemists like Shulgin show that it's possible to test all those compounds on yourself and still live a long healthy life. Still, I would not recommend tempting fate.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "The way to test these things is by starting with an alergy test, a dose low enough that it definitely won't have any effect, and also definitely will not kill you. If you feel fine, you wait several days and try a bigger dose, then see if you feel any effects. Stop when it becomes unpleasant or unwise." If you absolutely must experiment, this method is a good for hopefully avoiding short-term adverse effects, but not long-term ones. Much safer is to stick to substances that have a long history of safe human use.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    Long-term effects tends to come from prolonged use or very high amounts, not from doing smaller tests. > Much safer is to stick to substances that have a long history of safe human use. Yeah, so much is clear, but saying "stick to the classic ones" when one brings up experimentation with new ones doesn't bring much new to the table. Much better to provide education up front on how to dosage new drugs (not just new to the world, but new to your body too) for the ones who do want to exist in that space.

gavinray 5y ago

I can add to the list, once made the terrible mistake of thinking of it was a good idea to take DOB: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/DOB https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/DOB 24 hour nightmare trip, felt like I'd been awake being haunted for weeks.

deleted 5y ago

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celdon25 5y ago
Not sure I would want to put that kind of information in the cloud where a paper trail could be potentially used in court to argue impairment in ANY kind of dispute.

psythrowaway 5y ago

So for others wanting to go down the psychedelic road I recommend reading a lot of psychonautwiki.org and picking a lighter experience and working your way up, for sourcing the psychedelics it's quite painful and requires reading up on reviews for sketchy sites that accept payments by non-refundable means and have sometimes not filled orders for customers.

kvetching 5y ago

Most of these are extremely toxic at overdose amounts, as opposed to tryptamines which generally just give a stronger trip. I know someone that snorted some 25i-NBOME thinking it was something else and started seizing, and nearly died. In hospital for 2 weeks. Kidneys almost didn't make it.

eurasiantiger 5y ago

> On a cultural level, we’ve decided that if a therapy is run with a shaman using a completely chemically-uninterpretable drug cocktail: totally a-okay. But if it’s run with a synthetic pure compound of known quantity: immediate banishment. This goes deeper. For example, the stimulant-antidepressant herbal brew known as coffee is a staple at offices, but someone taking caffeine pills is seen as a drug addict, even though they are the one who knows what they are taking and how much. Similarly, tobacco smoking, even if disliked, is more acceptable than vaporizing nicotine liquid, even though vapers know what they are taking (pure nicotine) and how much - commercial tobacco smoke contains hundreds of psychoactive substances in addition to nicotine. BUT, for some reason, natural cannabis is looked down upon, and extracts and synthetic compounds are somehow considered more a-okay.