[HN Gopher] Phenethylamines I have feared and loathed (2020)
___________________________________________________________________
Phenethylamines I have feared and loathed (2020)
Author : kvee
Score : 70 points
Date : 2022-02-06 09:18 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nikobidin.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nikobidin.com)
| perardi wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| capableweb wrote:
| 2C-B has a very "surface level" high compared to LSD, which
| can absolutely make your mind go into itself, 2C-B doesn't
| take itself as serious. 2C-B can be fun even in larger groups
| where you don't know people too well, and it's mostly just
| visual gags and euphoria that happen. LSD on the other hand
| requires a personal connection to everyone in the group
| already, triggers deep introspection and is not nearly as
| visual as 2C-B, and euphoria only happens when it would
| happen in real-life, but LSD can easily make you go down the
| other road.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| Yep, I spared the details regarding nausea but the contents
| of my stomach were definitely emptied once or twice. As far
| as I remember it wasn't anything special and the additional
| side effects and risk you describe make it just not worth
| it in my opinion.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > I spared the details regarding nausea but the contents
| of my stomach were definitely emptied once or twice.
|
| Zofran works for my friend, zofran. Whether it's specific
| serotonin blocking effects that fixes the nausea has +/-
| psych experience is unknown.
|
| (Supposedly it can contribute to serotonin syndrome, but
| I don't understand the mechanism. Seems theoretical, but
| don't say I didn't warn you).
| loves_mangoes wrote:
| That's fair enough. I did hear it repeated a lot that
| 2C-B's dosage curve seems to be particularly steep and
| non-linear. I don't know that it's been studied very
| scientifically, but reportedly the difference between 40
| and 50mg is much bigger than the difference between 20
| and 30.
|
| I stick to low dosages, partly to avoid nausea and partly
| because I like to be somewhat cautious with this delicate
| biological machinery I don't understand.
|
| For me it's also something I can take a small dose of
| occasionally when I have a big night out, if I'd like to
| sleep early, or if I'd like more stimulation and less
| headspace.
|
| LSD I use for long introspective trips, physically by
| myself so that I can tune in and out of online social
| interactions depending on how I feel.
|
| I feel like 2C-B is a nice option to have for different
| settings. Since I don't very much experience the
| downsides it's worth it for me, but I can definitely
| acknowledge the downsides =)
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Not mentioned in the post, but mentioned in the book that
| inspired the post: 2C-B"_
|
| It is mentioned in the article:
|
| _" these and other reasons make me suspect that even 'safer'
| phenethylamines like 2C-B won't be getting FDA approval anytime
| soon."_
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| One can write fluently on half a pill, which is quite handy.
| capableweb wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| philipkglass wrote:
| 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/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.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.
| louky wrote:
| I still miss the hive regularly. So many great discussions lost
| in the fog.
| philipkglass wrote:
| In 2015 one of the original admins provided a backup so that
| a reasonably complete mirror could be hosted on Erowid:
|
| https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=63.
| ..
|
| https://the-hive.archive.erowid.org/forum/forums.pl
|
| So you can read it again even though none of us can go back
| in time again.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Other points of reference would also be rhodium. But you're
| spot on, it was a magical point of the Internet.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Rhodium was the university's library. The Hive was the
| university's classrooms. Or something like that. I think I
| came across Hyperreal [1] first, by way of my interest in
| electronic music, which linked to Erowid [2], which led me to
| Rhodium and the Hive.
|
| As someone fascinated by chemistry since childhood, I was in
| digital heaven. I was far too risk averse to consider making
| controlled substances myself, but I loved participating in
| the publication-sourcing and equipment discussion.
|
| [1] http://hyperreal.org/
|
| [2] https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/psychoactives.shtml
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| 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.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| 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
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| You can just read the subjective reports, those are
| interesting in their own right.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| 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.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| 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.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| And "fear and loathing in Las Vegas" I imagine.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Veg...
| capableweb wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Zababa wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| ipnon wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The Controlled Substances Act really just needs to be entirely
| rewritten or thrown out altogether. Same with the DEA.
| Jerrrry wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Xanax is terrifying. Psychedelics I can handle.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| New York is fine for a visit but I'd never want to live there.
| version_five wrote:
| 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.
| newbie789 wrote:
| 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.
| mwattsun wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| The fatalities with bromo-dragonfly where due to a mix-up on
| the distribution end, not only because of the inherent danger
| of the drugs. In fact, the local distributor (known as Haupt
| RC) in the bromo-dragonfly 2c-b-fly mix-up incident, died
| himself. Of course, self-titrating new chemicals is not without
| risk, but Shulgin style careful titrating usually prevents
| incidents comparable to the bromo-dragonfly one and various
| other ones (such as unreliable dosing of NBOMe derivatives
| etc).
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-08 23:00 UTC)