Other - LSD and phenethylamines: just souped up amphetamine?

[Songcycle67]

SWIM sent this to me:

Firstly, let me say that I'm posting this in the LSD forum because I'm more interested in how the following effects the LSD experience. And, frankly, the biochemistry majors on this one seem to be a bit more well-read.

So my question is: there have been many comparisons made between low dose psychedelics (specifically in the phenethylamine group) and high dose amphetamine.

I'm aware that the structures of each are extremely similar and therefore fit in similar places. I believe that AMT and drugs of that sort are not giving standard tryptamine hallucinations. These drugs seem to take hours to kick in and hours to wear off (always a bad sign) and often include many of the side-effects of amphetamine and methedrine.

So..why is it that I can never get to the kind of experience I get on 75-100mcg LSD from, say...50-70mg dexedrine? Is it just that I'd have to overdose or go into the psychosis to experience that side of them? or you'd have to take a deadly overdose to do it with such low doses having serious effects on the entire physical body, perhaps?

The body seems very much akin to the way it seems under LSD and Mescaline. These two are in completely different groups, but both of them at threshold doses produce massively stimulant-associated effects. Similarly, the way that you see things after a solid dose of dexedrine (little things out of the corner of your eyes..swathes of faint digital imagery, etc.).

I have experienced the psychosis once, on purpose, and it was actually quite lovely, although really fuckiin scary at times. But it was almost drop dead on in effects similar to those experienced at ~100mcg LSD experiences or 15mg mescaline sulphate.

AMT produces visions well beyond the capability of LSD (not in its potency, of course). DOM at 5-7mg is very like a soft acid experience that lasts 3 days. So what's with this? Is there something innate in the structure of amphetamine in general that lends itself to hallucination?

On a mere dose of 20mg I've had full blown patterns appearing in the air and tracers and rainbow vision. It was quite shocking. And I"ve taken LSD enough times to know what it feels like. Similarly, again, the phenethylamines seem to focus on, not only geometrical patterns, but very vivid and concrete images of such. AMT, DOM, and several of the other phens, at doses equivalent to 200mcg LSD (i had to take that much due to the intensity of the AMT) have sort of cartoonish qualities about their visuals. One wants to see form and meaning in everything. Random patterns easily turn into neon glowing wizards. In AMT's case, in overwhelming depth and clarity.

So what's the deal? Does anyone care to speculate about what separates "hard amphetamine-based chemicals" from its psychedelic cousins? Is there a case to be made for amphetamine being labeled psychedelic at certain doses? Who gets to say? Any help would be greatly apprecaited, as I'm very confused/intrigued after having my second (strong as shit) AMT experience (10mg) and seeing almost high fidelity versions of all of the aesthetic qualities of phens. Its similarity to LSD raised my eyebrow as well when I first took it, but AMT really pushed it home.

It seems to me that if a case can be made for treating a child with what ultimately seem to be minute hallucinogens (adderall, dexedrine, methylphenidate [less true with this drug], etc.), then a case, a very similar case, could be made for the distribution of small-dose ampuoles to be taken, as amphetamine is, for depression.

I think there's a bit of a cover-up here. They wanted to keep stimulants legal so instead of filing DOB and DOM under amphetamine or amphetamine analogue, they file it under psychedelic (IE instant illegality). If there is sufficient evidence to prove that a drug like AMT (also called IT-290 in some countries) and DMT are so closely related that they can be safely prescribed in equivalent doses with extreme monitoring of the patient during sessions?

A lot of people agree that the only way it's ever gonna get legal is through the sacrament route, but everyone knows that white people can only get to heaven through jesus. But amphetamine is very dangerous to children, whereas mescaline is taken by hundreds of children in Native American ceremonies every day and has a super-high LD-50 as does LSD.

But really, at this point at least, just a basic, simple run-down of how they're different (especially LSD at 100mcg and methedrine at around 50mg--which I found to be *identical* in four double-blind studies done over the course of a year (once every 3 months). I and 2 other people took turns eating the doses while the other observed the results/monitoring physical effects and vitals, taking quite lengthy notes about every hour; each in that ratio and no one got a single guess right. Especially visually, I believe that makes for the strongest evidence. DOM is actually, at around 2.5mg quite like a 80mg dexedrine experience it seems. Is phenethylamine just a made-up differential to make sure the companies which make amphetamine don't become illegal?


To distill the point: are they really separate enough in their action to be separated in their category?


Don't be shy to lay it all on me, freakazoids!

[bLuE]

very fascinating post songcycle....amphetamine is a subcatagory of the phenethylamine's. many of the substances mentioned such as the DOx series are referred to as psychedelic amphetamines. SWIM said he almost prefers the psychedelic amphetamines to tryptamines. even though they last so damn long...but SWIM is a speed demon... he would agree that psycho-stimulants are definately capable of producing psychedelic effects, not in the traditional manner, and not in the usual dosages... but it does happen, swim however believes using a stimulant for its psychedelic properties is like using a knife to eat soup, your going to get a taste, but you also might hurt yourself. on the other hand there are tryptamines like AMT (which is structurally similar to amphetamine) that cause stimulation. even psilocybin in small doses is reported to be a stimulant... swim finds this extremely interesting.

[Songcycle67]

SWIM sent the following:

Thank you so much for the clarification about amphetamines being phens. That makes a lot of sense. When I tried amphetamine salts the first time at around 60mg I was astonished at the amount of visual information that corresponded directly to previous acid trips. My favorite part is I seem to be getting these side view hallucinations. Anything out of my field of immediate focus, at a certain dosage, will start to turn into..well....weird shit.

I find it amazing. I'm suspicious that I may have actually taken 5-MeO-AMT after reading a bit more about the effects. But I just assumed that I was hallucinating so much it had to be some kind of psychedelic.

Does regular AMT generally produce cartoonish surreal visions? Or is that the 5-MeO-AMT?

I will say that it's absolutely useless as a study drug or for concentration once you start....sort of pseudo-hallucinating. Memory is definitely affected. It's like LSD minus the true mindfuck of all time it tends to produce.

Even dexedrine, my prescribed stimulant, at 15mg starts to get a little heady.


But you proved my point I think. These fucking government clowns are doing their best to keep amphetamines separate from phens in the public view. I can't say that I've met anyone that isn't a true psychedelics fan that's even heard the word phenethylamine. Even mescaline is just called "a psychedelic." All us weird fucks need to start making it clear that we're phenethylamine freaks. Maybe that would get some attention put on phens and what they can provide for sessions. Shit, though, the pharmaceutical companies are trying their best to get solid amphetamines off the shelf so that in the next 20 years all you can get for ADHD is excedrin XL or something.

[bLuE]

swim agrees that people tend to think of amphetamines and psychedelics quite differently but really there are some beautiful inbetween points. mescaline has been reported as causing feelings of grandure similar in potency to methedrine. it is well known that many phenethylamines are psychedelics and/or amphetamines. but really lots of medicines are phenethylamines and tryptamines. pharmacutical companies do not wish to get these products off shelves. pharma companies make millions of dollars on painkillers, speed and other substances of abuse every year. they are the biggest dealers of all. in the eariest days of methedrine it was not uncommon to be prescribed for anything from a cold to hiccups to lethary. now the controls are tighter but still...

the truth is that there will ALWAYS be demand for proper stimulants and psychedelics.
and SWIM is fairly confident that they will NEVER be able to control every new substance that comes along. in all likelyhood they may find a much better aid for those with ADHD/ADD, but stimulants will still be useful and popular. esspecially for sufferers of narcolepsy, they really need them. even obscure chemicals that were only mildly popular in the sixties are still doing the rounds, these beautiful substances are here to stay.

bLuE added 10 Minutes and 21 Seconds later...

it seems to be the consensus around here that most find 5-MeO-AMT to be toxic. although some do enjoy it. people seems to have widely varying reactions to different doses. some find 20mg is more than enough others need 50mg to feel anything... some report visuals and for others nothing, some report simple and unique visuals, others report comlex visuals that liken to lsd... 5-MeO-AMT however is active at a much lower dosage. 4-7mg.

SWIM is fascinated by AMT and whould like to hear more of swiys experiences. how is AMT for improving motor function? swims monkey is a musician and loves to jam on stimulants and/or psychedelics. would this be his cup of tea?

[Songcycle67]

A MARTIAN CAME DOWN INTO MY ROOM AND POSTED THIS WHILE I WAS AWAY:

Man, such a thoroughly articulate response. Thank you so much. I never knew exactly...well, if they were actually being consciously alienated from the true group of chemicals they belonged to and just diverted focus toward the name brand "Adderall" doesn't suggest that it has anything to do with amphetamine to the the lamen. So that's like taking it down to not only it's subgroup but it's sub-sub-group in order to make it more palatable psychologically for money. I've never heard such an articulate and direct answer to the question "are 'they' doing it?" LSD, and all the other major psychedelics, which I've done regularly but not to the extent that I have LSD.

I think the biggest problem that the government has is, well, first they want that pharm lobby money, but more than that; the bureaucrats are being very efficient at keeping a war on drugs alive because they tehemselves defend on funds allocated to them by any way possible to create money partly to this war which seems to have been very efficiently planned to escalate and destroy the populations. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it's just obvious that, if nothing else, when the laws were discussed and lain out they were very very good about doing what bureaucracies and industries (military/industrial) do: stay alive and cut spending and increase revenue. I think Huxley had it right a long time ago when he talked about a society that was living in a world they all hated to be in, but it was constantly being beamed out to the masses that everything is fine and *normal*.

Zoloft, Paxil, Xanax, huge amounts of psycho stimulants and dissociative and all these drugs that have terrible terrible side effects and they've existed for about 10 years. It seems to me that we live under a government that *is* in fact controlling the psyche of its people to some extent. People don't realize how much CIA counter-intelligence/intelligence/informant until they read stuff like MK ULTRA. This kind of thing is old hat for the CIA now.

But I'm not sure how much control is being exherted and what kind of effect its having. I know that in two generations we went from being this machine of anti-war fairytale anything-you-ever-wanna-be's to complacent video game jockeys. I dunno, maybe it's just a weird cycle we're going through?

Anyway, with the doses you mentioned, it was in fact probably 5-MeO-AMT that I took. Those dosages are around the levels I was at, and at 15mg I was just in fucking candyland. It was so amazing. I took 5mg the first time thinking it was going to the speed (IT-290) talked about in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, as I had always been told and was blown brainless for a good day. IT-290 definitely sounds like what they wre using. I couldn't reconcile how a major major psychedelic like that, could have been taken with such abandon and not caused these amazing states I had witnessed on as little as 5mg.

So I don't know that much about AMT; that book chronicles it quite heavily. That and the fact that Kesey selected it out of all the other amphetamines and phenethylamines and all these other absolute wonderdrugs which by now the Menlo Park staff had made him extremely extremely familiar puts it in a pretty high and trusted rank. I mean he could've taken all of them if he wanted. But those were the two magic ones. That and some grass and you were supposedly just jetted off into hyperdrive and beyond. They talk about the Euphoria specifically; perhaps more than any other aspect of the drug and always with utmost respect. But that was 1964 and one does have a great many new and miraculous designs for the brain to more easily munch on, as you no doubt know.

As for 5-MeO-AMT, like....just dali and ancient vedic images of the buddha. people would turn into really realistic looking shit like snails, I remember people kept looking like caterpillars or fingsers would turn into worms sort of. You know how hallucinations of these nature are. But it's definitely sitting between a bravo batch of Ayahuasca ormaybe 600ug of LSD-25 Sandoz style.


On 5-MeO-AMT it was just, you were such a mess you couldn't really do anything but just on low doses be completely ecstatic with fireworks in your vision and orgasmo-cosmic forces working their way up and down your cerebral complex, even on the lowest doses. On high dosese you'd have some of the side effects perhaps maybe a bit more of that acidy abdominal cramping and spinal pain. It's encountered about as much as on any other of the major psychedelics.

And subjectively, it seems as if time slows WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY down. I'm actually reporting to you live on about 4mg, with an okay tolerance and about 10 hours in, so I'm trying to explain as much as possible. Very excited. I just laughed a bunch because typing feels so good after a while. So yeah: 5-MeO-AMT: Thumbs up for psychological testing and psychedelic sessions. Effective, less anxiety-enducing that many other hallucinogens. Things really really melt on you. It's not at all subtle.

But as to AMT, as I said, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolf chronicles it quite heavily and praises it. It was definitely reported to be better than methedrine by everyone who had tried both at Kesey's in La Honda. My monkey is really wanting some AMT, some of that good ol fashioned IT-290 SuperAmphetamine. and I told it that my dude said he could get literally almost any psychotropic agent available at the time from every other mail order catalog pre-1966. Dunno how you'd go about such a thing today. And the sadness rushes over me like frostbitten summer.


Since you said that it was structured similarly to most ampheamines-- I've ttried both levo- and dextro- and currently dextro- is excellent for creative endeavors. I'm a musician and producer and general glancer and maker of things. And it just absolutely 100% makes me go go go. I mean 30mg will get you to like, a really comfortable happy outgoing mindstate. Very energetic and bubbly. Dedicated. Higher doses are probably more damaging and could result in basic amphetamine psychosis or something more advanced. It is pretty powerful. If I'm not mistaken it was one of the highest ranking in positive effects verses negative or neutral in a lot of the studies I read from Menlo Park and other test places. But it is supposed to be a lot harder on your heart and I have no idea of the toxicity. Probably higher than straight methamphetamine, but no clue really.

But yeah, if you like to play music or do any kind of art or things that require creativity, from what I've read, and I'm recalling all this from about age 18-22 or so; I was just reading everything I could find on it and acid. And it was always described in the clinical tests as extremely good for concentration. Also in the book I mentioned there's probably 10 paragraphs in a chapter devoted to how this one girl took some and like just sat and stared at her hands for 5 hours (supposedly it lasts a day for it all to wear off) and Tom Wolf is going into all these crazy details about what's going on inside her head like she's thinkingg about how it was formed, articulating its creation precisely from beginning to end: traveling through primordial ooze that was her arm in the beginning, watching the synapses slowly form, etc. etc.

So yeah I think it'd be great for jamming--they sure do a shitload of wierd creative wonderful stuff on it while keeping their cool.

Reputation Comments on this post:

amazingly detailed response, thank you.

[gmeziscool2354]

i'm gonna post a one liner cause i don't have time to fully read and respond

amphetamine is an acronym for Alpha-Methyl-PHen-EThyl-AMINE

so yeah, thats the origen of the word. post my full (and length response) in a few hours

[Songcycle67]

holy shit dude, i knew that and I didn't make the connection. thank you so much for clearing that up!

[bLuE]

much appreciated, swim has always been interested in this compound. suncycle has inspired swim to give the electric kool-aid acid test another read and what a wonderful read it will be... thanks again.

by the way, swim believes LSD also fits under the category of phenethylamine if swim is not mistaken.

[gmeziscool2354]

here we go. a phenethylamine (PEA) is a molecule that contains a PEA moiety as its backbone if you will. A PEA moity consists of a aromatic ring (phen, short for phenyl, refering to such a group in a molecul). my avatar is an image of this. from my avatar, pick any carbon. bonded to this carbon you have a 2 carbon chain, and the end of this chain you have an amine (NH3 or NH2 depending on subistution). thats the basics of a PEA moiety.

the most common PEA's i can think of in medicine are amphetamine which has two isomers, levo-amphetamine and dextro-amphetamine. Then you have methamphetamine which also has 2 isomers. Ephederine is the next one that comes to mine. this one has 4 conformational isomers. Then you have bupropion, which is a PEA also. Phenylephrine is also a PEA. there are a few more used in medicine.

Most other PEA's either have no psychoactivity whatsoever or exhibit to high an abuse potetnial for medical use. if amphetamine was discovered yesterday, by 2012 it would be just as ilegal as the molecules mentioned in the orginal post.

If you study the history of amph, you see that it was once the cure all used in america after morphine and cocaine were banned. through the 50's i belive it was OTC.

LSD does not have a PEA moiety, tho it does some subtle similarities. LSD is really a lot different from DOx or any other PEA chemically, so no, it is not a phenethyl amine

Reputation Comments on this post:

very informative.

[metalupyour455]

If swim remembers correctly, MDA and MDE (both phenethylamines that are very similar to MDMA and often found in ecstasy pills) are classified as amphetamines but also psychedelics, which proves what you guys are saying, that they are not all that different and that amphetamines can have psychedelic properties. referring back to the knife and soup metaphor, with MDE and MDA one still feels psychedelic effects at the regular doses so one would not have to megadose in order to get the psychedelic effects.

[gmeziscool2354]

MDMA and MDMA are also amphetamines.

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine is MDMA. its basically methamphetamine with some shit bound to the aromatic ring. MDA is amphetamine with the same shit bound to it

psychadelic is something that is very subjective and really hard to define, so i'm not sure we're really gonna get anywhere to far on this topic, with out first comming up with a working definition everyone can agree on

[bLuE]

i guess swim is misinformed thank you, swigmeiscool for clearing that up.

Originally Posted by metalupyour455

referring back to the knife and soup metaphor, with MDE and MDA one still feels psychedelic effects at the regular doses so one would not have to megadose in order to get the psychedelic effects.

good point, to clarify i will add this.
-the psychedelic amphetamines generally produce effects of both catagories.
-psychedelics in small doeses can be sitmulating.
-amphetamines in large doses can give psychedelic effects. such experiences from normal doses usually result from poor planning i.e sleep deprivation from dosing too late.

the in between substances seem to be vastly popular like:
the MDxx's
the DOx'ss
and 2C-x'
these substances can cause both psychedelic effects similar to mescaline and stimulating effects reminicent of amphetamine. some are better for speedy effects, others are better for psychedelic effects.

[metalupyour455]

swim has also noticed that after taking psilo-shrooms and lsd that it is VERY difficult to go to sleep. is that the effect of tryptamines because they act as neuromodulators for serotonin which supposedly is important in sleep cycles? and if so, one could say that this is a stumlating effect as well.