Why do effects vary by route of administration

[69Ron]

SWIM got interested in this subject after reading about Jonathan Ott’s freebase bufotenine tests. Ott found bufotenine to be very visually hallucinogenic with almost no toxic effects. However, most previous tests found it had toxic side effects and was barely hallucinogenic at all. Well, turns out that the previous tests used mostly bufotenine oxalate injected into various parts of the body. Ott used freebase bufotenine orally, intranasally, sublingually, intrarectally, and by smoking it.

A while back SWIM extracted freebase alkaloids from Anadenanthera colubrina, which contains mostly bufotenine. SWIM tested the alkaloid mix orally, intranasally, by smoking them, and finally he actually attempted it intrarectally (it was the first time he ever tried that). SWIM found that the effects varied dramatically based on the route of administration.

If snorted (taken intrarectally) it produced lots of strong visuals, tension in the sinuses, nausea, etc. The effects took about 5 minutes to start and lasted about 2 hours. The tension in the sinuses lasted about 10 minutes. The nausea lasted about 1 hour. It was pretty unpleasant.

If taken sublingually, it didn’t seem to work at all.

If ingested orally, it was weaker and caused a lot of euphoria and nausea, with almost no visuals. It sort of felt like LSA. It took about 30 minutes to start and lasted about 2 hours.

If smoked, it was very nice, at least 10 times stronger, lots of visuals, lots of euphoria, and almost no side effects. There was some slight nausea and tension for the first few minutes, but it quickly faded away. It took about 2 minutes to start and lasted about 2 hours.

If taken intrarectally, it was an amazing experience. There were NO SIDE EFFECTS AT ALL, lots of visuals; it was like ayahuasca without the side effects. It took about 1 hour to start and lasted about 3 hours.

This is a short list of the intensity effects noticed from different routes of administration (ordered from most on left to least on right):

Nausea: oral > intranasal > smoking > intrarectal
Euphoria: intrarectal > oral > smoking > intranasal
Visuals: smoking = intranasal = intrarectal > oral
Auditory hallucinations: smoking > intranasal > intrarectal > oral

I realize that part of this is from the different alkaloids having different potency via different routes of administration, and that when taken orally, MAO has an impact on the effects of many drugs (it inactivates DMT for example).

According to my sources, this freebase alkaloid extract should be a collection of the following alkaloids with bufotenine being the major player with a few others contributing quite a bit to the effects (isolated bufotenine is noticeably different):

N-Methyltryptamine (NMT)
dimethyltryptamine (DMT)
dimethyltryptamine N-Oxide (DMT N-Oxide)
Serotonin
N-Methylserotonin
5-methoxy-methyltryptamine (5-MeO-NMT)
5-methoxy-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT, methoxybufotenine)
5-hydroxy-dimethyltryptamine (5-HO-DMT, bufotenine)
5-hydroxy-dimethyltryptamine N-Oxide (5-HO-DMT N-Oxide, bufotenine N-Oxide )
2-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole
2-methyl-6-methoxy-1,2,3,tetrahydro-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole
1,2-dimethyl-6-methoxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole

Now on to the questions.

1) Why do different routes of administration have such different effects?

2) Why did intrarectal administration have no side effects at all?

3) Why did oral administration produce very different effects from all other routes? (I know MAO enzymes are part of the answer.)

4) What parts of the body does the blood in the nasal passages flow to before going back to the heart?

5) What parts of the body does the blood in the rectum flow to before going back to the heart?

Reputation Comments on this post:

	v. interesting post, SWIM will look forward to seeing those questions answered
	great, informative post. helped greatly with my research, and also comfirmed that this stuff does work...good to hear it...