Dose - How far can you take the "less is less harmful" analogy?

[Synesthesiac]

I often come across people who choose not to take research chemicals such as mephedrone and methylone due only to the fact that you have to take quite high amounts of them in comparison to most other drugs/ResearchChems. They seem fine however using drugs like MDPV, desoxypipradrol, 2c-b-fly, etc, as you dont usually push them about 5-15mg (though some people do by accident on occasions ) and so they claim the chances of them having adverse side effects in the future is far lower.

I can see some reasoning behind it, if you consume 500mg of mephedrone and theres an extra component of mephedrone that does cause a yet unknown unwanted side effect then you have consumed a lot more of it, whereas with MDPV your likely to have consumed less of any side effect and more of the desired effect due to the drastically smaller dose. But then again, the drugs you take less of are a heck of a lot stronger, and so could be causing more potential damage through their high strength profile.

How far can you take this analogy? Or is this view essentially crap?

[polidelaiko]

What do they think of mescaline? A good dose can be like 400-500mg...
I think the dose needed by a drug has to do with the affinity it has on the receptors it tickles. More affinity= less material needed.

[Synesthesiac]

Originally Posted by polidelaiko

What do they think of mescaline? A good dose can be like 400-500mg...

Well, if they had just discovered mescaline and it was a new research chemical which was under-researched their philosophy would be that in amounts that high its not worth the risk. Though, I'm sure they know now thats its been shown to be as toxic as peanuts at these amounts, but if they didn't know this beforehand they would probably avoid it.

Of course there are loads of drugs that you can consume in huge amounts and we know there is no real neurotoxicity or general bodily harm (cannabis, psilocybin, ketamine, etc) but they would only do large amounts of these because they are sure about their well researched pharmokinetics. If they were new and not researched, the amounts they would be using would put them off as they claim amounts that high increase the risk of it having many separate side effects that are hard to determine.

They would say the less powder the more direct the effects of the chemical with fewer side effects. Which I personally think is a bit of a simplistic argument. But its just that the couple of mates I know say this (the ones that avoid mephedrone, methylone and a few others) do seem to be quite knowledgeable, one of them is studing organic chemistry at uni (first year). But he was quite stoned when he said it to me the other day

I can see a kind of logic to it. Basically I think what they're implying is that psychoactive drugs that you require less of to get an effect generally have less severe side effects. If you think of LSD, which of course you need microscopic amounts of, this is certainly true as its remarkably non toxic even in dosages much larger than the recommended dose, some people have done milligrams of it and not suffered any sort of damage (apart form maybe scaring the living daylights out them for a few days!).

So. Hmmm. Dunno. I'm undecided. Need some experts opinions. Which I'm sure will follow shortly.

[nibble]

Originally Posted by Synesthesiac

I often come across people who choose not to take research chemicals such as mephedrone and methylone due only to the fact that you have to take quite high amounts of them in comparison to most other drugs/ResearchChems. They seem fine however using drugs like MDPV, desoxypipradrol, 2c-b-fly, etc, as you dont usually push them about 5-15mg (though some people do by accident on occasions ) and so they claim the chances of them having adverse side effects in the future is far lower.

I can see some reasoning behind it, if you consume 500mg of mephedrone and theres an extra component of mephedrone that does an unwanted side effect then you have consumed a lot more of it, whereas with MDPV your likely to have consumed less of any side effect and more of the desired effect due to the drastically smaller dose. But then again, the drugs you take less of are a heck of a lot stronger, and so could be causing more potential damage through their high strength profile.

How far can you take this analogy? Or is this view essentially crap?

Well this may in fact hold true in relation to some forms of toxicity but not for any effects profile mediated negatives. Taking 4-MMC (Mephedrone) as an example, I would imagine that any possible toxic effects on serotonin neurons would be equatable to that of a similiar drug administered to be of equal potency, ie the neurotoxic effects of 125mg of MDMA may be roughly the same as 250mg of 4-MMC.. Very little is known about most RC's though, so many could be highly toxic through some other MOA.

[runitsthepolice]

Less weight doesn't mean it's any more or less harmful. There are chemicals that a few ppm in the blood will result in immediate death. The point I'm trying to make is purity, toxicology, etc. does matter but simple weight has no correlation to safety.

[Synesthesiac]

I suppose ther main case you could make for this is that by consuming a larger amount of something there will be a larger amount of impurities. The smaller amount you use the less impurities, even though the purity percentage can be the same no matter what the size.

I dont really buy into this though. There are just so many drugs you have to do large quantities of with little harmful effects that make it seem an odd thing for them to think. Personally swim found MDPV probably felt more "harmful" on his body than meph, but that was only swims subjective experience.