It's your choice, honestly. It's unfortunate, I know, as it is a major point of both contention and confusion among both members and lookers-on here at BL. The fact that we are essentially a repository of broken, damaged and temporarily/permanently insane individuals occasionally being responsible for creating policy. Naturally, this can create some... friction. You see, if you talk to someone who is or was a severe Heroin addict for instance, you'll be quite surprised at how able they are to introduce the topic of Heroin into nearly any conversation.
It's quite impressive when you're discussing the agricultural capacity of Laos and how it relates to its gross domestic product and you raise your hand eagerly, as it would be ethically criminal to not tell the entire class about how Laos is a major producer of Poppy. You have to then tell them what the significance is of these beautiful flowers because, well, you've already started and you have a near-sexual compulsion to continue describing what Poppies look like, how they smell, how you extract the latex from them, when you do it, how the latex is cured, that smell. Oops, you've just told the class that you know what unrefined Opium smells like. You've stopped just short of telling the entire class how enjoyable a lazy afternoon is smoking Opium with some friendly Hmongs at sunset and, to return to the sexual analogy, you are just short of blowing your proverbial load all over everyone including the professor. Who says Jews don't have class?
My point is, I know that, although we have pretty clear-cut rules, a lot of what we do is subjective in nature, however, we really don't like to field content that consists of little more than getting the best high there is. That is a personal quest. You're on the playground man. Consider us the fence. We are not however gonna push you on the swing set. Anything higher than the dosage you've described is not condoned by me until you better understand the mechanism of action behind Methadone.
I'm gonna call it the First-Timer Methadone Folly. It's so ubiquitous at this point that it deserves a name. Most Opioids are short-acting. Heroin, Morphine, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Codeine, Dihydrocodeine, Hydromorphone, Oxymorphone et cetera are all short-acting. Methadone and Buprenorphine are long-acting, although we are not discussing Buprenorphine here. That's a whole other can of worms. As a rule, most drugs that last for a longer period of time, have a correspondingly slow period of onset and time to reach peak plasma concentration. Methadone is dangerous enough as a powerful Mu agonist, with a known propensity for being a relatively powerful respiratory depressor. To be clear, I mean that, among Opioids, there are studies stating that Mg for Mg Methadone produces more respiratory depression than does Heroin. Food for thought no?
I'm of the opinion however that this is not what is truly the most dangerous aspect of this drug. For those who have use Opioid previously and are familiar with the sedative effects and so on, they expect it and are at least somewhat aware of the dangers involved. The issue though, is that Methadone is rarely the first Opioid used by an individual. It is typically used by individuals who have climbed up the ladder already, as it were. The problem is, that there experience with short-acting Opioids deceives them into believing that they have not taken a correspondingly large enough dose of Methadone. This causes them to redose before they have truly hit the peak.
Methadone, in many individuals, does not hit its true peak of effects until the 4-5 hour mark.
If you are truly trying to approach Methadone using a Harm Reduction monocle, then you should really not be redosing with Methadone until at least 3 hours. You can quite easily make a conversion of dosage using one of the many online calculators/charts, but a further issue with Methadone, as if there were not enough already, is that, relative to other Opioids, it is heavily influenced by enzymatic activity of the liver. A wide variety of medications, OTC supplements and foods contain chemicals that can inhibit the liver's ability to break down Methadone into its non-active metabolites. This translates directly into a more potent, longer-lasting effect.
FURTHERMORE, human beings are all born with varying levels, quantities and efficencies of liver enzymes. It might be that you and say, 3 friends all like to get together and take 30mg Oxycodone and that's great for all of you. Oxycodone is not extensively effected by enzyme activity. Then, you do an Opioid conversion and decide on the perfect dose of Methadone. Then, you find out too late that you all have extremely different genetic profiles and some of you are knocked out cold and some are pretty much fine.
There are a lot of variables that come together that make Methadone a deadly, dangerous drug. Do not fuck with it unless you know what you're doing. Opioids are dangerous, but Methadone adds a further layer of potential bullshit that is not for the uninitiated to be flagrantly messing with.
Good luck and I hope this helps.
