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Why do psychedelics take so long to kick in?

Nooo

Greenlighter
Joined
May 18, 2013
Messages
21
The only psychedelic I've had personal experience with so far is DXM, but I know it takes other psychedelics from 45 minutes to 2 hours to kick in.

Why is it that other drugs work so fast but psychedelics take so long?

If I drink a beer I'll feel the beer within 5 minutes, but if I drink a bottle of cough syrup I have to wait over an hour to feel the DXM although the route of administration was the exact same.
 
Dxm technically isn't a psychedelic. It is best classified as a dissociative, and, yes, it does take a while to kick in. Some psychedelics, like mushrooms for example, might kick in in as little as 20 minutes. Others make take up to 3 hours.

While you took the dxm and the beer by the same route of administration (oral), they are absorbed differently. Alcohol is readily absorbed by the stomach, whereas most other compounds need to get further into the digestive system to be absorbed effectively.
 
most psychedelics are absorbed only slowly and needs to reach a certain conentration before causing effects
 
there a few that kick in fast; 2c-t-2 comes to mind, NBOMes hit fast as well. At a high dose i had a trip kick in within 5 minutes, i thought i was going insane because that was just so abnormal but it did indeed kick in that fast. full blown tripping within the hour. it was a huge dose though. Many tryptamines hit pretty fast orally as well. It depends on your metabolism, stomach contents and other variables too though.

It's mostly to do with ROA IMO, orally is almost always the slowest and is often the most common ROA for psychedelics. Many drugs kick in fast orally (xanax, valium), most psychedelics don't, however if you're brave enough to snort some of them or freebase them, they will hit you like a train. Try vaping 5-meo-dalt and report back :) or 5-meo-dmt or DMT or the other many tryptamines. You can vape other psychs too or IV them and they hit you insanely fast. too fast.

as to why most take long to kick in orally, like over an hour. I don't know from a pharmacological perspective. Why does mescaline take forever to kick in but 2c-t-2 kicks in so fast? when both are used orally? Same mechanism of action (in basic terms), hitting the same receptor (Yes they hit different ones but 5ht2a is what i'm referring to). Maybe one molecule can just get through the BBB faster than the other due to it's shape, i don't know.
 
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That's only with oral/sublingual though, when something is insufflated; IV'ed/IM'ed; plugged or vaporized it kicks in pretty fast actually
 
It's not that (classical serotonergic) psychedelics kick in slowly but rather that alcohol kicks in quite quickly (significant absorption occurs in the stomach), and dxm kicks in quite slowly (as its solubility is shaky, and a lot of its activity depends on metabolism to DXO). Oral entactogens, stimulants, benzos, and opioids don't kick in particularly quickly compared to psychedelics.

ebola
 
most stims kick in pretty fast if they aren't prodrugs or MPH or something. I can take dexedrine orally and it'll hit me in 15 minutes. I can take etizolam and it'll hit with SL in minutes, orally, probably 15-30 minutes. I think there are far more drugs that hit within an hour than there are that don't. Most cathinones ive tried hit within 30 minutes as well.

not just recreational drugs but medicinal drugs as well. Why does something like cannabis take so damn long to kick in? or mescaline and 2c-e? there must be something different about them.
 
Cannabis doesn't take long to kick in. compared to DMT or the 5-Meo's, yes, but I'm always high within minutes? Or were you talking about edibles?

Sasha (well, the user with his name) puts it nicely though, most/all psychedelics aren't absorbed in the stomach from what I gather and I know for a fact that edibles go through the liver first.
 
no i meant edibles lol smoked cannabis hits me pretty much instantly. Everything you take orally, will go through the liver, no?
 
Yeah got the digestive system all wrong, but was rather echoing that where it gets absorbed is a huge factor
 
MDMA, LSD, 25I all show themselves to me within 20 minutes oral sublingual style.

Mushrooms pretty much the same, maybe just a touch longer


I have never had something take much more then a half hour. But it is not full fledged, I just start to feel effects peripheral stuff mostly within the 1rst hour easing into the experience, and for me and most people that is a good thing.


I can't imagine vapeing a full .500 ug hit of 25I I think it would be overwhelming to go warp speed into a trip.


The larger the amount of LSD one consumes the quicker the effects show up, and the longer the durration of course. take a hit or 2 should be a 20 minute wait for first alerts, take a 10 strip first alerts are there within 3 to 5 minutes.... at least that was my experience.

Not sure what to say about MDMA If a common hit is 100 mg 200 mg is strong, dropping in with 300 is only for the very very experienced, I would imagine the first rolls come quicker and quicker for most, as they did for me...... say 20 minutes going down to 15 minutes I am sure if snorted it may hit you quicker but I never liked to snort E ..... a bump here or there just to keep the roll steady most I ever did was dropping in 3 at one time and it bombed me hard. A friend took 6 of the same, said he rolled super hard, and his peak was a plateau of compleate sobriety, where the rolls dissapeared for say 30 minutes only to come back strong and then subside.


that is my take
 
Most tryptamines & LSD are absorbed in the stomach, & thus kick in more quickly. Many phenethylamines have to get to the small intestine before theymake their way into the bloodstream. This certainly accounts for some of the delay. NBOMes etc are absorbed via capillaries so the circumvent the digestive tract all together.
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But as for the super slow onset of DOx etc, who knows. I do recall a Shulgin anecdote regarding radio labelled DOI, in which IIRC he stated it went to the lungs to hang out for a bit before making its way to the target area. But as with all n=1 study, who knows how broadly this applies to others.
 
I'm small, zero-tolerance in most cases low in others, & coupled with all that, I'm ultra-sensitive to psyches anyway!

So far, all swallowed in rizla bombs or diluted & drunk -

4-subs 4mg enough for threshold, onset in 10 minutes empty stomach

6 average, fresh Semilaceata, felt in 15 minutes, mild stimulation & very subtle trip

Not exactly classic Psyches but 12mg of mdma is enough for threshold, hits on empty stomach in 12 minutes

10mg methylone (yes, for me, it's stronger than the real thing or perhaps those grams of crystal were actually 800mg all that time after all, I never weighed any MDMA back then) in the same amount of time.

5mg Methoxetamine (also, not exactly a classic psyche, onset in 10 minutes, light dissociation & even visuals
 
^holy shit you must be sensitive to psychedelics/drugs. 10mg methylone wouldn't do a thing for me.

any major dude makes a good point, as is what kidkimx was referring to i believe. I didn't know that.

what's with LSD though? i had long debates with people about how LSD when injected has the same time of onset if taken orally. Their argument was that it took time to create the effects in the brain, LSD being a catalyst of some sort. Yet, the poster 2 above, notices the same thing as me, the higher the dose, the quicker it hits. Does anyone know if IV LSD hits as fast as 4-aco-dmt IV? if it doesn't then what is going on with LSD? Both would hit the bloodstream at the same time but what happens after? does the BBB play a role in relation to the molecular structure of the chemical?

i've had too many debates with people over the IV LSD thing and would really like to know the truth about it. Many argued that no matter the ROA LSD would take the same amount of time to kick in.
 
PhyllipThylamine, you're one lucky guy being able to get so much from low doses (unless you want to participate in those stupid dick measuring contests of who can take more I guess).
 
I guess it's the same as with DOI, RobotRipping. The LSD might linger somewhere in your body before it goes to your brain. When you take a lot then some might go directly to the brain, making for a quicker onset. Or something like that
 
PhyllipThylamine, you're one lucky guy being able to get so much from low doses (unless you want to participate in those stupid dick measuring contests of who can take more I guess).

I am seriously sensitive. It's a blessing until I get a pill that's double strength or my mate decides to secretly double my mushroom teat dose =D
 
I guess it's the same as with DOI, RobotRipping. The LSD might linger somewhere in your body before it goes to your brain. When you take a lot then some might go directly to the brain, making for a quicker onset. Or something like that

i suppose it shall remain a mystery for now. I'll volunteer for getting LSD and DOx shot directly into my brain to see what happens, for research purposes, the researcher has to provide the materials though.
 
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