Why Is It, That Some People Just DON'T Feel Amphetamines?

[TheCollegeTweaker]

I'm 20 years old and all of my friends who I attend my classes with are the same age as me as well; we have all been friends since we were fourteen years old. One of my friends, got her hands on some 30mg Adderall XR pills and came to me about how much she should take. I asked her a couple of questions: any heart issues? blood pressure problems? ya know the typical questions you would want to make sure of before you let your friend take a bunch of amphetamine. I told her to just take one and to see how it affected her. Throughout the entire day I was looking at her to see some kind of noticeable effects...whole day passed, nothing. She told me multiple times that she didn't feel anything whatsoever. I told her the next day to try taking two of the pills...next day, same thing. Absolutely nothing.

After the second day she was upset that she didn't feel anything whatsoever and was mad at "the fact people hype up such a shitty drug as much as they do". On the third day she ended up taking SEVEN 30mg ADDERALL XR PILLS. My eyes widened and I told her about how much she had taken... and how big of a dosage jump she had made, she simply shrugged her shoulders and told me that she doubted it would do shit. I shit you not the whole day I never noticed anything different about her, nor did she notice ANY effects from the Adderall whatsoever except for an extreme case of the sweats, and a bit of pupil dilation.

The pills weren't bunk either..the beads were inside of the capsules and we emptied them out into applesauce on the first and second day that she took them. I'm very confused by this. I have ADHD, weigh more than she does and I'm also quite a bit taller than she is, and 150mg of Adderall XR would leave me with a pretty decent amphetamine buzz. I don't understand why she isn't feeling any effects from amphetamine whatsoever, if someone could give me a good answer as to why this is, I would really appreciate the new knowledge lol

 

[Michael_25]

Is your friend medicated on anti-psychotics by any chance? I used to get great euphoria and self-confidence after using amphetamines, be it Dexedrine or meth ... However, since being on clozapine I don't feel any real euphoria from them anymore. A few months ago I IVed 100 mg of meth ... and all it felt like was as if I drank 3 Redbulls in a row. It just left me jittery. It wasn't bunk shit either coz my friend IVed the same dose from the same batch(we both have very similar tolerances to meth) and said he got high as fuck.

 

[CFC]

if someone could give me a good answer as to why this is, I would really appreciate the new knowledge lol

I'm not unlike your friend. I've come up with a bunch of random ideas before to do with synaptic vesicles, BBB, calcium channels etc. I suspect self-monitoring and related personality traits (OCPD etc) probably also have something to do with it. But really, it's just speculative waffle on my part.

I'm going to move this to N&PD since it's not really appropriate for OD.

 

[sekio]

A good stimulant is one you never notice you're on until you've been productive all day, IMO. Amphetamine doesn't always have to produce a cracked-out hyperactive state. And ~150mg of XR amp is a large dose for sure but not that large of a "recreational" dose.

nor did she notice ANY effects from the Adderall whatsoever except for an extreme case of the sweats, and a bit of pupil dilation.

So they did feel effects from the amphetamine then? I'm confused.

 

[Coolwhip]

For one, they are XR pills. Two, people's expectations of such drugs are often way off so certain aspects go unnoticed, they are expecting something as in your face as ecstasy or obviously intoxicating as a blunt, and people with less experience with drugs in general try to fight the effects and hold onto their sober mind state for as long as they can often without trying to. Three, and probably the most important one here, for some reason among young people its cool to be immune to drugs or be able to take huge amounts and it barely do anything to you, or at least claim this as fact. I would think you would see this more in males as part of it is definitely a macho thing, but you see it in girls too, especially when they are hanging out with boys.

For example, not too long ago, I was talking to this 19 year old kid who was working at a waffle house, he was talking about getting stoned at work, and I said honestly I almost never drink and I got nothing against smoking out back but if you have a lot of work to be done and are looking to take the edge off a beer or two is my preference as a few hours later I won't be dragging ass like I would be after smoking and getting the munchies. And this kid tried to tell me how he is immune to beer, and he can drink beer all day long and never feel it. I iterated that I just meant to relax not get smashed, made a couple facetious remarks about him being such a tough guy and drinking all day long for no reason, which I believe went over his head, and then just smiled and agreed with him as he was insistent that he felt nothing from beer.(and I don't mean 1 or 2 beers, beer in general) I also remember being that age and getting high with people and they would insist that weed doesn't give them red eye as I am offering them eye drops as their eyes were red as fuck. And people were always dick sizing about the doses they would take, its something most of us grow out of.

Crush up four of those pills, and give them to her at midnight, and see how much nothing she feels when trying to sleep that night.

 

[Aetherius Rimor]

I dated a girl who was like this with amphetamine based drugs. MDMA in particular, didn't seem to affect her, and she couldn't feel it. Tested highly pure MDMA.

Probably not the wisest idea, but we started increasing dosage until she felt something. At around 500mg she still claimed not to feel anything. Then around 600, something must have passed a threshold, because she would get extremely horny and be noticeably "fucked up".

Turns out she was taking anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, and didn't realize they would cancel out the effects of certain drugs.

I've not seen anyone with a naturally high tolerance who wasn't on some medication, but I'd imagine it's possible that someone has naturally high levels of the neurotransmitter and low sensitivity with the receptors involved so they are neurotypical despite atypical chemistry.

 

[Coolwhip]

You are lucky that didn't end worse than it did, Aetherius, as I am sure you already know.

I guess I should have included something about taking other medications which can block the effects, as others have, but I assumed he would have asked about that already considering he asked about heart health.

 

[Pomzazed]

Maybe i am one of these people...

 

[Beefy]

I have a story that is contrary to this. My friend was dating this girl that when she dropped a pill, she would literally feel it for like 18 hours. I used to be so jealous of her. She would drop it at the party, and all the way home, she'd be rolling hard as fuck. then we get to his house, and we've all crashed already, and this girl is still rolling hard as fuck. I also know taht she didn't keep taking more because my friend was the one with the pills, and when he would run out, I knew cause I'd see him not high anymore.
It was incredible. She was like that with LSD too, she took a tab once when I was there and like from 11am-10pm she was tripping all day. I left at 10pm and she was still tripping. I wish I had her DNA or whatever it was that drugs did that to her. But it was EVERY SINGLE TIME. If she was doing E, it would last her like 24hrs or something. It was incredible!

 

[Aetherius Rimor]

I have a story that is contrary to this. My friend was dating this girl that when she dropped a pill, she would literally feel it for like 18 hours.

This would concern me. Either they have a liver problem, are on medications that inhibit the enzymes responsible for metabolizing it, or are for some reason not metabolizing it at a normal rate.

High risk of accidental OD if that's the case.

You are lucky that didn't end worse than it did, Aetherius, as I am sure you already know.

Yeah, I'm pretty risk averse normally too. A cute girl can lead you to some stupid situations -_-.

 

[Dresden]

People have different brains and everything.

 

[Seppi]

I didn't bother reading the OP's post, but responding to the title of this thread as to why people don't "feel" amphetamines:
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with a loss-of-function mutation in the TAAR1 gene AND the gene(s) that encode(s) amphetamine's other unidentified biomolecular target(s) would entirely account for a reduced or complete lack of effect following amphetamine administration.

SLC6A2 (NET) and SLC6A3 (DAT) gene polymorphisms might also play a role in a reduced effect of amphetamine, but I think it's unlikely that a mutation in those would result in a non-functional effect on DAT/NET from amphetamine's TAAR1-, CAMKII-, and RhoA/ROCK-mediated signaling cascades.

 

[Coolwhip]

People have different brains and everything.

In line with Seppi's post, people may have different brains but they all still have the same major systems. Its not like her brain doesn't use dopamine and norepinephrine as neurotransmitters. Differences in genetics can result in a substance being less euphoric and reduced effects on ones psyche; but not no effects, and honestly I am more of the mind that this has more to do with her expectations and her ego(don't mean arrogance) than anything else. For some reason people want to think being able to ingest a large amount of drugs and remain sobre is somehow the same as lifting a lot of weight or running fast, they think it somehow makes them superior.