Stimulants Why does higher quality meth have a "cleaner" feel to it?

[Aetherius Rimor]

I've smoked off an on for past several years, and the one thing I noticed about meth that I can't explain is that purity seems to change the effects of it. What this reminds me the most of, is the difference between real MDMA and MDA. MDMA was smooth, could go to sleep afterwards, etc; MDA would give me a hangover and would feel more "tense".

Considering most substances, when cut, are cut with inert materials; the psychoactive effects don't change, just the dose required to reach a certain level.

With meth though this doesn't seem to be the case.

Low Quality Effects:
- Increased energy and focus
- Anxiety
- "Tense" feeling, like it feels harder on my body
- A hangover afterwards (which increases desire to keep doing it)

High Quality Effects:
- Increased energy and focus
- Mild euphoria
- Decreased anxiety
- Smooth body high
- No hangover, no strong desire to keep doing it

I've narrowed down possible reasons to:

1. One of the cuts is psychoactive? (What would it be?)
2. Impure synthesis leaving similar psychoactive compounds mixed in? (What would they be?)
3. Maybe it's regular amphetamine rather than methamphetamine, which would match my experience with MDMA and MDA?

Anyone have a good idea on which of these is possible, or know what is causing the difference in effects?

 

[Sertürner]

This is an unanswerable question unfortunately. Have you tested your meth for purity at all? Or is this just all subjective?

I will go ahead and give my best answer possible. Pure D-meth is mostly CNS active, so the body load wouldn?t be nearly as heavy as racemic meth. So I bet your lower quality meth has more L-meth and possibly some other cuts that might affect the PNS as opposed to high quality meth that mainly acts on the brain. Feel free to correct me if I?m wrong as this is only just an assumption.

 

[Hodor]

There are basically two main routes to making meth, one starting from pseudoephedrine (which gives D-methamphetamine), and another from P2P (which gives the racemate, i.e. a 50:50 mix of D-methamphetamine and L-methamphetamine).

As Mr Deeds said, D-meth is a powerful psychostimulant releasing obscene amounts of dopamine and noradrenaline, producing intense euphoria, whereas L-methamphetamine has little effect on the release of dopamine, and produces mostly non-euphoric stimulation and vasoconstriction. Thus meth made from pseudoephedrine should generally feel much cleaner, for lack of a better term.

Also, the difference between methamphetamine and amphetamine is not like difference between MDMA and MDA. D-amphetamine is a smooth dopamine releasing agent, just like D-methamphetamine.
MDMA is a powerful serotonin releasing agent with relatively mild effects on the release of dopamine and noradrenaline. The action of MDA is more balanced between serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline, making it a more stimulating and less mellow experience than MDMA. What's more, MDA also has significant 5HT2A agonism (i.e. psychedelic activity), which tends to make it less "predictable".

By the way, not all cuts are necessarily non-psychoactive: Caffeine is an extremely common adulterant in European "speed", or pressed into pills with methamphetamine as Thai "Yaba".

Edit: Lastly, never underestimate the effects of placebo (or nocebo). Believing a drug to be "pure" is going to exert a significant placebo effect, whether you believe yourself to be above it or not

 

[llamer]

This is indeed an unanswerable question but something I know too much about so let me address the 3 main ideas of the OP:

>1. One of the cuts is psychoactive? (What would it be?)

There was a post on here a few months back from a guy wigging out about his speed being cut with Isopropylbenzylamine whch he claimed was all over the west coast now. I'd never heard of it but after looking it up I can see that he's onto something, the physical and chemical profile of it is uncannily similar to meth. I think this might be your #1 answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopropylbenzylamine

>2. Impure synthesis leaving similar psychoactive compounds mixed in? (What would they be?)

Yes that is in fact very common. In Breaking Bad, When Walter White says that his competition's product is only 70% pure, he's speaking truth to the fact that chemistry here is should be like The Mad MAx 2 Thunderdome in a certain way: two precurosors enter, one 'man' leaves (in this case that 'man' is a fully cooked meth molecule). even the simplicity of a pseudoephedrine reaction (and remember, pseudoephedrine IS an amphetamine itself that many people cannot tolerate as a medication. I could remember 'feeling it' back when I was a kid taking it for colds etc. and I've known people who seemed to enjoy what slight effects they gotfrom it), the PSE gets reduced/saturated with a single proton to become D-meth. So you could always simply have portions from an underreaction, meth + PSE. However there are over-reactions also occuring if the reaction goes on for too long, then the meth undergoes a secondary reaction and becomes another chemical. Also certain off-types of amphetamines can be produced from the PSE by the environment itself if conditions are out of whack. And that is just in the basic-ass Birch reduction, a 1-step reaction -- old timer red P/I pull reactions take longer to do the same job, and the FBI's own labs confirmed that the Birch labs were producing higher-purity meth. There's some documents u can find on the web coming straight from DEA/FBI that listed the breakdown of compounds and purity in their confiscations with data tables and explanations of what each compound represented on the side of manufacture. The chemists writing it made it clear that a good most meth they came across about 10% was these off-reacted products, sometimes that figure was much higher. RP/I cooks they said could be as low as 50% total purity. that's all on google

>3. Maybe it's regular amphetamine rather than methamphetamine, which would match my experience with MDMA and MDA?

meth is as american as apple pie; traditional amp speed went the way of the buffalo after the early 60s unless you could get a prescription. If you live in europe then maybe yes, but if yo're getting glass then I doubt it since the labs in mexico and burma run the glass show. Dutch speed is it's own mystery to me, I don't even know why they make it still unless it really is simpler, despite the precursors being the same.

Now if u want to talk about caffeine cuts then head to the middle east, where clandestine labs have been producing a d-amphetamine-theophylline 'codrug' called Captagon for decades now, and plays a significant role in Syria's civil war. Different subject tho.

 

[Aetherius Rimor]

Thanks for the information. So it seems the most likely cause is synth byproducts or race mic (assuming not placebo).

Isopropylbenzylamine doesn't look like the culprit based on the effects.

L-meth looks likely though. Short of sending a sample to a lab, are there any tests that can be done to determine if that's the case? Or alternatively to detect psuedoephedrine?

Mainly was curious, which my curiosity has been sated with the answers above. Thanks!

 

[phuckingnutz]

It is possible that during the "cook" all the psuedo or whatever their starting material was did not get reduced to Meth and part of what you're doing is unreduced Psuedoephedrine.
Unreduced Psuedoephedrine will come across in the pulling stage just like the Meth and there is no way to tell if/how much is in there without having it tested.
And since PE has its own effects it COULD possibly give you a less than perfect buzz.

 

[motiv311]

a lot of that could be in your head, possibly not; but likely. Meth is a strange drug, sometimes the more toxic batches have even stronger euphoria and effects; no one knows why these things happen. Many tweakers just look at the crystal formation and judge the performance of the drug based off that or some different taste, or a color variant ..... but if all things hold true it should feel roughly the same and be roughly the same everytime

 

[Wiserthanearlier]

I share the OPs curiosity.

I have been using drugs for over 20 years. This include many RCs carefully sought, tested and measured at dosing time.
Point im trying to highlight is i have approached drug use from an educated perspective as much as possible for as long as possible.

Now, in Australia, i have bought speed again over 20 years ago and in between now.
It varied significantly.

Its powders, base or goo, rock, crystal and everything between.

But i too wonder, why does a very good sample of methamphetamine have differing effects to say, an effective and charging powder, or a pushy, sweat producing mani inducing rock of say a brown shade?

I understand most speed in australia is a meth cut. Fine.
But some of the experiences on these powders and rock have far outweighted the experiences of pure meth. The push, the charging, the rush.
All moreso than very pure glass meth.

Why is this?

 

[Wiserthanearlier]

I should add i dont find much enjoyment in good ice, it works, keeps me awake but i dont get the pull others do.
Some of these other stims i have described though have been much more addictive for me, closer to what ice tends to be for others

 

[Jabberwocky]

Forget what’s it’s called, but one common methamp cut seems to increase the rush associated with methamp. Lol sorry not very helpful

Just trying to point out how some cuts seem to improve the experience of the drug. Something similar is common to black market heroin, certain batches of dope sold definitely do seem to last longer (have more “legs”) than other batches. Obviously this is changing a bit with fent cut dope, but same idea.

Cuts are preferably avoided for many reasons, but some do seem to increase the subjective high, rush or legs.

 

[Pickledlemons]

I just wanted to say that the rate at which something enters the bloodstream plays a big role on how it feels to the user. For example, if you have two batches of meth and one is twice the potency of the other, with no other psychoactive ingredients... and you are smoking it, that would mean every hoot you take of batch A would be twice as much speed to the brain as batch B. That makes a huge difference to the high. This isnt necessarily all that is going on, but it could be a factor. Also... it could be un-reacted pseudoephedrine, which has all the negative feelings of meth with none of the positive.

 

[phuckingnutz]

I just wanted to say that the rate at which something enters the bloodstream plays a big role on how it feels to the user. For example, if you have two batches of meth and one is twice the potency of the other, with no other psychoactive ingredients... and you are smoking it, that would mean every hoot you take of batch A would be twice as much speed to the brain as batch B. That makes a huge difference to the high. This isnt necessarily all that is going on, but it could be a factor. Also... it could be un-reacted pseudoephedrine, which has all the negative feelings of meth with none of the positive.

My vote is on unreacted starting products. No reduction is 100% efficient and psuedoephedrine makes for a nasty buzz.
Also, that speed to the brain thing is why people like smack over morphine...the ONLY difference between smack and morphine is the acetylated version (smack) hits your brain faster.

 

[llamer]

yeah good points that you all just agreed upon, but do a web search on the DEA's sampling of clandestine labs in the US over the last 20 years and they show what they find in the batches they confiscate. Plenty of OVER-reacted PSE, perhaps moreso than underreacted or straight precursor. The truth is we ain't gonna know.