Welcome, Jubbo!
Fantastic that you've joined up! In my experience, there's a strong interest in methaqualone on this forum, so your experience will afford you the opportunity to provide some valuable insight and contributions.
South Africa is defiantly on my bucket list
Yes! It really is a unique country, albeit one of the most unequal in the world. Depending on your interests, there are plenty opportunities for involvement in drug policy reform, advocacy, activism, service delivery and research. If you're more interested in leisure, there's no shortage of activities of various kinds across the country. Fingers crossed you get to tick it off your bucket list!
Cause that’s the only place ludes are still prescribed and made
hahah
Unfortunately, methaqualone, including any other preparation containing methaqualone and known by any other trade name (e.g. Quaalude) is not legal in South Africa and can't be prescribed (see Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act 140 of 1992). However, despite the legal status, its prevalence has been increasing and has been spreading geographically to areas where it hasn't been previously been common. There's limited quantitative data on seized tablets, however, results from colourimetric tests and TLC of tablets from across the country were consistent with methaqualone being a primary constituent in all of the samples (n = 20). Further, in Archer et al. (2020), the authors report on wastewater analyses from Cape Town and found similar PNDL estimates of methaqualone and methamphetamine, which reflects the pattern of poly-drug use in the WC.
Btw, do they really make quaaludes still? I heard they were outlawed or something years ago lol
There are locally synthesized tablets/pressess being distributed. Something I think requires further investigation is if the current methaqualone tablets - commonly referred to as 'Mandrax' - contain both methaqualone and diphenhydramine. 'Mandrax' was also the brand name and available tablets contained contained 250 mg methaqualone and 25 mg diphenhydramine. For reference, the weight of methaqualone tablets we've weighed ranged from 1 - 1.5 g.
Have you ever eaten these pills before is there a reason all of you smoke them, I've always been curious about this. Does the effect alter from oral administration drastically
In my experience, it's rare for methaqualone tablets that are currently being sold in the illicit market to be consumed orally. I know of only a handful cases of intentional oral consumption. The reasons for this vary. Culturally, their is a long tradition among people of colour (Coloured people in SA) of smoking methaqualone in combination with cannabis and it's use has been divided by racial-lines. There's also been a stigma around methaqualone's use given it is commonly used by people who also use methamphetamine, which is highly stigmatized. Socially, a '
pyp' is often shared among friends. There's lots of interesting history around the drug and how it's use is linked to social and cultural phenomena. Personally, I can't comment of comparisons between the different ROAs as I don't have experience with oral consumption.
Given the lack of quantitative data on the chemical composition of currently available presses, there is uncertainty around the concentration of methaqualone in available tablets, and given the average weight of common presses/tablet ranging from 1 - 1.5 g, there is room for higher concentrations of methaqualone to be present.
