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Gabapentinoids Retro Sedatives  Megathread

4DQSAR said:
I suggest that vaping the freebase and IVing a salt both do the same thing - rapidly accumulate the drug into the brain BUT duration appears rather short. We have a lot of evidence surrounding Mandrax abuse in South Africa in which users would smoke de wit pip, fall on their faces, wobble upright fifteen minutes later and do it all again.
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Most of those tablets also contain diphenhydramine to mimic the original Mandrax formulation, meaning that they are also smoking Benadryl essentially which is pretty wild.
 
Esperighanto said:
Most of those tablets also contain diphenhydramine to mimic the original Mandrax formulation, meaning that they are also smoking Benadryl essentially which is pretty wild.
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The diphenhydramine slows down the metabolism of methaqualone, apparently. This is why in the UK Mandrax was 250mg methaqualone + 25mg diphenhydramine rather than the 300mg methaqualone in Quāāludes.

The fact it's still usually found in fake Mandrax found in South Africa may suggest it's so they can get away with less methaqualone?
 
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KurtAurelius said:
Some of these old drugs are just crazy to me lol,

I was so bad on the RC benzos back in 2016-18.. I’d be dead if I was taking barbs etc

GHB is its own thing imo, and the least addictive I’ve found. I am so angry I can’t have it as a replacement to alcohol easily. Can’t be fucked with the darknet etc. it’s still wildly addictive but so much less toxic than alcohol.
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i used to work with a guy who used GHB to get off of coke and alcohol. seemed to work for him.
 
To be fair, if used for just a few days, pregabalin is an amazingly useful alcohol detoxification option. Unlike benzodiazepines but like chlormethiazole, it removes the DESIRE to consume alcohol and it's orders of magnitude safer.

I'm actually very surprised that clinicians have not noticed this (almost) unique propery.

Now just why those two medications but no others remove the desire, I do not know, but I don't have the resources or equally the incentive to set up a full cohort study.

It won't prevent someone returning to alcohol use (neither does chlormeththiazole) but in cases where chlormethiazole ends up being the DLR, having an alternative WOULD save a measurable number of lives.
 
When I think of euphoric downers, I definitely think of things other than benzos. Barbiturates and carbamates come to mind, and even the modern pharmacologial versions of those suck compared to the old school ones.

Benzos tend to be self limiting and rails you into stereotypical side effects.
 
4DQSAR said:
it removes the DESIRE to consume alcohol
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I'd be a little stickler for claiming such a thing. To a real alcoholic, nothing removes the desire to drink. Pregab certainly helps... until it wears off. The only thing that has actually removed my desire to drink more would be tertiary alcohols. And even then, its just because I felt drunk already...
 
Ozymandeus said:
I'd be a little stickler for claiming such a thing. To a real alcoholic, nothing removes the desire to drink. Pregab certainly helps... until it wears off. The only thing that has actually removed my desire to drink more would be tertiary alcohols. And even then, its just because I felt drunk already...
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I POINTED OUT that it doesn't stop people going back to alcohol when they wear off but in the UK at least, there were a handful of people prescribed Heminevin for well, for as long as they asked for them. These were people for whom the risk of a fatal overdose was still considered a better risk than them consuming alcohol. Of course just like alcohol they all became addicted to the Heminevrin.

At Addenbrooks there was even a Heminevin detoxification unit but it failed and the people addicted were just scripted the medication for the rest of their (usually quite brief) lives.

Ask anyone who was an alcoholic who was prescribed heminevrin. The effects of heminevrin are more or less idential TO alcohol.

The maximum dose is 12 x 192 capsules per day, specifically three capsules [QID] and frankly, all a person on that dose does is SLEEP. At lower doses it was quite often ab(used) AS an alternative to alcohol. Used to be nicknamed 'duck eggs' because, well, that's what they look like and how YOU act if you consume them.

In his autobography 'Stoned', Andrew Loog Oldham mentions ending up with a group of people and the only psychoactive to hand was a large supply of Heminevrin capsules hidden in the boot of one hard-partying member of said group. You can read his description and how everyone ended up smashed out of their minds unconscious.

In fact it's a loophole drug not legally scheduled anywhere (as far as I know), not even in the UK because it's a medicine. I think selling them might be a minor offence under The Medicines Act but it's not covered by The Misuse of Drugs Act or even by the Psychoactive Substances act again, BECAUSE it's a medicine.

It crops up online from time to time as someone notices the loophole BUT as I said, legal to possess, not legal to sell or import (and an on-line pharmacy is, legally speaking, the importer).

I mentioned it to some people in Australia who seemed to enjoy them BUT equally noted just how steep that dose-response cure is. One and you feel merry, two you feel smashed, three you pass out.

As a former alcoholic, I have good reason to know.

For one, you can't drink if you are unconcious; simple.
 
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4DQSAR said:
I POINTED OUT that it doesn't stop people going back to alcohol when they wear off but in the UK at least, there were a handful of people prescribed Heminevin for well, for as long as they asked for them. These were people for whom the risk of a fatal overdose was still considered a better risk than them consuming alcohol. Of course just like alcohol they all became addicted to the Heminevrin.

At Addenbrooks there was even a Heminevin detoxification unit but it failed and the people addicted were just scripted the medication for the rest of their (usually quite brief) lives.

Ask anyone who was an alcoholic who was prescribed heminevrin. The effects of heminevrin are more or less idential TO alcohol.

The maximum dose is 12 x 192 capsules per day, specifically three capsules [QID] and frankly, all a person on that dose does is SLEEP. At lower doses it was quite often ab(used) AS an alternative to alcohol. Used to be nicknamed 'duck eggs' because, well, that's what they look like and how YOU act if you consume them.

In his autobography 'Stoned', Andrew Loog Oldham mentions ending up with a group of people and the only psychoactive to hand was a large supply of Heminevrin capsules hidden in the boot of one hard-partying member of said group. You can read his description and how everyone ended up smashed out of their minds unconscious.

In fact it's a loophole drug not legally scheduled anywhere (as far as I know), not even in the UK because it's a medicine. I think selling them might be a minor offence under The Medicines Act but it's not covered by The Misuse of Drugs Act or even by the Psychoactive Substances act again, BECAUSE it's a medicine.

It crops up online from time to time as someone notices the loophole BUT as I said, legal to possess, not legal to sell or import (and an on-line pharmacy is, legally speaking, the importer).

I mentioned it to some people in Australia who seemed to enjoy them BUT equally noted just how steep that dose-response cure is. One and you feel merry, two you feel smashed, three you pass out.

As a former alcoholic, I have good reason to know.

For one, you can't drink if you are unconcious; simple.
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Kind of ironic it's related to thiamine lol

But yeah man very few drugs, really none, remove my desire to drink. I could be actively overdosing on barbiturates and propofol, with a needle of H in one hand and a needle of coke in the other, and my very next thought would be "I could go for a beer right now."
 
Ozymandeus said:
Kind of ironic it's related to thiamine lol

But yeah man very few drugs, really none, remove my desire to drink. I could be actively overdosing on barbiturates and propofol, with a needle of H in one hand and a needle of coke in the other, and my very next thought would be "I could go for a beer right now."
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Well, I'm pretty sure I've tried everything people have heard of and a heap of stuff only known by it's IUPAC name.

Now here is a curious thing. While pyeyzolam faithfully reproduces all of the POSITIVE effects of alcohol, because it doesn't bind to the a1 subunit (the one that produces retrograde amnesia, anteriorgrade amnesia, loss of executive control, syncope and dopamine disregulation), it does not stop cravings in the alcoholic drinker. Most people would see those side-effects as nasty but the alcoholic is generally seeking to blot out EVERYTHING.

But as you rightly point out, chlormethiazole is closely related to thiamine may be why alcoholics frequently have vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency. I speculate that homeostasis means that alcohol tricks the body into thinking it has too much thiamine so excretes the stuff.

I would not say 'stops alcohol cravings' purely based on anecdotal evidence. In the 1970s people were prescribed Heminevin as a hypnotic but that was one or two capsules immediately before bed. For the purposes of detoxification you begin by taking three capsules every six hours and everyone I've talked to (since I work in HR) agreed that three and it's good night Vienna.

It's so very similar to alcohol. Just a lot more potent so consuming a fatal dose is so easy to do by mistake.

VERY steep dose-response curve.

But clearly in the 1970s some clinicians were simply prescribing lots of the pills or capsules and as I said, they almost all stopped drinking BUT became hopelessly addicted to heminevrin. Keith Moon is a classic example of why it's so dangerous. He took about 8 over a few hours, woke up (regained consciousness) but was so messed up by the medication he just grabbed a handful, swallowed the lot and promptly died. He had been to a premiere the night before and it seems everyone commented on the fact he held onto the same glass of wine all evening and everyone was pleased because they thought he was finally getting his life back.

So IF you ever come across it, pop out the dose and either have someone sober hold onto the rest or in extremis, post the rest back to yourself with priority delivery.

Can you whack them up? Well, I've never seen the 300 mg chlormethiazole edisylate tablets but am told they are filled with excipients but the duck eggs which are grey capsule contaning 192mg chlormethiazole freebase (a sort of oil) I've heard of people using - but you have to be quick, it melts plastic 😂

But seriously, Heminevin/Nevrin/chlormethiazole is now classed as a drug of last resort. If a person winds up in hospital while in status epilepticus, chlormethiazole is used if IV diazepam doesn't work.

I'm not in a position to compare the daily use of 6, 8 or even 12 duck eggs compared with two bottles of gin for a year, but it did seem most alcoholics just wound up being just as addicted to the duck eggs. No idea which will kill you faster but I guess at least it's cheaper!
 
red22 said:
"I think placidyl (Elvis Presleys favorite) takes the cake for the absolute rush of it but it’s not practical to be used in any party setting lol. Barbs are great, but they impair your coordination more with less emotional stimulation, ludes are better for partying."

jeremandthequaaludes  2026-10-15  h‍ttps://www.instagram.com/matthabusby/p/DefH8iPDZZC/
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Placidyl (ethchlorvynol) is more like an inhalational anaesthetic. More like chloral hydrate but far more potent and with a much faster onset.

That's why it was specifically used as a hypnotic i.e. directly alters efflux through the chloride channel.

Nobody knows the site(s) it acts on for sure and it's only woozling that the idea that it acts in a similar manner to the barbiturates has gone unchallanged and untested.

I've been offered related compounds (carbamates) as in almost every case forming the carbamate ester of a hypnotic with a hydroxyl increases activity and increases the TI. I declined not because they were legally controlled as they were not, but because the TI isn't great - that of the bare hydroxyls worse.

Now did anyone test the carbamate ester of echlorvynol? Yes - but I cannot find the details.

To me the most interesting thing about echlorvynol is that it's chiral yet nobody seems to have resolved the isomers to test if just one is resposible for it's activity. At low doses it's believed to act as an allosteric modulator but becomes an agonist at higher doses. But what we may in fact be seeing is that the two isomers act at different sites.

Glutethimide is another chiral compound and I for one would LOVE to know if it's just one isomer or metabolites of same are CYP2D6 inducers (hence 4s and Dors). IF it turned out a non-psychoactive metabolite was responible for the enzyme induction - it would be legal even under UK law.
 
Why Drug Companies Went to War with the US Government



"This is the hidden history of pentobarbital. It started as a sleeping pill introduced in 1930 and ended up at the center of one of the fiercest legal and ethical battles in modern America."
 
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