Half life VS duration.

[Beings]

For example,

Amphetamines have a 12 hour half life. But the significant effects last 4-7 hours, unless one takes more than a moderate dose.

Or benzos such as Clonazepam. Half life 18-50 hours. Yet I see people post about ingesting moderate doses and getting a buzz, but surely they are not buzzed for 2 days straight.

 

[kidamnesiac]

Ah zero order kinetics...

As is being laid out in the endomorphine thread, it has to do both with sometimes there is a very steep dose response curve, or tipping point, with certain drugs (like 10mg amp gets you high, but 5 does nothing) and homeostasis, that is, your body downregulates receptors and upregulates the xenobiotic killers in things with longer half lives.

 

[Recept]

Yes, there are many different factors for different drugs. With some drugs it goes into the opposite direction as well - for instance, with LSD, you can observe the effects for much longer than it takes for the body to metabolize the drug, due to complex downstream effects.

 

[Rectify]

Half life is not always directly correlated to duration. For example, thc has a very long half life, but the acute phase of the intoxication only lasts for about an hour or so. Omeprazole, on the other hand, has a very short half life, but works to inhibit gastric acid secretion for a good 24 hours at a time.

 

[vortex30]

Half life is not always directly correlated to duration. For example, thc has a very long half life, but the acute phase of the intoxication only lasts for about an hour or so.

I think this is because most of the THC is dissolved and stored in fat cells, and slowly eliminated from the blood.

I've also wondered this.

 

[Quanta]

As mentioned above, it is complex biochemically plus every compoud is different based on its own physiochemical properties.

ADME - absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion