combining drugs...

[BoogieCy]

hi,

this might seem like a really intuitive answer on some level, but i posted this in advanced because i wanted a fuller, deeper understanding of it (from a chemical/biological level and otherwise).

i dont really know the best way to ask it, but i'm just wondering how combining drugs and/or alcohol really affects our experiences? and why/how does this happen/work?
biologically, etc...?

i had friends over and drank a few bottles of wine...had the typical wine buzz going, then i smoked a bowl with my roomate and it totally knocked the high/experience sideways to a strange medium. i've combined all sorts of stuff but i'm thinking of hippy flipping in a few days and it dawned on me to investigate my curiosity...

anyway...i dunno.

 

[BilZ0r]

Well it's a pretty complicated question, because ethanol has so many effects, effects of GABA-A and NMDA receptors, on Calcium and potassium channels.

And even if we take a more simple question, it's still pretty hard to conceptualize.

Some combinations and some effects are pretty easy to understand; like opioids and benzodiazepines on breathing. Opioids activate potassium channels and reduce excitatory transmission in the neurons in the brain stem which automate inhalation, this means the neurons are less sensitive to being activated, and recieve less activating stimuli. Barbiturates on the other hand massively increase the time course of inhibitory signals that normally control breathing, so that the inhibition lasts a lot longer.

The combination of these things means that the inhalation activating neurons are innately less active, recieve less excitation and recieve more inhibition. i.e. you don't breath and you die. The circuts which control breathing are very simple in comparison to the largescale networks which mediate sensation and conciousness. But you can imagin the same concept; drugs which potentiate each other on a specific behavioural effect end up having the physiological effect, via different mechanisms on neurons which control that behaviour.

On the other hand, mixing two drugs, which have different effects; it isn't surprising the high is drastically changed, on top of that, if the drugs end up having opposite effects on specific neurons, that can cancel each other out, so that mixing the two drugs isn't going to feel like adding the two drugs together.

Seeing that cannabinoids inhibit GABA release, and ethanol potentiates GABA action, (i.e. they have indirectly opposite actions) it's not surprising that mixing them together is very odd.

 

[BoogieCy]

thanks man!

i know i didn't ask the question from a very sophisticated point of view, but i really couldn't figure out how to ask it any better, haha =]

you pretty much hit all the bases i was curious about.