Benzos does breaking a pill in half or chewing it make it shorter lasting?

[Aphex747]

ive definitely looked around online about this one, and its pretty unanimously agreed that if your taking a pill that takes an hour or so to reach peak plasma levels, and either chew it up, parachute it, or just break it in half, it will in fact hit quicker and slightly harder, but does this mean the normal peak plasma duration has been shortened? like for example, if i split a klonopin in half so it hits quicker, am i shortening the duration at the same time? i know this is the case if you snort something vs oral administration. also, does this affect the half life in any way? if a pill is absorbed faster, does that mean the half life would dissipate faster than normal as well? if this is a dumb question i can understand, but im trying to taper my klonopin and make the few i have left last, but im wondering if i crush them up if the half life is decreased. alright....ready for the smart ass comments to begin. ready ...set... go!

(i guess im mainly wondering about the half life. kpins(2mg) make me feel good for 4 or 5 hours tops, then i have a half life in my system for 4 about a week or two. its hards to give the gaba receptors a break when you dose once, the effects last a few hours, but the drug stays in your body working against you. it would be cool if you could shorten half lives. ive read ALOT about potentiation, but what about the other end of the spectrum?? if you take 10mg of valium 1x a week the half life never gets a chance to go away completely, since it only halves every 50-200 hours, never giving your gaba receptors a chance to work on their own, regularly. are there anyways to speed up the depletion of a benzo half life?) i take niacin, excercise, and drink alot of water so my metabolism is pretty efficient. i dont like long half lives at all. theres gotta be some kind of natural enzyme or something to help the body flush the half life out. its like having a house full of passed out squatters in your body. the party is one night, but it takes several days, (depending on how fast you clean)to get the house emptied one person at time and then another day to pick up all the beer cans and spilled cups, and to get stains out of the carpet.

thats why i like etizolam alot. it has the mild euphoria similar to valium, without the squatters.

 

[Jabberwocky]

ive also wondered this peculiarly. when i chew up a pill, for instance a valium, it seems its duration of action is decreased somewhat but it hits harder.

the same goes for dexedrine - if i chew it, it hits harder and faster, but it has a nastier comedown and shorter duration.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

If you split a 2mg clonazepam in half and swallow both halves I guess it might dissolve slightly faster, but clonazepam dissolves super fast regardless. Like if I put one under my tongue it dissolves in under a minute, I assume it's not taking much longer than that to dissolve when it's in in my stomach (*note effects of sublingual administration can be different for other reasons but I'm just explaining why I think it dissolves fast). Crushing a pill is a better idea if you want the fastest absorption. But even then it's not a huge difference.

For an IR benzo it really shouldn't shorten the effects significantly. Like maybe it kicks in 10 minutes sooner and slightly harder, and wears off 10 minutes sooner. It's not the same as, say, crushing an ER med, that would normally be very slowly absorbed but instead gets absorbed all at once. One might perceive a shorter duration of action if you are thinking about the number of hrs/minutes from when you took it as opposed to the amount of time from when it kicked in.

Chewing a pill might be a bit different as some of it may be getting absorbed from your mouth instead of your stomach. Same with putting it under your tongue.

I really don't think the elimination half-life is changed by crushing or splitting a benzo. Also the effects of clonazepam last for longer than 2-5 hrs, you are probably just thinking of the really noticeable/recreational portion of the effects. It is still working long after that, just in a subtle way that you may not notice. If you wanted to speed up the elimination there may be certain things you could take to induce the enzymes that deactivate it, but that would still not be precise and I would not rely on that to allow you to take it more frequently without worry of dependence.

 

[Aphex747]

^thanks for the input, good points

well said swimmingdancer, that does make sense.

 

[Tryptamino]

well i broke a kpin in half last night (now i have .25 mgs left, although it's cool cause i have no tolerance to benzos) and it seemed to hit faster.