How toxic is Mephedrone?

[kfluxsake]

I think we should all just start ignoring kfluxsake for the sake of this thread and not allowing it to be filled with misinformation (with the exception of that one journal citation).

I'm curious as to why? Please site examples of this misinformation. The journal article IS the only piece of suggestible scientific evidence I have provided, yes. But in the complete absence of empirical eveidence what is their but specualtion!

Also I realised the journal refers to plain vanilla cat. I made that clear. Read my post - at no point did i say that the results referred 4-methylmethcathinone.

Please remember i take an ssri. I might be in much less danger than others re toxicity - Read ZeuZZ's post about taking mephedrone w. citalopram.

For this reason i don't see fit to participate in this thread any longer as a subject for reference.

 

[kfluxsake]

Kluxsake says:

It has been pointed out here that the 4-methyl group distinguishes itself from other cathinones by lacking significant serotonin efflux as a primary/secondary mode of action (though it is also a substrate inhobitor at SERT*)

So just to reiterate for Vecktor, or any one else confused or nettled about the citation. You will see I use the word other to refer to, yes, you guessed it, other cathinones; namely methcathinone. I present the distinction BETWEEN 4-mmc and methcathinone- the former being a known releaser of serotonin, the latter remaining ambiguous in that respect pending ACTUAL data on the drug's effects in vivo.

 

[ZeuZzZ]

McCann, U. D., D. F. Wong, F. Yokoi, V. Villemagne, R. F. Dannals & G. A. Ricaurte: Reduced striatal dopamine transporter density in abstinent methamphetamine and methcathinone users: evidence from positron emission tomography studies with [11C]WIN-35,428. J. Neurosci. 1998, 18, 8417–8422.

Warning! potential academic fraud alert. Best to ignore this paper if Ricaurte was responsible for it, or any others that cite it for that matter.

 

[mr.grey]

I've only taken mephedrone once and I think it caused "damage" to me on some level. Got heart pains and chest weirdness, fast/slow pulse which got stronger and weaker randomly for weeks....

@Riklet: Did you use similar drugs like MDMA or Methylone before your Mephedrone experience already?

I know one person who never did any drugs before and then did Meph two times.
First time was VERY sensitive to it and half a dose was probably felt like a double dose for normal people.
So the experience ended negative with some panik attack and stuff like that.
After that tried it another time and while the experience itself was good, afterwards negative thought loops started and guilt was felt (the person is basically anti drugs!).
Then irregular heart beat was felt for a couple of days afterwards and now even more than 3 month after the last experience from time to time falshbacks occur where the feeling of sound- and (small) visual distortion is apparent together with fast heart beat.
I believe these symptoms to be psychosomatic and I know of one other person who also get's similar symptoms (but a bit different) every now and then and he has used Mephedrone maybe 6-8 times, but also stopped using it.

I know these things can happen with other drugs too, but I just wonder if Mephedrone use results in a higher chance of triggering these in people that are vulnerable to such things.

 

[vecktor]

Kluxsake says:

So just to reiterate for Vektor, or any one else confused or nettled about the citation. You will see I use the word other to refer to, yes, you guessed it, other cathinones; namely methcathinone. I present the distinction BETWEEN 4-mmc and methcathinone- the former being a known releaser of serotonin,(1) the latter remaining amibigious in that respect pending ACTUAL data on the drug's effects in vivo.(2)

(1) known in the scientific sense? post the ref. AFAICT this appears to be a reference to Nukes musings on the subject.

(2) as for methcathinone's effects on serotonin please just read the paper YOU cited and the references therein.

or are you getting confused again, however the nomal English usage of former is first, and latter is last.

I think you really need to get your head round pharmacology,

a substrate for a transporter protein is yes you guessed it something that is transported by said transporter.
SSRI'S do not, at normal clinical doses, block all SERT activity.
Only some SSRI's block the subjective effects of MDMA.
Serotonin syndrome is not an inevitable consequence of mixing a SE releaser and a SSRI, nether is it inevitable with a SE releaser and a MAOI or all three at once.

come back when you can post stuff that:
1, makes sense
2 is supported by scientific literature where possible, or doesn't blatently contradict the literature.
3 that doesn't contradict itself.
4 and shows that you actually have the faintest clue what you are talking about

I am not going to bother answering you in future until you meet 1 thru 4( see above)
Have a nice day.

 

[gasgas]

Vasoconstriction

I'm a total newcomer here but have always been interested in drugs, and recently 'legal' highs due to the nature of my profession, along with a friend of a friend who is occasionally tempted by opening the doors of perception.

I'm not strictly a pharmacologist but work in a critical care environment and can tell you for sure that what you see in the pictures above is vasoconstriction mediated by direct or indirect alpha-1 agonism as a result of this compound.. We treat patients in septic shock with massive doses of vasopressors just to maintain blood pressure to vital organs at the expense of peripheral perfusion and digits (think kids with amputations after meningococcal septicaemia) - now imagine what that does to the haemodynamics of an otherwise healthy person and tell me that's not dangerous.

The risks are severe, heart failure, pulmonary oedema, and anyone with an undiagnosed berry aneurysm in their brain using this compound is playing with fire (perhaps a ticking time bomb would be a more appropriate analogy.)

Clearly there are people here who have a thorough grasp of pharmacology and just as clearly there are wannabe's who misguidedly post trying to justify their use through bad science.

People are natural to be defensive, and nobody's perfect (I still smoke despite my profession and of course I deny to myself that anything bad will ever happen to me!) but I felt I had to post in the interests of harm reduction; which after all, is why most of us are here.

One last note - it is inherently dangerous taking a concommitant beta-blocker (unless you thoroughly understand the drugs involved) as taking the wrong one WILL exacerbate the vasospasm, leading to MI (heart attacks) and loss of fingers/toes. And if you don't know what the right ones are, then you are safest not taking them at all.

I realise this sounds patronising - but I felt I had to contribute when people are arguing the toss about their health.

GG

nb. listen to Vecktor. he speaks sense.

 

[Riklet]

@Riklet: Did you use similar drugs like MDMA or Methylone before your Mephedrone experience already?

Yep, took methylone... once before, and MDMA maybe erm... 20-25 times or so. Never had any kind of physical problems from either, I don't think. I've taken methylone a couple of times since the meph experience and it felt ok, although a fast heart didn't feel too great and maybe brought back the chest stuff slightly. I also do MDPV fairly regularly and it hasn't ever resulted in anything like what I experienced from meph, although as it's a stimulant it's probably not fantastic for me.

Mephedrone seems fairly unique; I felt incredibly fucked and yet could talk pretty clearly, didn't look too mashed and stuff. It's just... not worth it though, for me at least? I'm mainly basing my views on this drug of that which i've experienced, as well as the large amount i've read. Most people seem to respond fine in the short term, but not all. As for the long term, who knows...

 

[ZeuZzZ]

Vecktor: Do you think there is anything useful you can deduce about the potential toxicity of meph from the symptoms I showed in this post on the previous page?

Cheers.

 

[mr.grey]

Yep, took methylone... once before, and MDMA maybe erm... 20-25 times or so. Never had any kind of physical problems from either, I don't think. I've taken methylone a couple of times since the meph experience and it felt ok, although a fast heart didn't feel too great and maybe brought back the chest stuff slightly. I also do MDPV fairly regularly and it hasn't ever resulted in anything like what I experienced from meph, although as it's a stimulant it's probably not fantastic for me.

Mephedrone seems fairly unique; I felt incredibly fucked and yet could talk pretty clearly, didn't look too mashed and stuff. It's just... not worth it though, for me at least? I'm mainly basing my views on this drug of that which i've experienced, as well as the large amount i've read. Most people seem to respond fine in the short term, but not all. As for the long term, who knows...

Thank's for the quick reply.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that chest weirdness and irregular heart beat and the other symptoms you describe and have experienced quite a while after the last intake have a medical background as the drug should be gone from your system already.
Therefore it must be something psychosomatically.
Like I said, also a friend of mine has these issues (but never had any previous drug experience with other substances).
That's why I was interested if you have taken any other stuff previously.
So as you have done MDMA a couple of times already and did not have these problems from MDMA use, it must be related to Mephedrone somehow.
I would also say that these symptoms seem to be anxiety related like the people on EADD mentioned, but it may be on a subconcious level you are not aware of.
I am no psychologist, but basically these are the symptoms you get when you have anxiety attacks and stuff like that.
So maybe Mephedrone triggers something on deeper psychological level in a small number of people that does lead to these symptoms/problems as I doubt any metabolit could cause these issues for such a long time.
If anyone else would like to share their thoughts on these issues that seem to appear in some people even weeks after mephedrone use, it would be much appreciated.

 

[egor]

@gasgas - Thanks for clearing up my understanding on the exact means the mephedrone goes about causing its vasoconstriction.

Still would not take it if you paid me...

 

[stimutant]

...as the drug should be gone from your system already.
Therefore it must be something psychosomatically.

sorry, thats bullshit. what about a real (semi-)permanent damage?
i think most people really underestimate meph & they`re taking way to much of it.

 

[rickolasnice]

What can be done to combat vasoconstriction (specifically when dealing with meph)?

 

[egor]

^thats what people are trying to figure out as we speak

 

[mr.grey]

sorry, thats bullshit. what about a real (semi-)permanent damage?
i think most people really underestimate meph & they`re taking way to much of it.

I would agree to (semi) permanent damage if Riklet was a heavy user, but he said he only took it once and only 400mg.
That is not a huge amount actually.
Also the person I was refering to got the effects after the second time she was using it.
First time it was only maybe 130mg and the second time it was also just 130-140mg
She is very sensitive to stimulants, that's why the small amount.

So this is not a heavy use at all and I'm not an expert on the topic, but I think based on such small amounts there can not really be any physical damage. That's why I tend to think that it's a psychological issue.

If such small amounts would cause physical damage to the brain already, then I think we would have seen much more severe cases from people who use it in larger amounts and much more heavily.

 

[gasgas]

What can be done to combat vasoconstriction (specifically when dealing with meph)?

IMHO, this drug has a very low therapeutic index - ie/ there is little if any gap between the spectrum of desired and toxic effects.

So the answer to your question is simply to limit your dosing, both in amount of drug consumed and duration. Which is hard because its human nature not to.

The problem is that 4-MMC is deeply flawed as a designer drug.

 

[gasgas]

I would agree to (semi) permanent damage if Riklet was a heavy user, but he said he only took it once and only 400mg.
That is not a huge amount actually.
Also the person I was refering to got the effects after the second time she was using it.
First time it was only maybe 130mg and the second time it was also just 130-140mg
She is very sensitive to stimulants, that's why the small amount.

So this is not a heavy use at all and I'm not an expert on the topic, but I think based on such small amounts there can not really be any physical damage. That's why I tend to think that it's a psychological issue.

If such small amounts would cause physical damage to the brain already, then I think we would have seen much more severe cases from people who use it in larger amounts and much more heavily.

Utterly different compound, admittedly, but I have seen heart attacks and strokes resulting in permanent damage from first time ingestion of cocaine.

 

[mr.grey]

Utterly different compound, admittedly, but I have seen heart attacks and strokes resulting in permanent damage from first time ingestion of cocaine.

But was it a large amount of cocaine or only small amounts?
Like I said, I don't have much knowledge in this field unfortunately but when someone consumes a large amount of cocaine in a night, even if it is his first time only, I would not be surprised if he got a heart attack or something else, especially if he may be vulnerable to such thing because of some medical condition.
In the end this is simply a medical thing. Cocain is strong on your heart and on your whole system, raises blood pressuer and so on. This can of course then lead to such problems.

The two cases I was talking about on the other hand were dealing with psychological problems similar to anxiety attacks and flashbacks. This can also happen with other drugs like MDMA (and especially psychedelics), but Riklet for example has done such drugs like Methylone and MDMA before, without any problems, but then got it after his first time use of Mephedrone.

Brainbug suggested that this could be because of (semi) permanent damage as a result of the consumption.
I don't believe this, because in this case we are then not talking about heart problems or strocks or other peripheral things, but would be talking about brain damage and if such small amounts like one time 400mg or two times 130mg would cause brain damage already that manifests in the symptoms described, then we would have seen horrible problems already in the people consuming that stuff in large amounts every week.
But that is not the case.
All these problems I have read about and for which I believe are psychological seem to still be quite minor and usually involve some kind of flashbacks and syptoms similar to anxiety attacks.
These things also happen to some people after consuming MDMA or other drugs and there are a couple of threads here on bluelight dealing with them as well.
I was therefore just wondering if Mephedrone may have a higher chance of triggering such things or even giving it a more negative undertone.

@gasgas: Thank's a lot for posting here and I hope you will continue to do so.

 

[pofacedhoe]

Another purely anecdotal point I can add here is that after my aforementioned madness I have been on an SSRI (citalopram) for three months now. And when I tried a small amount of meph a few days ago I got no really worthwhile effects from the meph at all, I merely felt slightly stimulated but nothing like meph usually feels like in the slightest. Its effects definately felt blocked to me. I still got all the side effects, ie Racing heart (120BPM) and the discolored joints came back. However, what I also found interesting is that despite its lack of positive effects I still had an extremely large temptation to redose; just as much as when I used meph when not on the SSRI. So the fiending reputation it has is obviously not down to its serotonin activity (which [like MDMA] I found tollerance builds up to rapidly) but due to other factors, most likely its dopamine activity. (pharmacology noob here, so take this with a pinch of salt please!)

Are there many accounts of people getting full effects on SSRI's with Meph? Because I found the COMPLETE opposite personally. Would be curious to see these accounts If you know where I may find them.

feinding is nearly always attributed to a rapid increase in dopamine in the neucleus accumbens and a short duration of this increase

also^ if your gonna have a strong effect on the serotonin system then negative effects along the lines of those associated with MDMA are to be expected. i find mephedrone doesnt leave a dip in mood but definitely lowers my tolerance to events causing anger to happen far more often (a friend observed this also in herself). also the most concerning out of the things that no-one brought up yet is effects on memory??

 

[gasgas]

But was it a large amount of cocaine or only small amounts?


@gasgas: Thank's a lot for posting here and I hope you will continue to do so.

Cocaine is used as an anaesthetic for some types of endocscopic nasal surgery. The British National Formulary lists the toxic threshold at 1.5mg/kg, (say 105mg for a 70kg man) above which the risk of coronary vasospasm and arrythmias increases dramatically.

That is only equivalant to about a line or two, recreationally speaking (on the assumption it is one hundred percent pure of course!). So it's a small amount.

I read the ADD board frequently but I doubt I'll post much unless something gets me really interested (like this particular hot topic), despite your kind comment.

(because my own form of harm reduction is only to come here when I need to - otherwise it inspires me to do things I shouldnt!)

 

[Coolio]

Brainbug suggested that this could be because of (semi) permanent damage as a result of the consumption.
I don't believe this, because in this case we are then not talking about heart problems or strocks or other peripheral things, but would be talking about brain damage and if such small amounts like one time 400mg or two times 130mg would cause brain damage already that manifests in the symptoms described, then we would have seen horrible problems already in the people consuming that stuff in large amounts every week.
But that is not the case..

I agree. If there's to be any easily diagnosed neurotoxicity from recreational use, we'd see obvious neurological problems with the heaviest bingers out there right now, not some outliers.