yardbirdrc
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2011
- Messages
- 160
Hey folks,
If this is the wrong forum I apologize, but this is in North America so this was my best guess. Feel free to move it wherever.
I recently acquired a small quantity of these pills, which were sold to me as "Mandrax" from South Africa:
Now, obviously when one is sold Methaqualone, one should take that with a grain of salt. I've been researching Methaqualone for the past several days and I've found surprisingly little information that can help me in my quest to identify these pills. I've been trying to dissect every piece of information that I have.
1) Mandrax. Mandrax was sold by Roussel Laboratories starting in 1965, and based on several sources of questionable veracity it was seemingly a pill containing 250mg methaqualone and between 5 and 25mg of diphenhydramine (depending on the source). Based alone on the fact that I can't give you accurate figures for a pill that was widely manufactured and prescribed for decades after many hours of online digging, that should either tell you that I'm a completely incompetent researcher or it should paint a picture of the extreme difficulty I've had in tracking these pills down. Anyway, the original mandrax contained a printed "Mx" on the front side, with a cursive "R" and "L" on the reverse straddling a score mark. Obviously these are not the pills I have, and they have presumably been out of print for years.
So lets' talk about the word Mandrax, and it's context outside of the pharmaceutical product. In South Africa, Methaqualone is widely consumed (usually through smoking) on the streets, and is in fact one of the most popular drugs of abuse. I'll hazard a guess that this may be related to Methaqualone's efficacy in treating Malaria, which may have explained it's persistence in that part of the world long after it was mostly abandoned elsewhere. Now, the most common street term for Methaqualone in South Africa is "Mandrax", but usually these "Mandrax" pills are illicitly manufactured and pressed pills that look a lot like what we in the west might recognize as ecstasy. So, could this be one of those? I don't think so - this is a pretty high quality pressing with what appears to be a pharmaceutical logo printed on them (more on that later). Additionally they appear to be of a relatively fine, lightweight and consistent binder and they are much thinner than most illicitly pressed pills I've seen.
2) South Africa. Outside of the illicit use of methaqualone in Africa, there is very little information about whether or not the drug is actually still produced there for medical use. I've found a lot of conflicting information about this, where some people seem to claim that Africa is the last bastion of the drug, and some seem to claim that due to the illicit popularity production has been ceased for legitimate medical use. I've even seen some sources, including wikipedia, claiming that the drug is still prescribed in Canada. So a major question in all of this is - who, if anybody, is currently making methaqualone for the small population that may or may not be still consuming it medically?
3) Pill Markings. Usually this would probably be my best bet at identifying these pills. The markings on the pill are as follows: a strange "M"-like logo with the two legs of the M extended into a parallel sort of base. I know the pictures aren't the highest quality, I'll try to fix that soon. Below that we see a "2.0" marking. The back of the pill is scored without further marking. Unfortunately, all attempts at identifying the pill from these markings using online pill identification resources have come up dry. I wonder if this is because there is some national bias in these databases? The 2.0 is a little concerning, because it could very well be a milligram dosage perhaps indicating that the pill is in fact some kind of off-brand high potency benzodiazepine. By far, the stylized M is the most intriguing aspect of the pill. I've poured over pharmaceutical logos and not found anything that quite matches it. If anybody recognizes it, please holler.
4) Reagant Testing. From what I can gather, common "what's in my bag?" style reagant testing can only do so much in this case. At the very least they can tell me if the drug is Methaqualone, PCP, or any sort of benzodiazepine. It's almost certain they aren't PCP, so at least testing can tell me if these pills contain a drug and if that drug is roughly in the right category. Most counterfeit methaqualone pills - which have become quite common after "The Wolf of Wall Street" was made (there are some really convincing Lemmons floating around) - are just high dose Valium or Ativan or what-have-you. Having taken benzos I'm not exactly scared to take them (though I don't enjoy them much), so the reagant testing could at least put me on the right course. But, having never taken quaaludes, how can I distinguish them from a high dose of benzos? Well...
5) Urinalysis. You can still buy urinalysis tests for Methaqualone, which also seem to include PCP. Since the chance of PCP being in these is next to none, a positive urine test would finally confirm whether or not I've achieved the feat of acquiring Methaqualone. So a viable solution to this question of identification may be to reagant test, then consume with titrated doses, and take a urine test while under the influence or shortly thereafter for final confirmation.
If you read this far, thank you. I realize it's a lot of information, and hours of research have still not yielded me any way to identify these pills without actually consuming them. If anybody out there in bluelightland can help me, I'd greatly appreciate it. In general, I'm very interested in any further information about methaqualone and it's current production on the planet - so even if it's not directly related to my situation let's talk about it! This is a cool drug with an even cooler history, or lack thereof.
If this is the wrong forum I apologize, but this is in North America so this was my best guess. Feel free to move it wherever.
I recently acquired a small quantity of these pills, which were sold to me as "Mandrax" from South Africa:
NSFW:
Now, obviously when one is sold Methaqualone, one should take that with a grain of salt. I've been researching Methaqualone for the past several days and I've found surprisingly little information that can help me in my quest to identify these pills. I've been trying to dissect every piece of information that I have.
1) Mandrax. Mandrax was sold by Roussel Laboratories starting in 1965, and based on several sources of questionable veracity it was seemingly a pill containing 250mg methaqualone and between 5 and 25mg of diphenhydramine (depending on the source). Based alone on the fact that I can't give you accurate figures for a pill that was widely manufactured and prescribed for decades after many hours of online digging, that should either tell you that I'm a completely incompetent researcher or it should paint a picture of the extreme difficulty I've had in tracking these pills down. Anyway, the original mandrax contained a printed "Mx" on the front side, with a cursive "R" and "L" on the reverse straddling a score mark. Obviously these are not the pills I have, and they have presumably been out of print for years.
So lets' talk about the word Mandrax, and it's context outside of the pharmaceutical product. In South Africa, Methaqualone is widely consumed (usually through smoking) on the streets, and is in fact one of the most popular drugs of abuse. I'll hazard a guess that this may be related to Methaqualone's efficacy in treating Malaria, which may have explained it's persistence in that part of the world long after it was mostly abandoned elsewhere. Now, the most common street term for Methaqualone in South Africa is "Mandrax", but usually these "Mandrax" pills are illicitly manufactured and pressed pills that look a lot like what we in the west might recognize as ecstasy. So, could this be one of those? I don't think so - this is a pretty high quality pressing with what appears to be a pharmaceutical logo printed on them (more on that later). Additionally they appear to be of a relatively fine, lightweight and consistent binder and they are much thinner than most illicitly pressed pills I've seen.
2) South Africa. Outside of the illicit use of methaqualone in Africa, there is very little information about whether or not the drug is actually still produced there for medical use. I've found a lot of conflicting information about this, where some people seem to claim that Africa is the last bastion of the drug, and some seem to claim that due to the illicit popularity production has been ceased for legitimate medical use. I've even seen some sources, including wikipedia, claiming that the drug is still prescribed in Canada. So a major question in all of this is - who, if anybody, is currently making methaqualone for the small population that may or may not be still consuming it medically?
3) Pill Markings. Usually this would probably be my best bet at identifying these pills. The markings on the pill are as follows: a strange "M"-like logo with the two legs of the M extended into a parallel sort of base. I know the pictures aren't the highest quality, I'll try to fix that soon. Below that we see a "2.0" marking. The back of the pill is scored without further marking. Unfortunately, all attempts at identifying the pill from these markings using online pill identification resources have come up dry. I wonder if this is because there is some national bias in these databases? The 2.0 is a little concerning, because it could very well be a milligram dosage perhaps indicating that the pill is in fact some kind of off-brand high potency benzodiazepine. By far, the stylized M is the most intriguing aspect of the pill. I've poured over pharmaceutical logos and not found anything that quite matches it. If anybody recognizes it, please holler.
4) Reagant Testing. From what I can gather, common "what's in my bag?" style reagant testing can only do so much in this case. At the very least they can tell me if the drug is Methaqualone, PCP, or any sort of benzodiazepine. It's almost certain they aren't PCP, so at least testing can tell me if these pills contain a drug and if that drug is roughly in the right category. Most counterfeit methaqualone pills - which have become quite common after "The Wolf of Wall Street" was made (there are some really convincing Lemmons floating around) - are just high dose Valium or Ativan or what-have-you. Having taken benzos I'm not exactly scared to take them (though I don't enjoy them much), so the reagant testing could at least put me on the right course. But, having never taken quaaludes, how can I distinguish them from a high dose of benzos? Well...
5) Urinalysis. You can still buy urinalysis tests for Methaqualone, which also seem to include PCP. Since the chance of PCP being in these is next to none, a positive urine test would finally confirm whether or not I've achieved the feat of acquiring Methaqualone. So a viable solution to this question of identification may be to reagant test, then consume with titrated doses, and take a urine test while under the influence or shortly thereafter for final confirmation.
If you read this far, thank you. I realize it's a lot of information, and hours of research have still not yielded me any way to identify these pills without actually consuming them. If anybody out there in bluelightland can help me, I'd greatly appreciate it. In general, I'm very interested in any further information about methaqualone and it's current production on the planet - so even if it's not directly related to my situation let's talk about it! This is a cool drug with an even cooler history, or lack thereof.
