What do you mean about people on the production lines? something like exposure to the vapors and unsuspectingly, building up a tolerance and ending up in a DTs-like state?
I'd be careful with methaqualone analogs that are untested, methylmethaqualone could have been a disaster from everything I've read of it. IIRC, doesn't it have some activity as an agonist of AMPA type glutamate receptors? the overdose effects profile for methaqualone itself is quite unusual for a GABAa potentiator, with overdoses resulting in seizure, motor hyperreflexia and hypertonia, which is IMO suggestive of an underlying excitatory effect of some nature, there are quite a few competitive ANTagonists at this site known among quinazolinone derivatives related to methaqualone, its just a nasty thought in the back of my mind with hitherto-untested derivatives, granted potent GABAa agonist effects would help mitigate damage, but say something turns out to be of low potency at GABAa and either full or partial agonist at AMPARs....its the kind of fuck-up that seems logically possible, especially given the effects methylmethaqualone had on people, and nonfatal excitotoxic neurological insult often is slow to heal, if it ever does. Just seems like rather more room for potentially lifelong disability than is good.
Look at what the likes of domoic acid, and the acromelic acids do (granted the latter is a kainate receptor agonist, but the effects are still extremely prolonged, years not infrequently in cases of mycotoxicosis due to Clitocybe acromelalga and C.amnoelens), and cases of amnesic shellfish poisoning due to domoic acid can cause permanent damage.
As for a low TI, it seems to be rather par for the course with alcohol-mimetics, the only reason it isn't so with ethanol is due IMO to the rather low weight potency, and quantity one needs to imbibe before frank alcohol poisoning develops.
Hell most GABAa agonists don't really have much tolerance for people being stupid with them, benzos seem to be the exception rather than the rule, still, a low TI, IMO doesn't rule it out as potentially recreational,it just means one has to be careful with it (not withstanding the occasional nasty additional toxic effects of certain GABAergics, such as the antiglucocorticoid effects of glutethimide, or the capacity of ethchlorvynol to cause severe or even fatal lung injury if injected, and a few hair-trigger individuals like propofol). Just look at for example, chlormethiazole, its pretty notorious for it's toxicity in overdose, still has a useful place in medicine for alcohol detox (it apparently inhibits alcohol dehydrogenase, unlike other GABAergics), and as a very rapid-acting oral antiseizure drug (it isn't actually licensed in the UK as an anticonvulsant, but I've never found anything better. No physical dependence after several years of use TDS. Works within minutes, and as recreational GABA-modulator type drugs go, IMO its one of the better ones by far, although quite good at killing people in overdose, too. Moral of that? be careful with depressants with a very low TI.
I can't imagine chloral hydrate is good for people, either, I'd guess it's hepatotoxic, it's relative chlorobutanol certainly is. And it is hell on the stomach too. And just in case anyone is wondering, changing the halogen from Cl to Br, apparently makes it even worse. Some old medical books from the 1700s I have briefly summarize it, and in no uncertain terms condemn it to the garbage heap, apparently it is horrendous on the GI tract, to the point they wouldn't even use it in those days, the same time as the british pharmacopoeia included such things as HCN, arsenic, Sb, Hg, Pb and all manner of seriously dubious plant remedies, such as Aconitum and Veratrum.
Edit-Polymath..I certainly see your point, I take people to account for using the likes of 'retard' 'spastic' etc/ as a perjorative. Cretin..these days not so much, 'idiot' 'imbecile' 'moron' and 'cretin' were all in use as medical diagnoses, to denote degrees of mental retardation, with cretinism of course being due a more specific cause, but IMO times have changed, and so has general speech, it isn't actually still used as a medical diagnostic label is it? might have been current a century or two ago, but not now.
I doubt it gets used much if at all as a put-down aimed at those who experienced a childhood iodine deficiency, the term itself, dates back from when 'idiot' 'moron' and 'imbecile' were used as actual diagnoses, and in this day and age, nobody is going to be likely to take someone using those terms as insulting people with MR. And, not that you'd know, not knowing me personally, but I'll be the last person you are likely to find on BL attacking such people. Actually, I very seldom meet any NT females I'd find attractive, I can count two, maybe three people (albeit one was a psycho bitch from hell, definitely something wrong with the fucker anyway, but not in a special needs kind of way) I've ever been with who weren't special ed of some description. Got nothing against people with mental retardation at all, and besides, I'm classically autistic myself, so such pejorative use would be rather an own goal, no?