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Moonshoe
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Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds
#18549768 - 07/12/13 05:07 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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PHARMA & HEALTHCARE | 7/10/2013 @ 1:13PM |4,081 views Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds
The infamous drug bath salts – a.k.a. the cannibal zombie drug that rose to notoriety last summer after the “cannibal attack” – now has some even stronger evidence to its mighty addictiveness. A new study finds that the active ingredient in the drug trumps even the most addictive substances we know, namely methamphetamine. The study, using rats who became hooked on the bath salt compound MDPV (3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone) worked a lot – that is, a lot – harder to gain access to it than they did for the meth. They also acted out the stereotypic, repetitive behaviors that look a lot like the kinds of things people do when they’re high on the drugs. The trick, say the researchers who headed the study, is for them to stay ahead of the underground labs that develop the drugs, since they tend to evolve quickly to evade the laws that try, in varying degrees of success, to end them.
The team from Scripps Research Institute “taught” rats to get addicted to either MDPV or meth by simply allowing them to self-administer the compounds by pressing a lever to get the goods delivered intravenously. Rats are easily “addictable,” as humans are, so they make a good model system to study the behavioral and neurologic effects of these drugs. Here, the researchers could get an idea of how much the rats craved the drugs by extending the number of lever presses required to gain access. And what they found was pretty telling. “When we increased how many lever presses a rat would have to emit to get an additional infusion of drug, we observed that rats emitted about 60 presses on average for a dose of METH but up to about 600 for MDPV—some rats would even emit 3,000 lever presses for a single hit of MDPV,” said study author Shawn M. Aarde. “If you consider these lever presses a measure of how much a rat will work to get a drug infusion, then these rats worked more than 10 times harder to get MDPV.” The other telltale behavior the researchers saw in the rats, which was so similar to bath-salt-addicted humans, was massive stereotypy – the repetitive behaviors that don’t seem have any goal but continue regardless. “One stereotyped behavior that we often observed was a rat repeatedly licking the clear plastic walls of its operant chamber—a behavior that was sometimes uninterruptable,” said Aarde. “One could say MDPV turned some rats into ‘window lickers’ of a sort.” This kind of behavior, the authors point out, is similar to the “tooth-grinding and compulsive skin-picking” seen in people who are on bath salts or meth.
Bath salts are derived in the lab from cathinone, the active ingredient in khat, a plant from northeast Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, which is often chewed for its psychostimulant effects. It’s also banned in the U.S., since cathinone is a Schedule 1 controlled substance. The drug easily crosses the blood-brain barrier, and elicits its neurologic effects by preventing removal of the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) from the synapse, which makes for a whole lot of feel-good chemicals laying around your brain for longer. The problem is, as always, that tolerance sets in, whereby you need more and more of the drug to have the same effect.
And, of course, the drugs brings along a host of negative symptoms, which include paranoia, increased activity, lack of sleep, reduced drive for food and water, violence, and suicide. Near irresistible cravings for more of the drug are the other result of taking them.
One of the major problems, among many, with synthetic drugs is the rapidity with which they can “evolve” or be reformulated, since they’re created in the lab. The trick for researchers is to stay a few steps ahead of the drug formulators by predicting the most likely future iterations of the compound. “We’d like the ability to predict, for example, which ones have the highest abuse potential, which are more likely to have long-term toxicity issues, and which carry high risks of acute lethal consequences,” said Taffe. Long term studies in animals are next on the team’s agenda. Unfortunately, adds Taffe, though they’re relatively new as recreational drugs go, “MDPV looks like it’s going to stick around as a recreational stimulant, because it is so potent.” We’ll see what becomes of these drugs, and how they, and their next generations, will evolve in the future.
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Everything I post is fiction.
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Heffy
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Moonshoe]
#18549829 - 07/12/13 05:23 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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What has science done!!!!!!
-------------------- I am the king of Rome, and above grammar! - Emperor Sigismund
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joshisstoned
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Heffy]
#18549887 - 07/12/13 05:42 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Science is great!
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Ellis Dee
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: joshisstoned]
#18549894 - 07/12/13 05:44 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
joshisstoned said: Science is great!
Your hypothesis is unprovable with science!!!!
-------------------- "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do."-King Solomon And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
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Lord_McLovin
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Ellis Dee]
#18549997 - 07/12/13 06:05 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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I wonder if the rats crave the MDPV in a nice environment, not locked alone in a dark cage. Probably not.
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dokunai
Cactus, Cannabis, Cubensis

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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Ellis Dee]
#18550004 - 07/12/13 06:06 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
A new study finds that the active ingredient in the drug trumps even the most addictive substances we know, namely methamphetamine.
I do not agree with this assesment. Sure, stims can be very psychologically addictive, but so can food, gambling, etc. Most addictive substances? Try alcohol, nicotine, opiates, benzos...
Also, considering the design of this experiment, it doesn't sound like the rats may have had any alternative to pressing a lever. I bet any of us would also press a lever thousands of times to get a bit of drugs when locked in a tiny cage with a lever and a water bottle.
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funkerdslr
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: dokunai]
#18550048 - 07/12/13 06:17 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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-------------------- RIP Alice
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CidneyIndole
www.shroomery.OG



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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: dokunai]
#18550093 - 07/12/13 06:26 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
dokunai said:
Quote:
A new study finds that the active ingredient in the drug trumps even the most addictive substances we know, namely methamphetamine.
I do not agree with this assesment. Sure, stims can be very psychologically addictive, but so can food, gambling, etc. Most addictive substances? Try alcohol, nicotine, opiates, benzos...
Also, considering the design of this experiment, it doesn't sound like the rats may have had any alternative to pressing a lever. I bet any of us would also press a lever thousands of times to get a bit of drugs when locked in a tiny cage with a lever and a water bottle.
You do have a point about the parameters of the study and living conditions. However, MDPV is actually the most addictive, habitual drug I've ever seen in my life. I don't have much experience with meth, but it absolutely rivals and probably beats crack.
Funny, reading about the rats working harder, I was picturing the end of a binge.
If you've ever seen the end of a really bad crack binge, users will often comb the floors for a little bit, searching for rock they might have dropped, occasionally mistakenly smoking a piece of plaster from the wall, etc... This usually doesn't go on for too long before they realize it's futile and give up.
The end of a long MDPV binge can get worse. If you're really bad with the pv (and / or have self control issues) you will spend considerably longer looking for MDPV residue. I've seen someone search for literally hours for something dropped / misplaced. I've seen someone wash down all their smoking equipment with acetone and evaporate, in the hopes of just one more hit.
It is devilishly, fiendishly moreish. I don't believe for a second that this study is false propaganda (though it may be used as such.) Shit lights up your dopamine like nothing else-- especially with "harder" ROAs, and it can be very difficult to stop while you still have material left. Because this stuff, just a few years ago was very much legal, and way cheaper than drugs like meth, we have seen what happens when people have massive supplies of this stuff. And some people will stay up literally for weeks on end, no problem.
I know one dude whose word I trust, who alleges his last bad run with MDPV (around 40 grams) lasted over 2 full months, with very little sleep, very little food, and near constant use. Shit is no joke.
-------------------- ------------------------ I am me. We are You.
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dokunai
Cactus, Cannabis, Cubensis

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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: CidneyIndole]
#18550193 - 07/12/13 06:48 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
CidneyIndole said:
Quote:
dokunai said:
Quote:
A new study finds that the active ingredient in the drug trumps even the most addictive substances we know, namely methamphetamine.
I do not agree with this assesment. Sure, stims can be very psychologically addictive, but so can food, gambling, etc. Most addictive substances? Try alcohol, nicotine, opiates, benzos...
Also, considering the design of this experiment, it doesn't sound like the rats may have had any alternative to pressing a lever. I bet any of us would also press a lever thousands of times to get a bit of drugs when locked in a tiny cage with a lever and a water bottle.
You do have a point about the parameters of the study and living conditions. However, MDPV is actually the most addictive, habitual drug I've ever seen in my life. I don't have much experience with meth, but it absolutely rivals and probably beats crack.
Funny, reading about the rats working harder, I was picturing the end of a binge.
If you've ever seen the end of a really bad crack binge, users will often comb the floors for a little bit, searching for rock they might have dropped, occasionally mistakenly smoking a piece of plaster from the wall, etc... This usually doesn't go on for too long before they realize it's futile and give up.
The end of a long MDPV binge can get worse. If you're really bad with the pv (and / or have self control issues) you will spend considerably longer looking for MDPV residue. I've seen someone search for literally hours for something dropped / misplaced. I've seen someone wash down all their smoking equipment with acetone and evaporate, in the hopes of just one more hit.
It is devilishly, fiendishly moreish. I don't believe for a second that this study is false propaganda (though it may be used as such.) Shit lights up your dopamine like nothing else-- especially with "harder" ROAs, and it can be very difficult to stop while you still have material left. Because this stuff, just a few years ago was very much legal, and way cheaper than drugs like meth, we have seen what happens when people have massive supplies of this stuff. And some people will stay up literally for weeks on end, no problem.
I know one dude whose word I trust, who alleges his last bad run with MDPV (around 40 grams) lasted over 2 full months, with very little sleep, very little food, and near constant use. Shit is no joke.
I've been through stim withdrawal for coke, meth, amps, etc. A few days of feeling tired or like shit? LOL. When I quit my insane alprazolam habit, it took me almost a year to get over it. I'm sorry... stim addicts are fucking pussies. Try a year of Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome. Try being wracked with seizures or feeling like you can't relax or fall asleep without electric shocks running through your limbs for a year. Sorry, but your buddy's stim cravings aren't quite in the same class IMO. I've quite coke and quit meth and quit prescribed amphetamines. Those will never, ever compare to the misery of quitting benzos or opiates.
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BigPharma
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: dokunai]
#18550227 - 07/12/13 06:57 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Rats actually WON'T press the lever if they don't find it reinforcing. They're only in the boxes for a short time to conduct data collection and they spend the rest of their time in their home cages, which also aren't dark unless its their night-time. They also have full access to food and water in their home-cages. And yes, the rats also do "crave" drugs they're "addicted" to, this can be measured by what's called reinstatement behavior, and can be manipulated in a multitude of ways. these progressive ratio self-administration studies are actually a rather valuable means of assessing compulsive self-administration of a drug, from which you can infer addictability, or rather propensity to re-dose despite increasing punishment or difficulty for doing so.
-------------------- "There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference." -William James on NO2 in 1882
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Moonshoe
Blue Mantis


Registered: 05/28/04
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: dokunai]
#18550256 - 07/12/13 07:06 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think benzos and opiates have more withdrawal when quitting but what this study is really showing is that MDPV forms a much stronger and faster compulsion to continue using . So it might be harder to quit Xanax than MDPV once you are addicted, but you will get hooked WAY faster on MDPV than Xanax.
Many people can take 1 Xanax a day indefinitely as part of a prescription or whatever without to much trouble, but from the sounds of it doing just one dose of MDPV would be pretty hard, there is a much faster and stronger urge to redose.
So there is sort of two different definitions of addictive. Xanax wins in terms of how hard it is to quit once addicted, but MDPV wins in terms of how quickly you get addicted in the first place .
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Everything I post is fiction.
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Eminence



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Posts: 16,627
Loc: Richmond, VA
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Lord_McLovin] 1
#18550411 - 07/12/13 07:45 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Lord_McLovin said: I wonder if the rats crave the MDPV in a nice environment, not locked alone in a dark cage. Probably not.
If they're addicted, they're addicted. Doesn't matter where they are.
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Apostle
Philanthropist



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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Moonshoe]
#18550416 - 07/12/13 07:46 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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The problem with these chemicals is not the chemicals themselves, it's irresponsible usage.
Poly-drug addicts are the super heroes of our day.
The human body deserves all the credit, actually.
Science Vs Science. science wins all the time.
Oh dear i seem to be rambling. Anyway, this article is cool and i can't wait to take a nice warm bath with my salty goodies.
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Moonshoe
Blue Mantis


Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 27,202
Loc: Iceland
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Apostle]
#18550437 - 07/12/13 07:50 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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"The problem with these chemicals is not the chemicals themselves, it's irresponsible usage. "
I totally disagree (respectfully) with this point of view. In my opinion some chemicals are so high risk that there is no such thing as responsible use (any use of them is ipso facto irresponsible).
Responsible use of MDPV seems to me to be a contradiction in terms , like responsible drunk driving or responsible Russian roulette.
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Everything I post is fiction.
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Apostle
Philanthropist



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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Moonshoe]
#18550450 - 07/12/13 07:55 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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i'd love to see a list of drugs which can be responsibly used and drugs which cannot.
I respect your opinion and shy away from uppers in general so this is not a big issue with me but i defend peoples right to use any substance including bullets to the head. Russian roulette is fine with me if you do it in a bullet proof box or far from others.
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Moonshoe
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Apostle]
#18550611 - 07/12/13 08:38 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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I can give you a list but it would only be my own subjective opinion.
Here it is:
Drugs that cannot be responsibly used :
Meth Crack IV heroin MDPV Inhalants (gas, computer duster, glue) Krokodil Datura Cigarettes/tobacco (except for strictly ceremonial purposes)
Basically everything else can be used responsibly by some .
Again , just my own personal list of drugs no one should even try.
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Everything I post is fiction.
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Eminence



Registered: 07/25/10
Posts: 16,627
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Moonshoe]
#18550622 - 07/12/13 08:41 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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I've tried all of those besides krokodil and I don't use any of them anymore besides cigs lol. It was easy to quit them cuz I never binged on any of them though, well meth, but for no more than like a day and a half.
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Apostle
Philanthropist



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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Moonshoe]
#18550644 - 07/12/13 08:46 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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one change i would make is removing krokodil and heroin and replacing them with "IV opiates"
not a bad list.
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Moonshoe
Blue Mantis


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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Apostle]
#18550653 - 07/12/13 08:48 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Yeah agreed
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Everything I post is fiction.
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Moonshoe
Blue Mantis


Registered: 05/28/04
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Re: Synthetic Drug 'Bath Salts' Trumps Methamphetamine In Addictiveness, Study Finds [Re: Eminence]
#18550656 - 07/12/13 08:50 PM (10 years, 10 months ago) |
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Good job not doing that stuff anymore frylock!
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Everything I post is fiction.
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