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 The Lycaeum Forums » Psychedelics & Non Visionary Related » Visionary Chemicals (Moderator: 2a)Topic:
 JWH-018 Discussion Thread

[foreward]

Yes, this is exactly what happened. Jwh was last smoked about 1 week prior, dxm about 1 month prior and the jwh smoked 2 hrs after dxm was consumed.

Would you agree that jwh alone resembles pot, but in combination with other psychedelics it takes on a different face?

[Newfound_wonder]

Anyone try taking a hit of JWH while on psychedelics?  A previous experience long ago left me a little thwarted and scared to combine jwh with x... it seems to induce major visual distortions.  I never planned on repeating the experiment but I'm sure others would get a kick out of it.

SWIM consumed a blotter a few fridays ago, and for the first few hours everything was going great.  However, several events occurred that drastically affected the experience, rendering him unable to explain which one caused the experience to end so badly.  He took a few hits of JWH-018 a few hours into it, which significantly amplified the effects of the blotter.  However, his girlfriend called and talked to him for several hours that night, and he had to pretend the entire time that he was coherent and intelligent.  She was nagging him about which graduate programs he looked into and which ones he has decided to apply to and which professors to get letters of recommendation from.  Weaving through graduate program websites and faculty is hellish enough when sober; doing this under a headful of acid was a complete nightmare.  SWIM's thought process was a neverending feedback loop of not making any progress about school, which reinforced the idea that his life has no direction or structure, which made his ability to weave through graduate programs even worse, which made him feel even worse, etc.  Needless to say, that night sucked.  While this ordeal was happening, the JWH-induced aphasia effect was happening to SWIM.  He couldn't put two thoughts together, let alone maintain the illusion that he was in a rational and coherent state of mind.  He spent most of the night crying in his room realizing that the major he is pursuing is worthless without a masters or PhD.  Whether all this bad noise was due to the JWH, his girlfriend, or his indecision about his future will never be resolved.

It wasn't just graduate school though.  His girlfriend was talking to him about her 15 year old cat and how it has a tooth infection and how she is so sad about the cat... and SWIM was simply unable to formulate any type of response to her stories.  He felt stupid.  He felt like his lack of response was affecting his girlfriends perception of his intelligence (which it probably was).  All the while, images of sacred geometry danced in his head.  She still doesn't know that he took acid that night, so she probably just thinks he suffered from an acute case of mental retardation that night.

So what did SWIM learn from this experience?  Do not mix JWH and psychedelics if you have to make any critical life decisions or talk to someone who doesn't know that you are spaced out of your mind.  If you are around cool people who would understand that some sensations or perceptions are ineffible and cannot be represented with words or phrases, then my advice does not apply to that situation.  I just wouldn't want anyone to go through the shitty, shitty experience I went through the other night.  Seriously, it made me never want to do a drug again.

[foreward]

Well. First of all, I think that SWIM should reconsider this relationship.

Second, I think that psychedelics can be quite useful for making life decisions (SWIM was able to reconsider priorities in life recently with JWH and DXM) and I think that setting, by the sounds of this, had much more to do with the uncomfortable experience than what was taken.

Still, JWH combinations do seem to be pretty intense, and my own experiences with JWH+DXM does include some pretty substantial anxiety despite concluding that the experience was productive and for the most part enjoyable.

Oh yeah, for the love of Frank: always turn off the phone!

[Papyrifera]

However, his girlfriend called and talked to him for several hours that night, and he had to pretend the entire time that he was coherent and intelligent.

One of the hardest things we can do is pretend we are something other than what we are, to someone we love. It sounds like you expect your girlfriend to disapprove of you being on acid, and therefore hide the fact from her. This creates the feeling that we are not who and/or where we should be, when in reality we are always where we should be and experiencing what we need to experience. Don't be ashamed of who you are. Break down the communication barrier and tell your girlfriend why you take psychedelics and the value those experiences have for you. Only by accepting ourselves fully and unconditionally are we freed. In your relationship, is each partner willing to accept the other the way they are (without trying to change them), despite personal differences?

[pharmanimal78]

Seems one of the main vendors just went down. Hmm.

Oh, nvmnd. They're back up.

[pharmanimal78]

Well, 15+mg for me = extreme dysphoria & hellacious puking.

[ST1R]

One recently suffered an extreme overdose of 018. Due to numerous factors an estimated 70-100mg was vap'd The experience could be best described as rainbow crystalline structures, similar to fractals, made of rainbow spiderweb flowers growing from every surface. The perceived material was similar to the fabric or "hair" of a ripped dryer sheet. I could even "feel" the crystalline flowers growing around my room. They were easily "destroyed" by touch although with practice I thought I could pick them up. I woke my GF convinced that her snuggie was being vaporized by the space heater and that the snuggie material was flying around the room and then re-crystallizing in the cooler air. My GF though I had a psychotic break while I ran around at 4am trying to show her the crystalline structures and desperately attempting to explain that we has fabric in our lungs. I even got made when she couldn't see the things. I had blacked out for an estimated 30-45 min after I took nearly all of the dose in a single toke. I was tripping more than 30 hours later. I still saw the structures for about 20hrs post dose. I was having delusions of seeing people in my neighbors house. That house is unoccupied I had to walk up to the house to believe that no one really there and I'm not even touching on most of the other stuff.

While extremely visual it was also very, very unpleasant I truly felt bat-shit crazy and until I worked out the dosage by adding up all my previous doses from that bag and subtracting the final amount. I'm anal about marking dosages and plotting factors for various interactions. (Yeah I'm a drug geek )

[pharmanimal78]

LMAO!

You just go balls deep into whatever it is you do, donchya? 

[Papyrifera]

  Sounds like a crazy experience!

[ST1R]

LMAO!

You just go balls deep into whatever it is you do, donchya?  

  No, it was an accident brought on by numerous factors. My scales batteries were low which throws the weight off significantly, the room was quite dark making the amount and digital readout hard to see, and I had been up for more than 50 hours (drug free. just my insomnia back with a vengeance) making me careless. The whole incident was brutal.

[farmerjack]

from Drugs.Forum

A series of pre-clinical ADME/Toxicity studies were conducted on JWH-018 including CYPs, Genotox, hERG, Cytotox, Rodent Tox (LD50, Acute Dose, Repeat Dose & Pharmakinetics). All tests passed within tolerable guidelines. JWH-018 tested negative for genotox (ie cancer) using standard GreenScreen HC both with and without S9 (fraction from liver hepatocytes which metabolizes compounds and looks for genotoxic metabolites).


http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/2010/02/k2_spice_jwh018_marijuana.php
and this from scienceblog

My field of natural products pharmacology was founded by indigenous cultures who recognized that plants and fungi contain compounds that produce altered states of consciousness, leading to their most common use in religious ceremonies. While we may most often associate these naturally-occurring drugs with hallucinogens, the arguably most common natural product in use today is marijuana or Cannabis sativa. Indigenous to India and China, Cannabis has been the subject of increasing decriminalization worldwide due in part to its clinical, medicinal effects in multiple sclerosis, cancer, and AIDS.

Over the last few months, I've seen reports of a so-called "synthetic marijuana" being sold on the internet with stories most commonly coming from England and Germany and, in the US, from Kansas, Missouri, and Arizona. In fact, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports today that a bill has been brought before the Missouri House Public Safety Committee seeking to add this product to the state's list of illegal drugs.

I became intrigued as to why anyone would go through the trouble of making a synthetic marijuana when the real thing is so readily cultivated worldwide, albeit illegally in most locales.

So what is it?

"Fake weed"
Synthetic marijuana, marketed as K2 or Spice, is an herbal substance sold as an incense or smoking material that remains legal in the United States. The products contain one or more synthetic compounds that behave similarly to the primary psychoactive constituent of marijuana, &Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC.

The compound most commonly found in these products is a chemical first synthesized by the well-known Clemson University organic chemist, Prof John W Huffman: the eponymous JWH-018. Another compound, found in Spice products sold in Germany, is an analog of CP-47,497, a cannabinoid developed by Pfizer over 20 years ago.

Known as (1-pentyl-3-(1-naphthoyl)indole), or the more proper IUPAC name of Naphthalen-1-yl-(1-pentylindol-3-yl)methanone, JWH-018 is one of over 100 indoles, pyrroles, and indenes synthesized by the Huffman laboratory to develop cannabimimetics, drugs that mimic the effect of cannabinoids such as THC. The primary goal of these studies was to create pharmacological probes to 1) determine the structure-activity relationships of these compounds and 2) tease out the physiological function of subtypes of receptors we have for cannabinoids: the CB1 and CB2 receptors.

What does it do?
Much of the biological assessment work of Dr. Huffman's compounds was carried out by the laboratory of Professor Billy R. Martin of the Medical College of Virginia. Dr. Martin, a native of North Carolina, was a giant in the field and sadly left us two summers ago at the all-too-young age of 65 (obituary).

According to this 2000 paper in Drug and Alcohol Dependence from the Huffman and Martin groups, JWH-018 binds to the psychotropic CB1 receptor with approximately 4 times the potency of the naturally-occurring THC. Unlike THC, which binds with almost equal affinity to CB1 and CB2 receptors, JHW-018 exhibits a 3-fold preference for CB1 receptors.What does this mean? Well, the CB1 receptor is the primary means by which cannabinoids exert their psychotropic effects. The CB2 receptor, on the other hand, appears to be more involved in pain and inflammation and is therefore a very active area of research for new therapeutics.
So while JWH-018 has four-fold greater potency for CB1 receptors than THC in an isolated receptor binding study, how its effect compares to plain-old marijuana depends on other factors such as the relative amount in the product, how stable it is to combustion, how it's metabolized in the body, among others.

"We don't know much about this, but it's going to end up killing somebody"
I'm not going out on a limb to say that this statement of Missouri Rep. Ward Frantz might be a bit hysterical at this point but I could be wrong. Human toxicology studies have not been done and the indole moiety of the drug dose raise the possibility that it may cause serotonin syndrome, a potentially fatal but relatively rare disorder. Otherwise, this concern is far overblown when compared with other drug issues in America's heartland such as methamphetamine.



Not much to go on so far, but at least something is being done.

You can always count on an asshat legislator to say something stupid. Look for his name on the bill banning JWH in his state.


And this from the MSDS for JWH 018 from a MANUFACTURER!      http://www.caymanchem.com/msdss/13169m.pdf  see section 11 for Toxological Info

Dammint why can't I cut and paste from their webpage?

It appears that the main danger of the compound is from the methyl acetate (used as solvent) which is 90% of Caymans' product.

[Newfound_wonder]

In case you haven't read the case study of the kid showing withdrawal and dependence symptoms after habitually smoking JWH-018:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719097/?tool=pmcentrez

A 20-year old patient reported that he had smoked "Spice Gold" daily for 8 months. He developed tolerance and rapidly increased the dose to 3 g per day. He felt a continuous desire for the drug and kept on using it despite the development of persistent cognitive impairment. His substance use led him to neglect his duties in his professional training position. Urinary drug screens were negative on admission to the hospital, as they were again on discharge. On hospital days 4–7, he developed inner unrest, drug craving, nocturnal nightmares, profuse sweating, nausea, tremor, and headache. His blood pressure was elevated for two days, with a maximal value of 180/90 mm Hg accompanied by a heart rate of 125/min. The patient stated that he had experienced a similar syndrome a few weeks earlier during a phase of abstinence owing to a short supply, and that it had quickly subsided after he had started consuming "Spice" once again.

Seriously, stay away from this shit.  Get a hold of some good ol' fashioned ganja, because no one really knows what unforseen consequences await those who dabble with this compound.  Pot good, JWH bad.

[whateveryouwantmetobe]

What do you expect to happen if you use it daily for 8 months... up to 3 g/day?  Stupid.  

JWH = just like any other drug: bad when abused by idiots.

On a side note, how hilarious is it that JWH is such a common name now and it is the initials of some scientist who probably doesn't want people using his initials as the slang name for a drug.  

LOL now that is funny.  Of course, anyone who names their compounds after themselves deserves it anyways.  The best thing to do if you have a huge list of molecules to keep track of (especially small molecules like the JWH series) is to use the initials of your workplace or university- or think of something more creative.   That way they get the street association, and if the drug turns out to be good people will come to know you eventually anyways.  

[2a]

so in other words, nothing new has been uncovered.  I'm guessing those "studies" that are referred to at the top of the page are the same anonymously leaked ones that have no verifiable validity?  So other than the fact that politicians have deferred to hyperbole to promote ignorant fear of the compound, what else is new (as if that's not new)?

[Newfound_wonder]

so in other words, nothing new has been uncovered.

Yes.  This information has been out for years.  This article talks about the nasty shit that JWH compounds are metabolized into, and though I can't get full-text access, I'm guessing that this article discusses the effect of JWH on gene expression in neurons.  I'm sure these findings could be verified with some simple cell culture experiments or some rat models.  Just because it isn't published in Science or Nature doesn't mean it isn't true.

But if there are any people wondering about whether they should try JWH compounds, I'll sum up all the data I've encountered along with my experiences with it: The benefits do not outweigh the costs.  It's like crack in the sense that no good comes from using it.  It takes away all pain and sensations and leaves you with an apathetic and lethargic attitude.  Smoking JWH is about as intelligent as huffing glue or smoking crack.  If you're smart then you'll stay away from this shit.

JWH = just like any other drug: bad when abused by idiots.

Just to clarify, this stuff is bad when used at all at any time by anybody.

[farmerjack]

It takes away all pain and sensations and leaves you with an apathetic and lethargic attitude.

sounds like opiods if used too much, and better at relieving pain

[farmerjack]

so in other words, nothing new has been uncovered.  I'm guessing those "studies" that are referred to at the top of the page are the same anonymously leaked ones that have no verifiable validity?  So other than the fact that politicians have deferred to hyperbole to promote ignorant fear of the compound, what else is new (as if that's not new)?

Newf, what would it take to get the whole article?

Just to save others' some time here's what is shown:

Identification of in vitro metabolites of JWH-015, an aminoalkylindole agonist for the peripheral cannabinoid receptor (CB2) by HPLC-MS/MS.
Zhang Q, Ma P, Cole RB, Wang G.

Department of Chemistry, Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans, LA 70125, USA.

The in vitro microsomal metabolism of JWH-015, a ligand that exhibits a high binding affinity at the peripheral cannabinoid receptor CB(2), has been studied. A total of 22 metabolites were identified and structurally characterized. The metabolites are products of: 1) monohydroxylation on the naphthalene ring (m/z 344, M20 and M21), indole ring (m/z 344, M17 and M18), or the N-alkyl group (m/z 344, M14); 2) arene oxidation leading to dihydrodiols (m/z 362, M12 and M15); 3) dihydroxylation on the naphthalene ring (m/z 360, M7) or indole ring (m/z 360, M13), resulting from a combination of monohydroxylations on both the naphthalene and indole rings (m/z 360, M16), or a combination of monohydroxylations on the naphthalene ring and on the N-propyl group (m/z 360, M9); 4) trihydroxylation (m/z 378, M1, M3, M4, M6, and M10); 5) N-dealkylation (m/z 286, M19); 6) N-dealkylation and monohydroxylation on the naphthalene ring (m/z 302, M11); 7) N-dealkylation and dihydrodiol formation from arene oxidation (m/z 320, M2 and M5); dehydrogenation after monohydroxylation on the N-alkyl group (m/z 326, M22); 9) dehydrogenation and monohydroxylation on the indole ring (m/z 342, M8).

Exciting stuff eh?

[trylobeet]

after going through a few grams of jwh, i confirm - fuck that shit.

[2a]

not that I disagree, but what made you come to that consensus?

[Newfound_wonder]

I did a little math using the data from the cytotoxic assay, which said that JWH-018 was not found to be cytotoxic in concentrations less than 250x10^-6moles/Liter.  If a 70kg person has a blood volume of 5.5 liters, then a person would have to ingest 1.375 millimoles of JWH to approach cytotoxic levels.  Since the molar mass of JWH is 341.45g/mol, then a cytotoxic dose of .001375moles x (341.45g/mol) = 0.469grams.  You would need to smoke approximately 450 milligrams of JWH to have a cytotoxic concentration in your blood, assuming your body volume is greater than 5.5 Liters.  This does not mean in any way that doses less than 450mg are safe.

Be careful and be smart.

[Newfound_wonder]

Oops!  Deleted by Newfound_wonder*

Although, I will post this Google trend data:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=jwh&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0


Past 12 months:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=jwh&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0


We should take bets on how long until it becomes illegal.

[2a]

i think the more interesting question will be if it ever becomes federally illegal in the US, or if it will be "sufficiently" handled by the states, such as what is happening with salvia.

[foreward]

Because the cost to pharmaceutical companies would increase with scheduling, and the JWH-series is more selective than good ol Mary Jane, making it a better candidate for research, I have a hard time imagining this being a schedule 1 substance until the pharmaceutical industry does what they need to do to produce the next generation of prescription pain killers (which will undubtly be cannibinoidal in action)

as far as "fuck that shit" I dunno, it's not weed, but for every time I say it's just mind candy I get some useful groovy and depthy surprises.

Anyway, back to my internetless life.

Enjoying the silence, love,
foreward