Artificial Cannabis JWH-018 - The Taste Test

[Chiral]

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With all the news surrounding the still-legal cannabis-replacing psychoactive substance which is romantically named JWH-018, there are a lot of people who may be inclined to think they are missing out on something?

For those out the loop, JWH-018 is the laboratory-synthesized substance which has been designed 'from the ground up', just to get people high. At least that was the explanation JW Huffman gave it. He's the fella who invented this stuff as well as the man who put the JWH in JWH-018.

When asked about the possible harms caused by his recipe, he said users should be more concerned with impurities from the manufacturing process, rather than worry over the harms caused by the substance iself.

JHW-018 is a CBD receptor agonist. What that means is, just like the THC it is meant to replace, JHW-018 works directly on the CB1 and CB2 receptors in the human body to create a very similar high to that which cannabis creates. And as Huffman himself says, "You can't overdose on THC."

So without a direct risk associated with this product, one would have to ask why its getting banned? And to find out the answer to this it was necessary for me to get hold of some. Purely in the interests of research you understand..

JWH-018

I ordered a packet of JWH-018 and I only waited a single working day for my delivery to arrive. But as I was out of the house when it arrived I had to wait 24 hours then collect it from my local sorting office as a signature was required.

On returning from the sorting office I immediately opened my package, which is still legal to buy in the UK, to find a see-thru ziplock bag with a printed label on it which read. "JWH-018 - 250mg - (1-pentyl-3)1-napthoyl) indole)". And in big red letters it stated quite clearly this was not for human consumption.

Indeed this is one of the mixes which is marketed as a plant feeder, but which everyone who buys it seems to consume instead of cannabis.

Inside the larger ziplock bag was another, smaller ziplock, and this contained a scary looking white crystaline substance which had about it the feintest yellow tinge.

Health & Safety?

Perhaps most important of all is the fact there were no safety sheets provided to buyers who purchase JWH-018. And right away we can see a problem with the UK and its current stance on drugs, or anything which could be construed as an analogue of a drug.

The fact is tens of thousands of people will buy this substance right up until it is physically banned. But as vendors prefer to market it as a plant feed it is sold without any safety data regarding doseage etc. Meaning there is a very real risk of consuming too much. And with a substance on which we have no history the risks associated with using JWH-018 are clear.

Before trying out the substance I wanted to do a bit of research just so I was happy in my own mind I was not about to kill myself, so I visited the font of all drug knowledge and a website which every one with an interest in recreational drugs should familiarize themselves with; Erowid !

Erowid

A website which by its own admission, is exploring the complex relationship between humans and psychoactives.

On carrying out a search for the term JWH-018 I was presented with a number of articles written by individuals who had tried the JWH-018 for the first time. So I did some reading, and without the a doubt the biggest concern amongst the many voiced, related to doseage, or the amount used, and for me this is the biggest issue with all the legal high's which are for sale currently.

No one knows how much to take so every time a person uses legal high's they put themselves in the laps of the gods. And the same can be said with all the other legal high's such as khat, (available on every high street in the UK), salvia divinorum, magic mushrooms as well as the plethora of pills potions and lotions which have come to market over the last 5 years or so.

If you want to reduce harm from drugs, surely its better to tell people how to use them safely rather than let them die and say "we TOLD you so"?

JWH-018 The Substance

The substance itself came as a pure white powder looking for all the world like cocaine. In good natural light it has something of a yellow tint to it, but its very hard to see and for all intents this stuff is pure white.

In the bag itself the powder comes in two distinct forms. First of all the powder (obviously) is the majority, but mixed in the powder are also some small rocks; obviously a by-product of the manufacturing process. Think of a crack-cocaine rock but much smaller and you won't be far off base.

These rocks are small as mentioned, but don't let their diminutive stature take you by surprise. If one of these rocks finds its way into your joint you ARE in for a white knuckle ride, but more on that later.

For the sake of my first time using this stuff I decided to go easy. SUPER easy in fact, and if you think of a regular hand-sized pen-knife, this is what I used to get the substance out of the bag. I place the tip of the pen-knife into the white powder and removed the knife from the bag with just the tip covered in white powder.

The next problem is, how to spread such a small amount of JHW-018 across a single-skin king sized joint. In the end I was distributing literally, tiny white specks throughout the tobacco and with a seasoned display of origami I was ready to light up.

The first puff always gets wasted as its only paper, but on inhaling the second toke the effect was almost instant, with the elevator effect of good home-grown weed kicking in pretty soon after. I took another toke in quick succession and then put the joint down to weigh things up a while. Although I'm used to smoking good grass, this was a totally new experience. My body was totally clean of the substance I was ingesting so a quick uptake was only to be expected.

After about 15 minutes I feel like I have consumed four fingers of good malt whisky. My cheeks are warmed up nicely and I have the beginnings of what the canna-sseur may call something similar to a 'sativa' buzz. Its all in the head and around the shoulders. with absolutely no effect at all in the body and legs.

All of which seems like a great trip for the recreational or creative user, but for those who use cannabis as a medicine I'm not feeling any of the benefits in my lower limbs. So I fire the joint up again and consume some more, all the while sitting in front of my laptop writing the days news up for CannaZine Cannabis News.

As is often the case I lose myself in time and an hour later I break away from my writing to reach for the joint again, only to find out it is long gone. The ashtray cooled down some while ago.

I take stock of the situation and suddenly realise I'm hammered. But the stone is definitely what I would call 'creative'.

After losing myself in my writing I carried on smoking. As is often the case I have multiple tabs open and I flit from one to another researching material, and time flies. But today it was going by even faster, and my concentration was absolute. I worked late into the night and finally got to sleep on the sofa around 4 or 5am, having consumed three joints in total.

At 7am the youngest member of the household (8 years of age) comes and switch's on the TV and sits on my legs with his blanket and teddy. A sure signal its time to get up and make his breakfast so he can get ready for school.

I make myself a strong black coffee and take stock. Apart from feeling groggy through lack of sleep my head is clear, I have zero tightness around the chest (a sure sign of a good night), and I can recount my 6 times table without effort. Looking good.

With the kids gone to school and my partner out shopping I settle down to some more writing. But by 11am I'm starting to wane a little. I need to get some sleep so I decide to roll a joint of JHW-018 and see if it can help switch my brain off.

So I go through my routine, including the trick with the pointy knife blade, load one together and get back to work.

Only this time there was a subtle difference, as I had not been so careful about filtering the rocks out of the mix, and even as I'm putting the finishing touches to my joint I can see the pure white specks, about the size of half a grain of short-grain rice, sitting just beneath the surface of the paper.

I light the blue touchpaper and get back into my work. Smoking this as if I had been smoking it for years, and as is often the case my blase attitude came back to kick my butt.

The taste is far more intense this time. Its not like plastic as I've read elsewhere, but its not far off. Although I can taste it quite strongly my partner lets me know there is no smell in the room after its been smoked.

..3..2..1

The onset this time was very pronounced. All I can deduce is the first rock must have been consumed in my first toke, and I pigged the lot and held on to it.

In the distance I could hear a feint whistle as the runaway freight train I was about to board was leaving its station at the top of the mountain.

The sensations this time were all over. Like smoking the tops off a good full bodied, mature skunk plant. But on top of the limb-stone there was also this strong 'wave' rising up from the base of my spine in a physical pulse, until it cascaded over the top of my skull culminating in an intense head-rush. Just as soon as it was over, it began all over again, at the base of my spine.

By now the buzz is a physical, all over feeling. Its roaring so loud I can almost hear it, and the first sign of anxiety flares in the pit of my stomach. I get a bit fidgity, and decide to go and busy myself elsewhere in the house but as I leave one room and enter another I know the storm is only just beginning as it starts to press down on the top of my head so my spine bends automaticaly under the weight and for the first time I think I might chuck. And still it comes on with an unbelievably fast rush.

I've now lost the use of my arms and legs, in much the same vein as a boxer does when he is 'blown'. My limbs are jelly and I struggle to carry my coffee. I head upstairs, deciding its time for a lay down.

20-30 uncomfortable minutes later and the stone is now full on, and as such easier to ride. Its not the altitude which is the problem. Its the speed in which you get there, and the elevator has slowed to a crawl as we approach cruising altitude and the seat-belt lights go out.

So I busy myself with some yoga arm excercises to pass the time. I'm happy of the opportunity to think of something else for a while but then a thought dawns on me which brings me back to my senses, and reassures me everything is OK.

Adhesive Capsulitis

I was recently diagnosed with Adhesive Capsulitis, more commonly known as a frozen shoulder. In short adhesive capsulitis is when adhesions (gristly strips) grow in the shoulder socket and tighten, causing restriction in movement, stiffness and pain. Lots of pain. And as a result of this pain there are a number of movements I simply cannot carry out. Or rather I probably could but don't as its super-painful.

So I decided to try to 'yoga' my adhesions in the hope that I would break them, (or break myself in the process), and whilst I could still feel the pain to a degree, it was almost as if I was sensing the pain from the other end of a long corridor. It wasn't at the forefront of my mind and I was able to move my limbs seemingly freely.

So I took advantage and gave my shoulder a real workout of stretching and flexing. A legacy I'm still living with today as its sore and aching.

Did it do any good? Only time will tell but one thing I know for a fact is this. My shoulder socket was restricted for movement on both the inside and the outside of the shoulder joint, (closest to and furthest from, my armpit/chest junction). But the restrictions on the inside of the socket are gone. This side of the joint is no longer immoveable.

Now, the only movement I can't manage is to lift my left arm up away from the body in a wide arc.

If '6 o clock' was my legs, and 12 o clock was my head, I can only get to about 9 or 10 o clock before the pain is unbearable, from the tricep down to just below my elbow. Not only that but it takes a good minute or two to subside. During which time I feel sick to my stomach.

'Killer' Pain Relief Felt Like Novocaine

So it would appear the much touted analgesic qualities ofJHW-018 are plain to behold.

2 hours after my white-knuckle ride started and it was coming to an end. I was flaked out on my bed, listening to some music and massaging my achy shoulder.

The come down wasn't particularly jittery, or certainly not as jittery as the getting up. I was chatting to my partner, laughing at myself for making a pig of myself, and admonishing myself for being careless in the amount I consumed.

How much to use depends entirely on the person who's using it. There are some I know who will enjoy the full-on effect of hitting a rock, whilst others still will spin themselves into a psychotic lather, repeating anti-drug campaign messages over and again in their minds until they pass out from terror. So 'softly softly' is the moral of this story.

JWH-018 - A Summary

Make no bones about it. This will be off the market just as soon as the politicians can make it happen. And with the benefit of my own experiences I have to say its probably no bad thing. And right here is where I have a real conflict of interests.

On the one hand I believe absolutely in the rights for a person to grow cannabis. I was watching the Discovery Channel recently and a British journalist (Donal Macyntire) was living in the rain-forest with a tribe, who regularly use all sorts of plants and roots to treat their clans, and for everything from period pains to snake bites.

Although they smoked a great deal, if they used cannabis it was well hidden from the camera crews, but during a staged pig hunt, which the tribe had put on for the benefits of the film crew, Donal Macyntire, who was sharing an elevated 'spearing position' with a tribal elder, was chewing a psycho-active root, and getting well giggly they were too.

So plants, and roots have been providing medicine, and dare I say recreation, for as long as time has been documented.

Cannabis

The reason cannabis is outlawed, is because of how useful it is to humanity. In terms of food, fibre, medicine, building materials etc, you name it in fact. And it can be grown using the cannabis plant. But at an immeasurable cost in terms of lost revenues, to big industries like pharmaceuticals, oil, and alcohol.

As a result, all of these new synthetic CB receptor agonists are finding their way to market. Bringing with them a whole new bunch of risks, and all of which are directly attributable to the drug war.

So while I do believe if a person wants to consume cannabis in the privacy of their own home they should be allowed to, I also believe substances like JHW-018 need to be controlled in some way.

As things stand currently it won't be long before people start cutting this substance like they do with cocaine and heroin. And thats a situation which is going to expose cannabis smokers to the same risks people who buy 'cheap' heroin are exposed to.

In my opinion it would be safer to allow people to use the cannabis. As the alternatives could be a lot more dangerous than the drug they've been created to replace.

And there in a nutshell, we have the real danger's created by the irrational war on drugs.

As for JWH-018? Do some homework on your source, and handle with care!

[ThunderIdeal]

[themagicmushroom]

In fact, it's worth taking note that the extent of epoxidation in the naphthalene ring (which goes through a toxic epoxide intermediate on it's transformation to a diol that can be excreted...) is not well-known as vecktor briefly touched on, as well as his other cautioning of unknown possible other receptor actions.

The only reason aromatic hydrocarbons like benzene, naphthalene, anthracene etc undergo epoxidation is to tag them with some polar group to allow the kidneys to filter it out so it can be pissed away. Once you start tagging the aromatic rings with more polar groups, they generally dont hang around long enough to undergo dodgy metabolism via epoxides to the final diol. The carboxyl group situated between the aromatic rings (naphthalene & indole) should be more than adequate for metabolic enzymes to play with, with an eye towards final elimination (eg via conjugation with a variety of things like glutathione, glucuronic acid etc). If not, then things like propiophenone, benzoin etc would be up there with benzene as a carcinogenic risk (there is a related cannabinoid that is purely hydrocarbon in structure - no carboxyl group - it's a methylene group insted - & the indole ring replaced by indane that I think would be very dodgy as the only metabolic route I can think of to introduce a polar group is the dread epoxidation - I wouldn't touch that one with a 10ft shitty stick).

If the JWH cannabinoids even looked slightly like they might be targets for something as dodgy as epoxidation to facilitate excretion, I wouldn't have had anyting to do with them either

unfortunately a metabolic study in rats showed metabolism of JWH-015 produced the epoxy compound.

This may not be the case in humans, but we don't know.

Oh, that's not good, but then rats have a metabolism that is pretty different to humans in a lot of respects (MPTP does bugger all to them whereas it's instant severe Parkinsons in primates). If they'd found that JWH-015 underwent epoxidation in other primates, then I think I might be on the way to a bout of pretty bad anxiety over the matter (and probably a change of underpants now I've thought about it some more).

I'll comfort myself with the fact that the much higher metabolic rate in rodents makes every aromaric compound more likely to undergo epoxidation than in man in order to facilitate an equally rapid removal from the body. I'm not going near another drop of it until I've done a bit more reading (vecktor, do you have a ref for the paper mentioning the epoxidation of it in rats?)

Identification of in vitro metabolites of JWH-015, an aminoalkylindole agonist for the peripheral cannabinoid receptor (CB2) by HPLC-MS/MS

Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Volume 386, Number 5, November 2006 , pp. 1345-1355(11)

Yes FnB, that's why I said "the extent of" - well aware that ketone of the naphthoyl moiety should be (intuitively) the major metabolic route toward making it more polar to excrete it. However on the data available it appears that hydroxylation of the N-alkyl group, N-dealkylation, hydroxylation of the benzene ring in the indole system, and... naphthalene ring hydroxylation through an epoxide intermediate (which then spontaneously rearranges to a hydroxyl, or proceeds to a diol through epoxide hydrolase) are the major metabolic pathways. And mixtures of these, of course.

It's possible that they've made an error and not detected a metabolic product where the ketone has been reduced to an alcohol and then glucuronidated... or that this doesn't happen in rats. It might happen in humans, who knows yet.

 

[reptyle]

"There are some I know who will enjoy the full-on effect of hitting a rock, whilst others still will spin themselves into a psychotic lather, repeating anti-drug campaign messages over and again in their minds until they pass out from terror."

haha.

[Teotzlcoatl]

If Cannabis was legal nobody would smoke this bullshit.

How silly.