CBD inhibits the metabolic pathway used by these drugs, similar to other natural compounds like grapefruit or St. John’s Wort. When this pathway is suppressed, medications take longer to be metabolized or broken down by the body, so levels of the drug can accumulate and circulate in the blood for longer. Beyond these four major classes of drugs, there are other medications and compounds with which cannabis can interact. Lately, researchers have been exploring whether cannabis and opioids can be safely used together.
- The most notable is a recent patent that the biotech startup, CaaMTech Inc. won in mid-January 2021 for combining a variety of cannabinoids with different chemicals found in magic mushrooms.
- Researchers are also studying MDMA as a treatment for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in supervised clinical research trials.
- It was dubbed “molly” because the acronym MDMA can be challenging to say, and “ecstasy” for its intense euphoric effects.
- Delays were allocated in random order, with the provisos that an equal number of each delay (ie eight) occurred during each session, and no one length of delay was imposed more than three times consecutively.
- Cannabis can interact in diverse ways with an incredibly wide variety of substances.
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“We know that ketamine can be a sedative and MDMA a stimulant, but judging the right balance of the two is incredibly difficult,” he says. MDMA can significantly raise your body temperature, especially antibiotics and alcohol if you’re dancing, leading some people to overdo it with the water. This can increase your risk of dehydration and heatstroke, both of which have been linked to most MDMA-related deaths.
Mixing Ecstasy (Molly) & Weed: Effects & Risks
When MDMA and cannabis are used together, it can enhance the effects of both substances. For some users, this may lead to an intensified sense of euphoria, altered perception, and altered sensory experiences. Mixing weed and ecstasy may sound like a good time, but the reality is quite different.
Potential Risks
Traditional wisdom urges a practice of starting with a lower dose of your substance and adding more after you’ve gotten a sense of the effects of the initial dose. Gradually adding to the initial dose makes you less likely to pass the threshold for uncomfortable impacts and challenging trips. “Flipping” is a broad term used to describe several different MDMA drug combinations.
However, he also acknowledges that the interactions of cannabis and psychedelics may boil down to a question of dose and individual tolerance. Peterson explains that since the endocannabinoid system and our body’s own opioid system overlap, cannabis can reduce the dose of opioids needed to achieve pain control, thus reducing the risk of opioid overdose or addiction. Both substances can have significant impacts on neurotransmitter systems, particularly serotonin, and prolonged or heavy use may increase the risk of adverse effects. Our study is limited by the search strategy’s focus on clinical research, which likely contributed to the exclusion of potentially relevant articles based on self-report surveys (e.g., Kuc et al., Garcia-Romeu et al.).
This is also somewhat similar to how people describe the difference between the effects of cocaine and crack. Another major issue with mixing any illegal drug is knowing what it actually is. For example, a hallucinogenic drug called 25I-NBOMe is often sold on blotter paper, resembling LSD. And while there has never been a recorded human death solely caused by taking acid, there have been dozens of deaths attributed to 25I and related compounds. Adding coke to LSD reportedly kills the pleasurable, trippy aspects of acid, or makes the experience “weird,” so some people avoid it. In contrast, the authors of that survey had previously surveyed ten men, some of whom had taken tricyclic antidepressants.
Marijuana is a habit for many people, with regular users smoking or consuming cannabis daily or several times per week, but this is generally not true of ecstasy. Ecstasy, on the other hand, is most commonly consumed at nightclubs, parties, and raves. It is most common among young people, like college students and those in their early to mid-twenties. In some people, particularly those vulnerable to mental illness, marijuana use is linked to the onset of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety. Of course, like anything else we put into our bodies, cannabis can also cause a range of relatively mild side effects including dry mouth, fatigue, temporarily impaired cognitive function, red eyes and short term memory deficits.
Of the four major drug categories, we probably know the least about the consequences of mixing hallucinogens and cannabis. Opioids work by interacting with opioid receptors in the body, which change the perception of pain in the brain and increase the threshold of pain in the spinal cord. Cannabis can interact in diverse ways with an incredibly wide variety of substances. One of the reasons is because our bodies are uniquely receptive to the effects of cannabis, courtesy of our endocannabinoid system (ECS).
Research shows that MDMA stimulates the release and inhibits the reuptake of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. When you take MDMA, your body breaks it down into MDA through a process called demethylation, mostly in the liver. MDA is an active byproduct of MDMA and contributes to the overall effects of MDMA. Also known by their street names “Molly” and “Sally,” MDMA and MDA are popular party drugs. The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author. “The comedown from crack cocaine is very unpleasant; heroin is used to mellow that out.”
Prolonged adverse effects of hallucinogen use such as psychosis and depression are found to be “exceedingly rare” in experimental settings. In another review, no incidences of prolonged psychotic reactions or precipitations or schizophrenia spectrum disorders were identified out of 110 subjects. However, one experienced symptom of emotional instability, anxiety, and depression which lasted for several weeks.
Braida et al (2002) found no effect of MDMA on acute short-term memory in rats, but subacute memory was affected (see also Barrionuevo et al, 2000). In human studies, MDMA users have demonstrated verbal memory impairments both while on-drug (Parrott and Lasky, 1998; Parrott et al, 1998) and after a history of ecstasy use, while other cognitive functions appeared normal (Bolla et al, 1998; Reneman et al, 2000). Even if the idea of a more intense high sounds compelling, taking both of these drugs simultaneously can be too dangerous to justify. If taking both drugs at once feels necessary, or if a satisfactory high can’t be achieved without mixing weed and ecstasy, it may be time to reevaluate drug use. A compulsion to mix these drugs to feel satisfied can be a sign of a substance use disorder that needs professional treatment. While we eagerly wait to see the results of new research into cannabis and psychedelics, and their combinations and interactions, caution is advised.
This can occur in illicit drug markets where the purity and quality of substances are not regulated. When marijuana is intentionally adulterated or “cut” with other drugs, such as MDMA, it is typically done to enhance the effects of the cannabis or to deceive consumers. The comedown effects often lead people to use other butalbital acetaminophen caffeine oral drugs to moderate these effects, either in combination with ecstasy or during the withdrawal period. One of the most common drugs used with ecstasy, as a way to moderate the strong effects of the drug is marijuana. Users often feel high levels of affection for those around them and are more alert and energetic than usual.
“People play a risky game seeing how they can get the best experience by balancing them.” “There are different boxes of substances, stimulants, sedatives, hallucinogens, dissociatives. Combining more than one from each of those boxes can increase your risk,” says Dr. Owen Bowden-Jones, founder of the CNWL Drug Club Clinic. In fact, polysubstance use—a grand term for “getting fucked up with more than one drug”—tends to be the norm rather than the exception for most drug users. If you’re going to candyflip, though, there are a few important things you can do to reduce your risk of some negative effects.
This unique class of antidepressant reportedly made some LSD trips more potent, not less. Users reported “more psychic energy” and “somatic distortion” from the combo, with livelier, perkier, and more elaborated hallucinations, such as seeing the sunrise for over an hour in the middle of the night. Some of these same users reported that after they stopped taking drugs like desipramine or clomipramine, their LSD trips weren’t as strong. It just doesn’t work as well,” according to Mitchell Gomez, executive director of DanceSafe, a nonprofit drug education group. This can encourage people to take more LSD, but when the alcohol wears off, you can still be tripping for hours, way more than intended.
While this acute effect was robust, there was no indication from this study whether the impairment would be long lasting, or extend to other cognitive processes. The neurochemical mechanisms underlying this result are presently a matter of speculation but represent an interesting direction for further research. You can, of course, test your drugs at home 11 natural remedies for erectile dysfunction ed using kits you can purchase online but they may not always identify all the present compounds. Or, if you’re feeling science-y and can wait a few weeks, you can mail a drug sample to EcstasyData.org, an organization supported by DanceSafe. It helps to ask about doses and purity from your drug connection, but even they may not know what they’re selling.