________ ________ ________
2018-01-29 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
I'm probably overdue for an update on the / _/ / /
stupid things I'm doing to my wetware huh? \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
/ \/ \/ / \
Firstly, despite my good results going / _/ /_ _/
cold turkey from caffeine and codeine back /- / _/ /
before I started the microdosing, both have \________/\________/\___/____/
crept back in. Caffeine I didn't really put
up much of a fight against and I'm back on my energy drink shit. I'm not real
fussed about that, caffeine really does no harm unless you try to quit it,
then it fucks with you for fun.
Codeine I did try and fight, mostly because it IS bad for you but also
because it's a chore to get but it did creep back in, although not as much as
before. Addiction is what it is, I suppose and God it's just so comfy. Fun
times ahead for that though, the drug is changing schedules from February 1
and will now require a prescription instead of pharmacist approval. If you'll
indulge me a sec, let me tell you how fucking dumb that decision is: really
fucking dumb. The crux of the argument for that decision was that codeine can
cause dependence, and its misuse has led to addiction and even death.
While may be true, you can not argue that something needs to be removed
because it's "addictive" when cigarettes and alcohol are still on the shelves.
At all. Fuck off. Likewise, the statistics on deaths caused by codeine are
pretty sketchy, it seems to be based on any death coded T402 which seems to be
catch-all for any opioid that isn't methadone or heroin - the majority of
which are prescription drugs already, adding one more prescription to the pile
is not going to make any kind of dent in this. The statistics I've seen also
do not seem to contain any circumstances of death; whether the deceased was a
long-time user, or just a person with a headache that didn't know what they
were doing. Whether they had solely taken the drug or whether they were also
drinking or on other medication that may have caused complications.
They're also backing up the decision with a lot of poorly researched stuff
about codeine being useless in small doses and other pain killers being more
better but it's all bunk. Even the pharmacists themselves are calling bullshit
on all this but the government is determined to go ahead with it. Australia
does pride itself on poorly planned knee-jerk policy.
Anyway, enough legal drugs, let's talk about how the microdosing is going.
Wait, one quick aside; there's a legal (read: not illegal) analog to LSD
that quite a few microdosers in the States are using, that I'm curious about.
Science upon science. Australia's analog laws are really tough though so here
it's subject to the same restrictions as any other psychedelic drug.
Ok so it's been up and down. I continued with the 60ug blotters while I
could and it was pretty great. I fiddled with my dose a little bit but ended
up sticking with a microdose around ~15ug.
Then I made three mistakes.
The first mistake was after I was unfortunately not able to get any more of
the blotters I was using, or even any other under-dosed blotters so I ended up
fishing around for something else and got clumsy. I got 135ug because they
seemed good but the vendor wasn't one I'd used before and I didn't bother to
test them properly before using them. They haven't been very good and I've
gone from the microdosing feeling good-to-too-good to being either bad or
nothing. Frustrating since this shit isn't cheap but I guess I should be
thankful it wasn't worse.
My second mistake was thinking the 135ug blotters would be easy to work
around, the plan was to dilute it and dose from the solution but the volumes
are so low and it's so fiddly. The only way I could get it to work was to
REALLY dilute it and hold a big ol' blob of water in my mouth for whoever
knows how long. It wasn't really practical without getting some proper
equipment to measure and dispense things.
I addressed the issue with the big blotters by revisiting the idea of a
microdosing nasal spray, it was actually pretty easy to do; I took an almost-
empty medicinal nasal spray, cleaned it out and filled it with diluted tabs.
My third mistake came in trusting the measurements on the bottle which in
hindsight really is a "what the fuck was I thinking?" moment. The label on the
bottle said the medicine contained 10ml and "60 sprays" and I trusted it
blindly, making my solution based on those measurements to deliver ~7.5ug of
drug per spray.
I was way off. Thankfully way on the low side otherwise that first dose
would have been quite interesting but as it was, I got nothing. At the time I
still trusted the new doses I'd got so I assumed my math or measurements were
wrong and tried to suss it out. I ended up trying my best to measure just how
much liquid is being delivered per spray, again trying to measure
frustratingly small volumes with big, clunky equipment. I think I got close to
accurate but it's still pretty sketchy.
In the end, because of the frustration with getting the doses right I
started skipping days and when I wasn't noticing any difference that's when I
started to get a bit concerned about the quality of what I was dosing with.
On top of that, throw in the chaos of the holidays and the pressure at work
over the last couple months leaves me feeling like I'm sort of at an impasse,
at least until I can take the time to find a new supply that I trust and
revisit the measured spray properly.
