5F-AKB48 #
| Common Nomenclature | 5F-APINACA |
| Street & Reference Names | Magic Dragon |
| Reference Dosage | Threshold <0.5mg; Light 0.5mg+; Common1mg+; Strong 2mg+; Heavy 4mg+ [Psychonautwiki] |
| Anticipated: Onset / Duration | 20 Seconds / 2 Hours |
| Maximum Dose Experienced | Unknown |
| Form | Smoking Mixture |
| RoA | Smoked |
| Source / Jurisdiction | Head Shop / UK |
SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE #
As with all the compounds in this class, I purchased this under a brand name; on this occasion, Magic Dragon. The plant material it was infused with was much the same as every other brand I had encountered.
To say that this induced a bad experience dramatically understates it. To reflect this, and to urge caution, I posted the following words on an Internet forum at the time:
I’m firmly in the do-not-touch camp on this one.
Acute anxiety, extreme fear, sheer panic?
Whatever words are chosen to describe my distress, 5F-AKB48 produced the worst cannabinoid experience of my life, and possibly the worst drug related experience.
Fortunately, I wasn’t in a social situation and I managed to stumble upstairs to lie down. After perhaps an hour the horror eventually passed. It was at that point that I decided that synthetic cannabinoid brands and blends were off my menu for ever.
In the past, synthetic cannabinoids like CP47 and JWH-018 had occasionally caused a degree of unpleasantness and discomfort, usually in the form of stress or anxiety. However, they were never like this. They were neither on the same scale nor even in the same ballpark.
I should also stress that this trauma unfolded from just a couple of hits, rather than repeated deep inhalation. There was nothing abnormal about my usage.
Take it easy and take the utmost care.
Better still, don’t take it at all.
There is no doubt in my mind that this was a lesson never to be forgotten. It induced a combination of gut wrenching dread and unbounded paranoia. In a Shulgin scale +++ state of mind, I fumbled my way into the bedroom and lay on the bed in foetal position.
It really was that bad.
Fortunately, I was still aware that I was under the influence of a drug. This helped a great deal, but it didn’t fully mitigate the depth of terror I was embroiled in. I recall repeatedly telling myself that it would end soon, and that I would return to normal; a process which gave me light at the end of the tunnel.
For the inexperienced drug user, or for the uninitiated, I cannot begin to imagine how bad it could get.
I had in fact smoked this material on a couple of previous occasions. Neither of these episodes was particularly pleasant, but they were nothing like as intense as this third and final experience.
I suspect that this was a good example of what can happen when an amateur chemist mixes these types of compound in such a manner that the chemical is unevenly distributed across the material. This was presumably a contributing factor, and on this basis, it could have been worse; much worse.
I wasn’t at all surprised to subsequently read media reports of tragic incidents associated with some of the blends which emerged around this chemical. This was many miles removed from even a pretext of being a legal substitute for cannabis itself.
I would now avoid it like the plague.