{"id":36,"date":"2003-07-15T10:31:55","date_gmt":"2003-07-15T01:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/07\/15\/natural-high\/"},"modified":"2007-04-17T18:40:42","modified_gmt":"2007-04-17T16:40:42","slug":"natural-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/07\/15\/natural-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural High"},"content":{"rendered":"

While doing some online medical research, I accidentally<\/b> (I swear!) stumbled upon a French “Cyberpharmacie”<\/i><\/a> featuring, among other regular prescription drugs, a brief overview of recreational substances, their use, risk and chemical properties.
\n
\nBeing the curious type, I read along and learnt one particularly interesting fact about GHB<\/a> that I was totally unaware of. My favorite substance information repository<\/a> bearing no mention of this fact, I remained dubitative and dug deeper on the net until I eventually found what appears to be a rather reliable confirmation<\/a> (note on the topic of “reliable internet information source”: there aren’t any. one can rely solely on common sense and gut feeling… but anyway: what’s to be relied on?)<\/i>. A few other searches into the chemicals and body metabolism involved brought a decent level of confirmation to it.<\/p>\n

So indeed, believe it or not:
\nThe human body is able to naturally synthesize gamma-Hydroxybutyrate (GHB) from its precursor gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL) through simple ingestion.<\/i><\/p>\n

So, if you take in account the fact that GBL is a rather commonly used substance in all kind of solvents and paint remover, you can roughly translate this fact into:
\nSwallowing a few swigs of certain nail polish removers is akin to taking ghb and will get you seriously high<\/i><\/p>\n

I know, I know: “doh, like we didn’t know that ever since high school… paint solvents are funny things to breath” and so on…<\/p>\n

But let’s precise we are talking about a specific use (ingestion) and a very specific type of solvent (there are tons of other, more harmless, solvents. GBL is usually reserved to commercial applications, in part due to this property) turning into a very serious<\/b> psychoactive substance widely known for its heavy recreational purposes…<\/p>\n

Another important side note is that, in order for it to be effectively synthesized into ghb, the gbl cannot be ingested with any water or water-based drinks… Which is a serious downside given its unbearably bad taste (ever tried to swallow nail polish? I would probably not).<\/p>\n

Anyway, just thought this was an interesting piece of informational bio-chemistry. What an endless source of mysteries and wonderment the human body is…<\/p>\n

Oh, and remember kids: Winners Don’t Do Drugs<\/big> (they just sell them)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interesting fact about GHB and human body ability to naturally synthesize it from GBL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-better-living-through-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}