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Buzzed

I swallowed Tina before and it kept me wired for a long time. Last weekend, a friend passed me a pipe and I tried smoking it. It kept me awake for a long time like before, but the buzz felt different. Do you think I did something else?
-Damien

Response from: NICK

How a drug is taken effects how quickly you get high and how intense the ‘rush’ is. It all has to do with how much of the drug is getting into you body and how quickly the drug reaches your brain.

The quickest way for a drug to get to you brain is smoking. Blood coming from the lungs is full of oxygen so it goes back to your heart and is immediately pumped into your brain and the rest of you body.

Injecting into a vein means that the drug is in your blood, but this blood is first taken to the heart, then pumped to the lungs to pick up oxygen, then taken back to the heart to be pumped to the brain and the rest of the body.

Both smoking and injecting will get you feeling high within a minute or two, sometimes just a few seconds.

Snorting or hooping (sticking it up your ass) will get you high within a few minutes. These methods work because the drug crosses the really small membranes and blood vessels near your sinus cavities or in your sphincter. However, it takes a bit of time for the drug to absorb, and then most of it will still make a trip through the heart and lungs before being pumped to the brain and body. You will probably start to feel high within 5-10 minutes.

Swallowing a drug will get you high but will take the longest to feel. The drug must first get broken down in your stomach and then absorbed by your intestine before it gets into your blood stream. Then it will make its way through the heart and lungs before being pumped to the brain and body. How quickly you get high when swallowing will also depend on how much food is already in your stomach. The more food that is in there, then longer it will take to get high. You will start to feel high between 15-60 minutes depending on how recently, and how much, you ate.

Because of the quicker onset with smoking and injecting, people tend to feel a more euphoric ‘rush,’ versus a more gradual ‘come on’ with snorting, hooping or swallowing.

There's always a chance you were offered a different drug, or it was a purer or more potent form from a different batch. However, it's possible that simply changing your method of ingestion is what made it feel different.

TIP: The context we take drugs in also affects our experience in different ways. To learn more about this click here.