JWH-018 Informations part 2 (update on side effects)

JWH-018 molecule structure

There are still not much real studies that had been done on the cannabinoid JWH-018, cause as written before, there is no interest coming from the pharmaceutical industry. But meanwhile it is still possible to make a list with certain of the side effects from the research chemical JWH-018.

Many of the negative experience reports are just made to spread fear of these cannabinoids or just people who want to make themselves important. This is why you can find so many reports on these research chemicals like "I smoked Spice once and had to go to the hospital cause of heart problems". Sometimes you even might read that someone died of a heart attack from these cannabinoids. But such an even would have attracted a great amount of media attention to JWH-018. Sometimes you also might find that someone in the age of 13 or 14 used Spice and had to go for a long trip into the hospital, but that doesn't seem to be a source of information to trust. Cause who is selling Spice or JWH-018 to a kid in the age of 13 or 14, if so, what else did they consumed etc. etc.

So it is hard to estimate which information sources on the topic of research chemicals, cannabinoids and especially JWH-018, you trust. One source I found quite helpful to put these JWH-018 informations here together was drugs forum. It has more than half a million readers per month and a reputation system, thus I was able to pick the posts of the most reliable writers and so be able to make a list of JWH-018 side effects that are true.

First it should be noted that underaged people shouldn't use cannabinoids, research chemicals or drugs at all. A child or growing up teen can't be rated like an adult, the body reacts totally different to drugs and poisons like research chemicals or JWH-018. So the JWH-018 informations given here are based on adults, not on teens and especially not on children. However, back to the main topic.

Important Note: Smoking blends or incense blends contain much less of the pure research chemicals, a tolerance development and dosing in the way it could be done with the pure cannabinoids are not possible!

JWH-018 side effects:

Psychological:

- The side effects coming from the cannabinoid JWH-018 are similar to the ones of natural THC, but through the way higher potency of the research chemical JWH-018 they are also far stronger, can occur  faster and more intense. With regular Cannabis it can happen that a person becomes psychotic, this is often represented by some sort of persecution mania. Of course this can also happen with the artificial cannabinoid JWH-018.

- If too much of the cannabinoid JWH-018 is taken, it can produce fear and panic attacks similar to THC. But through the higher potency of the cannabinoid JWH-018 it is more likely to happen and often even more intense. This is based on the binding affinity on the cannabinoid receptors in the body, THC is only a partial agonist, while the research chemical JWH-018 is a full agonist.

- Regular THC, as well as the research chemical JWH-018, can lead to a psychological dependency. But in most cases there is an already existing dependency on THC and the JWH-018 is used as legal high to replace the illegal usage of cannabis. If the research chemical JWH-018 is used as it is and not as replacement for an already existing cannabis dependency, it has interestingly a lower potential to cause dependency. But some consumers even report, that they could use the research chemical JWH-018 to get free of their cannabis addiction. This could have to do with the duration of effects and the longer after effects from cannabis. Through the long lasting after effects and through that the permanently existing feeling of being "down" it seems to be more likely to trigger the desire to use cannabis again, so more cannabis is used again. On the other hand the research chemical JWH-018 is leaving the consumer sober again a few hours after taking the cannabinoids.

Physiological:

- If the artificial cannabinoids JWH-018 are used permanently over months or even years, it can lead to significant problems on the digestive system. Consumers of JWH-018 often report that they always have a weird kind of diarrhea. For them it seems like the research chemical JWH-018 avoids the digestive system to absorb the water from the stool.

- Through permanently consuming JWH-018 it is also reported to have stomach upsets often after taking a meal without any reason.

- One paradox side effects from using the cannabinoids is also the disappearing of appetite enhancement, it even seems to than produce some sort of appetite suppression. The consumers have sometimes even reported to have no appetite anymore at all.

If the already mentioned side effects from using cannabinoids JWH-018 occur, the most users stop using the research chemical and the body recovers within the coming 2 weeks. But remaining long term effects can still not be estimated. Some users who are stronger affected by addiction to the cannabinoids ignore these warning signals from the body and continue using the cannabinoids. If this is happening the side effects on the body can become far more critical:

- The consumer of the cannabinoids JWH-018 is quickly loosing body mass and weight, cause he nearly stops eating completely.

- Weakness and sometimes even blackouts occur, it is yet not clear if this comes from the pure aspect of not eating enough or if the consumption of cannabinoids JWH-018 has also a direct effect on this.

- The remaining effects of JWH-018 make the consumer instantly very tired, it is barely possible to do something else besides sleeping after consuming the cannabinoids.

- If the consumer still not stops the usage of cannabinoids, especially JWH-018, there comes a weird and quite alerting effect into play. The consumed dosage of JWH-018 starts to decrease again with every further consumption, cause the user starts to feel uncomfortable with higher dosages or better said with his normal dosage. Of course this could be a pure psychological side effect, but in most cases such side effects are a sign of an organ failure (which one is not known). A similar symptom exists with alcoholism, first the liver actions are increasing, once the liver broke down, these actions are decreasing again, but for sure that is than no sign of getting better.

- If JWH-018 and other cannabinoids from the research chemical group are smoked and not vaporized, there are decomposition compounds that are sometimes visible with the bare eyes. If you watch closely, you can see small black spines flying in the air after burning a higher dosage of JWH-018 and for sure these are also inhaled while smoking it. Of course after doing this for a while, these black spines from the cannabinoids start to gather in the lungs, the user than starts to barf up large amounts of deep black slime. Even if the consumption of cannabinoids or JWH-018 is than stopped completely, it can take 3 to 6 months before the user stops barfing up black slime. It is unknown how dangerous this can be, but in general every foreign matter in the lungs is harmful. And if these are gathering up in large amounts, like after taking cannabinoids daily, some further side effects could include: Decrease of the lungs function, sepsis (toxins in the bloodstream) and also cancer development.

Further Notes and Safer use:

The side effects from cannabinoids and JWH-018, which are described here are based on strong and long lasting consumption, but for the reasons of safety, the research chemical JWH-018 should never be smoked directly. So this means that the JWH-018 or better said any cannabinoids or research chemicals should ever get in touch with a flame, they always should only be vaporized, this way of using these at least ensures that no foreign matter is reaching your lungs.
No matter if it is just about JWH-018, research chemicals in general or cannabinoids, they never should be used on a daily base and also not as permanent replacement for natural cannabis. Occasional usage of JWH-018 doesn't seem to be related on many side effects, cause most of its side effects are based on long term usage or extreme dosing.

Further it has to be divided if JWH-018 is used as pure research chemical or in the form of incense blends. Incense blends commonly only contain a small percentage of the cannabinoids and therefore are more similar to cannabis: If the user reaches a certain point of tolerance, it is barely impossible to enhance the dosage any further. But if the user is taking the pure research chemicals, cannabinoids or JWH-018, it is an easy thing to enhance the dosage. Like you can find in many JWH-018 experience reports and also in mine on this website, a large JWH-018 dosage is set between 1-2 mg, but there are many daily users who report about using 200-300 mg of the pure research chemical JWH-018 with every consumption! This means the enhancement of the JWH-018 dosage is done by a factor of 150x.

Conclusions: The usage of incense blends instead of the pure cannabinoid JWH-018 is a bit less dangerous, cause less of the pure research chemicals is used. Further the tolerance development is limited to a certain extend. If using the pure cannabinoids, vaporize them and not smoke them.
No matter what you consume, do it occasionally to avoid critical side effects.

JWH-018 experience report

I used 2 mg of the pure cannabinoid JWH-018 for testing it. The trial with this research chemical went quickly into another directory than expected. It was planned to just vaporize the research chemical and than inhale the steam. But quickly the research chemical JWH-018 shown to not vaporize that easily, through the heat it only melted and without a proper vaporizer I had to go back to smoking it in a bong.

A small amount of tobacco was sprinkled with the cannabinoid JWH-018, the small amount of that research chemical was barely visible on the tobacco and disappeared nearly immediately as the flame hit the head of the bong. For sure this is not the best way to use this cannabinoid.

Through the small amount of the cannabinoid JWH-018, which had been sprinkled on the tobacco, there was no change in taste to recognize, also the smell coming from the pure substance JWH-018 was very minimal.

Since it was some time ago that I used any cannabis or cannabinoids, the JWH-018 developed a quite surprising strength of effects. Directly after smoking the bong there was nothing going on, the cannabinoid took around 3 minutes to come up. The coming up from that cannabinoid was rather heavy, after feeling the first effects it just took around 30 seconds to peak.

In that moment it felt like the first time I smoked cannabis, my eyes turned red, my brain felt like wrapped in cloth and all muscles within my body relaxed. But there was a quite distinct effect on the head coming from this research chemical. Regular cannabis also leads to laughter, at least at the early times of using it, but on the JWH-018 the whole world seemed to be laughable.

No matter if it was weird music from the radio or the usual crap that is running in the TV all day long, I had to laugh about everything. After around 45 minutes it seemed like the effects of the research chemical would begin to fade slowly and an extremely intense munchie attack was coming up. 90 minutes after smoking the cannabinoid the most effects seemed to be gone and I felt quite normal again, just a light afterglow was still present.

After around 3 hours of smoking the JWH-018 every afterglow was disappeared too. Compared to regular cannabis it was a quite pleasant experience, no long afterglow, a longer peak and somewhat more euphoria.

Unfortunately the cannabinoid JWH-018 is now banned in most countries, thus excluding any more research with this research chemical. Since it is banned in the USA and UK, we can not name any sources where this type of cannabinoids can be bought.

But one last note on this type of cannabinoids, anyone who is still able to get his hands on JWH-018 and is up to consuming it, should be very careful with the dosage. Even if there is a tolerance to natural cannabis, the JWH-018 is a totally different story and should be handled like any other drug that is consumed for the very first time. That means with a large amount of respect and care!

JWH-018 Informations

JWH-018 molecule

JWH-018 is most likely to be the most popular cannabinoids within the JWH family. JWH are the initials from the creator of these cannabinoids, John W. Huffman, the number 18 stands for the 18th cannabinoid he created. Even if JWH-018 is rated as cannabinoid, it has to be noted that this is based upon its pharmacological profile and not on the chemical similarities to the natural cannabinoid THC in its structure. The chemical name of the cannabinoid JWH-018 is 1-Pentyl-3-(-1-Naphtoyl)Indole.

All of the JWH cannabinoids had been developed to gain more knowledge about the cannabinoid receptors in the brain and how they work. That means, that the different JWH cannabinoids got different binding affinities on the CB1 and CB2 receptors, therefore the range of effects produced by these research chemicals differ greatly.

The pure research chemical JWH-018 is by far more potent than natural occurring THC, if the pure substance JWH-018 is smoked or vaporized, a dosage of 1-2 mg is sufficient to achieve very strong psychoactive effects. If the research chemical JWH-018 is used orally, than a dosage of 10-20 mg might be required to achieve strong effects.

JWH-018 gained its popularity through the legal high product range "Spice" and was through that one of the very first synthetic cannabinoids that reached the regular market. Meanwhile JWH-018 got banned in many countries, also in most parts of the USA, the UK, Germany and others. But even if JWH-018 was found in the herbal incense Spice, it was not the main ingredient of this herbal incense. That means in short, that the effects of Spice are different to the effects of the pure research chemical JWH-018.

Of course the effects of JWH-018 are compared to those of natural THC. Many users report that it is much easier with the research chemical JWH-018 to achieve unpleasant effects. This comes through several reasons, one of it is the fact that THC is only a partial agonist on the cannabinoid receptors. That means THC can only produce effects to a certain strength, while JWH-018 on the other hand is a full agonist on the cannabinoid receptor, therefore the effects of JWH-018 can grow much further and way more intense. Also the small JWH-018 dosage is often a problem, through that it often happens that it is overdosed by accident.

But what many users report as positive aspects coming from JWH-018 are the duration of effects and scale of effects. While the natural occurring cannabinoid THC often still has after effects 1-2 days after the last consumption, the research chemical JWH-018 is decomposed by the body. Through the decomposition of that cannabinoid, the effects of JWH-018 end after around 3-4 hours completely. When smoked the effects of these cannabinoids hit in within 1 to 3 minutes, the coming up is very rapid.

Since the JWH cannabinoids including JWH-018 have never been intended as medicine, there is a large lack of studies according the physiological and psychological side effects of these cannabinoids. The psychological side effects of these cannabinoids might be quite similar to those of natural THC, but the physiological ones are quite different, as the substance is decomposed by the body. Occasional users of artificial cannabinoids including JWH-018 often report about no experienced side effects, regular they only got positive aspects to report, since the cannabinoid has no long coming down and no long after effects. But daily users of cannabinoids who are using JWH-018 for several months or even years, report about several side effects including problems with the digestive systems like diarrhea. These side effects of that cannabinoid seem to fade 1-2 weeks after the last consumption. But the possible  harm to their health and the long term side effects of these cannabinoids can not be estimated.

JWH-018 1 gram of fine grained pure substance

It also happened quite often, that cannabinoids had been sold as JWH-018, but had a yellowish, red to brownish coloring. These cannabinoids had been tested and shown a decomposition through long or wrong storing of the research chemical. Depending on the amount that had been already decomposed, the discoloring had been more or less intense. Sure it also happened that cannabinoids had been sold as JWH-018 but proven to be some inactive other substance.