A thought came in my mind when I started analyzing their mechanism of action, and all the contradictions that come with it, not to mention that if you take too much just on its own it could kill you or at the very least severely harm you.

Now harmalas are atypical in their effects making them quite different than other MAOIs, reversible or irreversible, but this still doesn't make me question its safety profile less.

They fall into the category of anti-depressants, and anti-depressants in general have caused some pretty gnarly effects on people. In most cases doing way more harm than good.

Let's take ayahuasca for example. You have a compound that inhibits MAO causing you to inhibit the breakdown of serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine and on top of all that you add one of the most potent hallucinogens known to man.

This is some serious brain chemistry going on here, which in theory could mess your overall brain chemistry pretty bad and leave you worse off.

Since it is reversible, it is obviously safer than the irreversible ones that tend to do the same for a more prolonged time but it still doesn't seem quite as benign.

It isn't a releasing agent like cocaine, meth or MDMA but I would imagine once the effects wear off you are left with plummeted levels of monoamines making your levels of neurotransmitters lower than they were before you started out.

Doesn't sound good at all, and I'm seriously considering stopping using them altogether, in prolonging tryptamines or on their own. They seem to do more harm than good.

But! I would like to hear a second opinion too, do you guys consider harmalas safe when used correctly or is it just the necessary price you have to take introducing those nasty drugs if you want to prolong your experience with tryptamines?

I think they're actually safer than most think. I took Rue and Mimosa/Acacia daily/near daily for 4 years, and then kept taking the Rue/Harmalas for awhile longer, even 8 months straight with daily heavy Harmala dosages, never noticed any issue. It would actually take much more Harmalas than you could consume and keep down to reach toxic/harmful levels, you'd probably vomit it all back up before you could reach toxic/harmful levels. Also ime Harmalas seem to be more Serotonergic and possibly Noradrenergic, haven't particularly noticed much in the way of Dopamine from MAO-A inhibition, even mixed Mucuna/L-Dopa with Harmalas a few good times so far and haven't noticed any negative interactions or even potentiation iirc. I've also taken Moclobemide quite a bit on it's own and with DMT or Psilocin, never noticed any issue there either.

I think people just have this unnecessary fear surrounding MAO-A inhibition all thanks to pharmaceutical companies and their "MAOI's are dangerous" scare. Truth be told i think reversible MAO-A inhibition is pretty damn safe, safer than SSRI's that's for sure, and no dieting required.

Many things going on here.

First of all, you don't take harmalas twice a day for months or years as if you were taking antidepressants, it can be expected that any drug taken for such an extended period of time is going to significantly alter your brain chemistry and for a long period afterwards. Whether or not it is directly or indirectly. For example, opioids do not directly effect serotonin or dopamine, but you can be sure as hell these are going to change when go on or off the drugs.

Additionally, even if you were using it as an antidepressant, both the side effects and withdrawal effects of RIMA's are much more mild than that of SSRI. Two completely different things. I don't recommend anyone use any drug chronically without good reason.



This just demonstrates a poor understanding of pharmacology. When you take a drug, it doesn't effect ONE thing. Typically, it can have a higher affinity to one receptor more than others, but it will bind to dozens of receptors. On top of that, how it is metabolized in the body will also have an effect on other systems of endogenous neurotransmitters, and beyond that metabolites will also play a role. There are many layers of action going on here, drugs as we design them in medicine are incredibly primitive, and that is why they have so many undesirable side effects. Drugs in their action are far more complex than we can measure or understand.

For example, part of the effect of mescaline as a psychedelic, is that it acts as a pseudo-MAO inhibitor. It is substrate for MAO-B and is metabolized by it, when a certain dose of mescaline is achieved, MAO-B is 'saturated' and can no longer metabolize much of anything else until it is finished chewing on the mescaline. So this means, it will indirectly increase dopamine and serotonin through an MAOI effect, which is synergistic with mescaline's agonism. So there is little difference in what you described to what is going on here.

The jury is out on psychedelics, they have been demonstrated to be some of the safest drugs out there. Are they extremely powerful agents? Yes. Should you be taking them multiple times a week? No. And I have a feeling this is why you are asking the question. You don't need science to tell you that. That is common sense. An idiot and his grandmother could tell you that. Health problems from drug use, from even the most dangerous drugs, come from chronic abuse, not a one-time use.
So yeah, blasting yourself with serotogenic drugs multiple a week might actually be bad for you .

My use of psychedelics has ended up being more or less once or twice a year. I want to move towards less. The experiences are much more valuable in scarcity. But I try to exhaust every reason to not take them before I take them, there seems to be always a better reason to not take them. I don't really see it as something 'healthy', or even useful. More as something I do because I feel I still need to. And it is better than how I was living in addiction, but it still has characteristics of my addiction in many ways. I don't always make the right choices, I'm not perfect.
And on a side note, come on, tryptamines are nothing without harmalas.