[samhw]

Yeah, a genius heroin addict friend of mine drew a molecular structure for a new opioid[0] on the back of a napkin and sent it off to a synthetic chemist in China to be synthesised. To my infinite horror I actually tried a dose of what came back, at the same time as he took his dose, and in the recommended (high!) dosage of what I think was a decent chunk of a gramme. Luckily it worked. I can well see how someone could have the confidence to try something as mild as ibuprofen.

[0] Or pseudo-opioid, I'm not sure. He's a biologist and I'm not a natural scientist at all. All I recall is that it was a positive allosteric modulator of the mu opioid receptor, which, by and large, may as well be Greek to me.

[mtlmtlmtlmtl]

Pseudo-opioid sounds right to me. Typically opioids are agonists at MOR, i.e activate the receptor on their own. Whereas a PAM binds to a separate binding site, and increases the effect of binding by the endogenous neurotransmitter(hence it positively modulates it).

How the increased effect actually happens depends on the receptor and can get pretty complicated so I won't go into it since I'd have to google quite a bit.

[krispyfi]

I'm pretty sure the Hamilton Morris podcast would like to interview your friend. Anonymously, of course. https://www.patreon.com/HamiltonMorris