It’s been, I don’t know, at least a year I’d
think since my experimentation with GVL. The company that supplied the material then is not in business now.
However, a Google search for:
“gamma valerolactone” kosher
gives a company I would try. I expect
there are other suppliers as well, omitting “kosher” from the search, if this
company will not sell to individuals, as might
be the case. (I hope this company will not be flooded with requests now…)
My colleague pointed out to me a J Med Chem article (which I should have known about myself but as it happened I didn’t) reporting that gamma-hydroxyvalerate (GHV) binds to the GHB receptor and shows GHB-like activity. He wished for me to make GHV for him but I declined since I felt it could be considered to be a designer drug, being an analogue to GHB which at that time was Schedule I, drugs of which schedule you cannot legally make derivatives or analogues of with the same activity. (I believe GHB has since been reclassified as Schedule III, making it acceptable to produce analogues or derivatives with the same activity.)
However I reasoned that most likely the lactone (GVL) would serve as a prodrug
to the hydroxycarboxylic acid (GHV) in the same manner that GBL does to GHB and suggested that this be tried. It worked.
The rate of conversion appears limited and
so it cannot achieve the same depth of effect that GHB can. In my own case it is able to be a strong relaxant, but cannot produce a state that one might call “stoned.”
And yes, as I said, it does have a long duration of action.
And I wasn’t kidding that overdose can
result in a duration of action of days:
by mistake I experienced this myself. (I
was aware beforehand that GVL had been proven
safe even in quite large amounts and this apparently led me to be less careful regarding dosing than
I ordinarily would be, and I wound up making
a quite stupid mistake, taking very many times the intended dose. The duration of effect was I think three days.)
While no one else at Biotest was enthused
about the use of it as a relaxant supplement product, personally I thought the effect could be ideal for, say, stressed-out soccer moms to take in the morning so as to be mellowed out during the day, and the effect wearing off in the evening. However, I did have concerns about abuse potential so actually there was no one who really thought we ought to go ahead with it (either because of thinking it was not good enough, which was everyone else’s opinion, or this concern, which was my opinion.)
Do they work in a similar manner, or on a similar part of the body? How different do they feel, I’ve used GBL and GHB for workout recovery(before bed) and as an alternative to alcohol, so is it just a more mild version? Thanks in advance.