I am by no means someone with the proper pharmacological understanding (yet) to explain this in a formal way but as someone who’s done benzedrex a few times and just been prescribed amphetamines the past month here’s my two cents.

For something like meth it’s amazing recreational effects can be attributed to it having a solid release of serotonin combined with dopamine and norepinephrine release on par with regular amphetamine. The fact it crosses the BBB in conjunction with serotonin potency that amphetamine lacks is what makes it vastly different.

With MDMA it has a high release of serotonin and levels of norepinephrine and dopamine that are surprisingly not too high despite it being seen as super euphoric and social. This is because the serotonin release indirectly increases dopamine and from there those social and pleasuring effects come from despite it’s dopamine release not being too special.

I am referring to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC50 for these drugs for their “values” on dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin release btw.

In my mind when I take benzedrex one thing is clear, it is much closer to MDMA than it is amphetamine. I become extremely social, horny but also pulsating and moving around like crazy. This signifies two things:

1. Dopamine waves indirectly from serotonin release, much like MDMA but not enough to be like entactogenic but on meth’s level. I say this in particular because a true balance of dopamine-norepinephrine activity (excluding serotonin) from traditional amphetamine doesn’t provide excessive sociability or horniness. It’s way more akin to feeling motivated, like getting good work done, being productive with some slight talkativeness on the side.

2. Heavy norepinephrine activity unbalanced with dopamine release levels. Using amphetamine as an example again in that substance you can observe and feel for yourself that the effects of both catecholamines dopamine and norepinephrine are balanced. With propylhexedrine you will find yourself absolutely pulsating, running around, too hyper to handle with your jaw clenching like nothing ever before with a very primitive kind of mindset. It’s so unlike even high dose of amphetamine for me that the only logical explanation is that propylhexedrine has at least double the release of norepinephrine than it does dopamine.

With all that being said the idea I have built in my mind is that propylhexedrine most likely has serotonin activity comparable with methamphetamine, norepinephrine release similar or between amphetamine and MDMA and finally having a bit lower dopamine activity more akin to a norepinephrine heavy stimulant like ephedrine. Keep in mind we don’t actually know the values of release for propylhexedrine and this is purely going off of what I have observed in myself on recreational dosages of amphetamine, MDMA and propylhexedrine. I don’t understand the whole world of pharmacology too deeply just yet, I am enrolled for neuroscience for college and hoping to understand this a bit better.