Some science behind the scenes
Drug sensitivity
It is well known within the ‘recreational’ drug community that different people require different 'doses' to achieve the same effect. Age, sex and weight have an effect, but here we might be able to produce charts to provide some sort of differentiator between people.
But it can be more complex, because personality too has a big impact.
One thing that has been noticed is that the highly sensitive, the gentle and pliant need very very little of a drug for it to have an effect – in fact often they are far better avoiding drugs altogether and going for gentler methods.
The ‘macho’, ‘male’ character with a strong ego and constitution can usually take larger doses and it can have fewer side effects.
This is not a placebo effect, it is an actual effect and it makes our use of pharmaceuticals for all something of an oddity. There may be quite a number of people for whom pharmaceuticals are not only not going to work, but are going to make very ill.
Ludlow, himself a very heavy hasheesh user, noticed this as far back as the 1800s
The Hasheesh Eater – Fitz Hugh Ludlow
Several of my intimate associates applied to me for the means of experimentally gratifying their curiosity upon the subject, and to some of them, as favourable opportunities presented themselves, I administered hasheesh, remaining by their side during the progress of the effects.
In no other experience can difference of temperament, physical and mental produce such varieties of phenomena; nowhere can we attain so well defined an idea of this difference...............
[and then about one of his experimenters]
Impulsive, enthusiastic in his affections, generous to a fault; excitable, fond of queer researches and romantic ventures, there is no other cognomen which would so typify him as to give more than a shadowy image of his constitution – none which would so incarnate him as not to leave some elbow of his inner being sticking out in the improper place. It is not surprising that a person of his temperament found much in the hasheesh condition that was strikingly attractive
This rather implies that who you are has a very very big impact on what effect chemicals have.
Most women and men of a sensitive disposition may be better avoiding drugs altogether - whether pharmaceuticals or 'recreational' drugs and concentrating entirely on suppression based mechanisms whether this is for healing or to gain inspiration or wisdom.