Rauschanteil

Rauschanteil is a German term that literally means the portion of intoxication. In pharmacology and toxicology it is used informally to refer to the part of a substance’s overall effect that is responsible for intoxication or psychoactive effects, as opposed to therapeutic, nutritive, or other non-intoxicating effects. The term is not a standardized technical metric and does not denote a fixed percentage; its meaning depends on context, substance, and the method of assessment.

In usage, Rauschanteil can denote the relative psychoactive potency of a compound within a mixture or dose, or the fraction of an observed effect attributable to intoxication. For alcoholic beverages, ethanol is the primary psychoactive component; the concept might be used to discuss how other constituents of a beverage modulate the experience of intoxication, or how tolerance and metabolic factors alter the perceived intoxication for a given dose.

Measurement and estimation are inherently indirect. Researchers may relate subjective intoxication scales to dose, blood concentration, and time since intake, considering factors such as age, sex, body weight, genetics (for example, variants in alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase), concurrent drugs, and health status. In drug policy and labeling, the term is rarely formalized and more often replaced by general statements about psychoactive effects or intoxication risk.

Limitations include substantial interindividual variability and lack of standardization. Consequently, the Rauschanteil is a qualitative, context-dependent concept rather than a universally defined metric.

See also: intoxication, psychoactive substance, pharmacodynamics, tolerance, dose-response.