I'm no expert, just a person who went through the ordeal of tapering off Effexor; I trial-and-errored the methods and followed the advice/suggestions of others who quit Effexor.

Removing beads from the capsules to taper may not be recommended by the manufacturer, but frankly, folks trying to get off this drug don't have a lot of options.

Folks who took beads out of their venlafaxine capsules had capsules that contained many, many teeny beads (I was on a solid tablet and never took capsules, but imagined the beads to be similar to the nonpareils on chocolates, or mint candies). You're the first person who has described a capsule with just three "mini tablets" inside. Your pharmacist (I would consider such a person an expert) said you could open your capsules and take the mini beads out. I would only suggest that you further split the mini beads to make additional steps between 37.5, 25 and 12.5 mg—a more gradual taper is usually more successful.