Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 7:03 AM 
 
 click to enlarge Shulgin, left, via Charlie Llewellin/Flickr 
 
 Before Pihkal, we had a real good relationship with the DEA. They have few people they can talk to who are on the other side of the fence who are honest. 
 
 click to enlarge Shulgin in younger days via Lorenzo Tlacaelel/Flickr 
 
 Sasha Shulgin died at 5pm this afternoon. He was a psychedelic chemist, a visionary, and a cognitive liberty advocate. He was also a dear friend, mentor, and role model to Earth & me (Fire). 
 
 
 
 We were lucky to know him. 
 
 He spent three decades synthesizing new psychedelic drugs in his California backyard lab, and he was credited with creating more than 100 previously unknown psychoactive compounds, but he was best known for a drug he didn't invent:Ecstasy.Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, who in the 1970s rescued the circa-1912 pharmaceutical from obscurity by suggesting it would be viable for mental therapy, died yesterday at the age of 88, the organization Erowid announced:The former Dow Chemical Co. research chemist synthesized drugs with the approval of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which gave him a license to analyze narcotics so that he could be an expert witness.He said he invented more than 150 drugs while he also worked a day job as a scientific consultant after leaving Dow.The Bay Area resident was of particular use in cases where the compounds were exotic or rare: Few "designer drugs" appeared to be outside his expertise and, often, he was their inventor."A lot of the materials in Schedule I are my invention," Shulgin once told us. "I'm not sure if it's a point of pride or a point of shameThe booksandcataloged Shulgin's recipes. But after this reporter profiled Shulgin in the Los Angeles Times the DEA got cold feet about the arrangement.Wife Ann told us back then that the souring had been a few years in the making:The feds' objections were too late, though, and the chemist became an icon just as the rave scene - particularly massive in L.A. - adopted the tactile, feel-good drug as its own."I still haven't found anything like it to this day," Shulgin told us in '95.Ecstasy was outlawed by the federal government in 1985 , after it had already become somewhat of a club drug in Dallas and beyond.Shulgin moved on to other compounds, trying each one himself or allowing trusted friends to partake for research purposes."Inventing new psychoactive drugs," Ann said to us, "is like composing new music."One drug that Shulgin called 5-TOM had a paralyzing effect, he said. But he wasn't afraid. He believed it was all worth it in the name of human discovery. And he wanted drugs like ecstasy legalized.Erowid said Shulgin had been "battling various illnesses" for several years and was recently diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. He had a stroke in 2010, the organization said.In announcing his death, Erowid described him this way: Send feedback and tips to the author. Follow Dennis Romero on Twitter at @dennisjromero . Follow LA Weekly News on Twitter at @laweeklynews ||||| Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, psychedelic pioneer, RIP 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, maverick chemist, psychedelic pioneer, and inspiring human being, died yesterday at 88 years old. Sasha is best known for popularizing MDMA (Ecstasy) and introducing it to the psychological community, and synthesizing hundreds of new psychoactive chemicals that he first tested on himself. His scientific research is detailed in a huge output of papers and books including the seminal tomes TIHKAL and PIHKAL, co-authored with his wife and research partner Ann Shulgin. 
 
 
 
 
 
 As Sasha once said, everyone deserves "the license to explore the nature of his own soul." 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sasha, you will be missed, and rest-assured the research will continue. ||||| It's quite a trip to visit maverick pharmacologist Dr Alexander Shulgin and his collaborator and wife, Ann, at their rustic home in California. It is a warm secluded place far from the UK's current controversy over drugs, fuelled by newspaper campaigns to legalise cannabis backed by Richard Branson, by Kevin Williamson's book Drugs And The Party Line (a scathing attack on drugs policy printed on hemp) and the Scotland Against Drugs campaign. 
 
 Sasha Shulgin, as he introduces himself, is the proud godfather of Ecstasy, the hit drug of so many raves. A respected chemist, his relationship with the substance started surprisingly long ago, in the 1970s, when a colleague sent him the 1912 German patent for what was then a little-known drug called methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). He synthesised and tested the orphan compound - Merck, the drug company, had never used it commercially - and has been raving about it ever since. Three years ago, for example, it was Sasha's expert testimony that led Spanish authorities to categorise it as one of the least harmful drugs. 
 
 Sasha has invented about a hundred other mind-altering substances, no mean feat since there may only be around 200 synthetics out there, not counting nature's own hallucinogens - magic mushrooms, peyote cacti, toad venom and the red beans of the Arizona and New Mexico Indians, among others. And for decades Sasha, 72, and Ann, a 66-year-old writer and researcher originally from New Zealand, have also imbibed psychedelics. In the name of science, they have taken assiduous notes on their trips, especially the benefits, ranging from increased self-awareness, compassion or spirituality to relaxation and great sex. 
 
 Indeed their 'Farm,' as they jokingly call the shambolic place, has been the site of years of radical group research. After they had worked up a new mind-expanding compound, they would bring in eight or so fellow believers - from physicians to psychologists, scientists to businessmen - to test it and record their reactions. Until recently, however, the Shulgins were barely known beyond the world of government-controlled psycho-pharmacology. 
 
 Their white wooden home, with a panoramic view to the east, sits atop the dry hills that stretch inland from the college town of Berkeley. Suburban drivers whiz down the four-lane road at the end of narrow Shulgin Road, so named because Sasha's family has owned the land since leaving Russia 50-odd years ago. 
 
 For more than 15 years, Sasha held a rare government licence allowing him to study and synthesise illegal drugs. He has testified as an expert on both sides of drug trials and wrote the classic reference book on US law and drugs, Controlled Substances: Chemical And Legal Guide To Federal Drug Laws. Then, six years ago, and to the dismay of the authorities, the Shulgins declared their love of psychedelics and belief that all drugs should be legal. 
 
 Adamant that their life's work should never disappear, they published a landmark book, the 1,000-page, oddly-titled Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story. The acronym stands for Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved, and refers to a drug family that includes Sasha's beloved and already-illegal Ecstasy or MDMA. It contains recipes for 180 mind-bending chemicals and notes on the 'highs', often with artistic references and Ann's Jungian take on experience. Pihkal gained a cult readership, although the recipes are gobbledygook for amateurs. In its third print run, it has sold more than 21,000 copies, which is remarkable for a self-published book. 
 
 The Shulgins are now in the news again. To the fury of drug officials on both sides of the Atlantic, they have just published a second book, Tihkal: The Continuation, which covers the 'tryptamines' from toad venom and magic mushrooms to LSD. In the first month, they sold 3,500 copies through their Transform Press in Berkeley, a figure boosted by a rave review in New York's Village Voice. At a certain point, they say they will simply publish it on the Internet as they did with Pihkal. Their aim is not to make money but to release the psychedelic genie from the bottle by disseminating their know-how irreversibly. They give copies out, only asking you to pass them on to others who might be interested. 'It can't be exterminated now,' says Sasha. 
 
 Perhaps it's not surprising that the late Timothy Leary said the Shulgins are among the century's most important scientists. And Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, is a friend with whom Sasha co-wrote the introduction to a 1977 book on hallucinogens by Aldous Huxley entitled Moksha, from the Hindu term for spiritual awakening. 
 
 Drug-induced states, argue Sasha and Ann, are so intrinsic to human nature that the use of intoxicants such as tobacco, opium, cannabis, coffee or alcohol can be traced back to the dawn of time. They advocate legalising all drugs, addictive or not. It should be a matter for personal choice, they say, something that is taxed but as available as tobacco and booze. Drug-related crime would drop, drug-fighting money would be saved and drug use might even fall without the attraction of illicitness. The only laws needed, Sasha says, would be to prevent people driving when high, drugging someone else without their permission, or giving substances to children. Drug users who get into trouble should be helped, not treated like criminals, adds Ann, as are people addicted to valium or alcohol. 
 
 Shulgin with his wife Ann at their home in Lafayette, California, USA in 2002. Photograph: Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns 
 
 Has this argument become truly prophetic, a much-needed scientifically-informed salvo in a one-sided debate? Perhaps spiritual awakening, relaxation and chemical freedom should be within everyone's grasp, especially since life is so harsh. Or is the Shulgins' view well-intentioned but irresponsible - a sort of heroin chic for middle-class libertarians, another take on Andre Breton's 'derangement of the senses' from two utterly charming but idiosyncratic advocates? After all William Burroughs, trying to kick junk, tracked down the psychedelic 'ayahuasca' in South America in the hopes of substituting a new addiction. The 'yage' ceremonies were like night-long raves. But he later asked if dropping acid is like opening a door: once you've found it why keep reopening it over and over again? On a sunny afternoon, Sasha and Ann serve sandwiches and cake on their patio. In the middle of the table, next to the potato salad, is a Bolivian cactus growing in a pot. It's hallucinogenic rather than decorative, something you learn is true of almost every plant within a stone's throw of their house. 
 
 Sasha's pharmaceutical calling came in, of all places, Liverpool. Two decades before the psychedelia of the 1960s, his epiphany was nothing to do with the Beatles' Yellow Submarine or Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds. He was in the US navy and had been whisked to hospital for an emergency operation. 'Goofed up' on Royal Navy rum, morphine and a barbiturates, he says he was given orange juice and was so convinced he was being re-drugged, he fell unconsciousness for too long. 'It was the ultimate placebo effect,' he recalls excitedly. 'I got interested in how you can modify the mind, how you can find out what's going on.' For years, Sasha worked as a scientist at Dow Chemical, although he had taken a psychedelic, mescaline, back in the 1950s. 'I saw colours I had never seen before,' he says. 
 
 Ann, who experimented with mescaline-laced peyote at around the same time, adds: 'It opens up doors you wouldn't even know were there otherwise. It was a very extraordinary, sacred experience - everything you look at is infused with light.' On the way to Sasha's laboratory, he points out an acacia tree with psycho-active bark - DMT, often the source for an intoxicating snuff in the Caribbean and South America - and a mint used by Mexican Indians that he says often gives the user an 'out of body' or astral experience. 
 
 His lab is cobweb-entangled and autumn leaves are piled in the corners. Drawers are crammed with beakers and test-tubes. On the wall near an old fireplace is a Voodoo doll Sasha says he uses to invoke a certain copper reaction. 
 
 What about bad trips? I ask 'Oh, they're real,' he replies. 'Even in the research group, we'd have idiosyncratically-sensitive people.' Once, a friend became temporarily paralysed on one of Sasha's creations, 5-TOM. 'A pretty heavy-duty experience,' says PIHKAL. 'The consensus is that it wasn't worth the struggle.' The war on drugs, he says, is a waste of money, more to do with political control, profit-making and fear of the unknown than medical or social concerns. 'Is MDMA a dangerous drug?' he fumes. 'It's been used so much in the UK, and there's been one death in a million.' 'Recreational' heroin at your local off-licence? 'It's highly addictive, but perhaps not quite as much as tobacco,' he says. 
 
 Think about recreation, says Ann. 'Re-creation. Young people grow up in big cities, they have to be so street-wise and untrusting. At a rave, that can drop away, leaving a sense of sharing and commitment with people they just met.' As if on cue, one of their fellow researchers drops by. Tony Sargent is a retired chemist who used to run radiology experiments at the respected Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He's now a wine-maker, and is dressed with a casual conservatism- quite a contrast to Sasha with his Einstein hair and baggy ethnic-patterned shirt. They talk about psychedelics and how pharmacologists used to describe them as creating a temporary psychosis. Sasha is recalling a scan on the brain activity of schizophrenics, or 'schitzies' as he calls them. But surely you can't liken taking a drug voluntarily to a psychosis that can condemn someone to a life of isolation? Later, Ann will announce that a new crate of cacti has arrived. One of the Shulgins' means of staying ahead of the authorities is to work with psycho-active substances that are not yet categorised or outlawed. They are preparing their third book, tentatively called Qihkal, the 'Q' standing for quinolines, the hallucinogenic substance in cacti. Since many of the plants originate in Central or South America, they are not properly classified by Western botanists let alone pharmacologists. 
 
 A few days later, we talk on the phone. The Shulgins are excited about reports from a forum for police on 'more pragmatic approaches' to substance abuse at the conservative Hoover Institution, at Stanford University. Former Secretary of State George Shultz and Nobel economist Milton Friedman had told the police that America's war on drugs is a failure that has led to massive, cruel imprisonment, inner-city destruction and widespread drug gangs that thrive on high profits and violence. 
 
 For all their shamanistic talk, the Shulgins have experienced the war on drugs first-hand. Twice in 1994, US agents searched their home and lab, in part because drug officials were livid about the publication of Pihkal. Unable to halt the Shulgins' books because of the First Amendment, the authorities instead fined them Dollars 25,000 and made Sasha relinquish his drug-handling licence. 
 
 They might have had cold feet sooner had they known his dedication. Sasha estimates he has popped 200 or so psychedelics not of his own invention. And he has invented 100 or so psychedelics, some potent enough to get street credibility or to be used by maverick psychotherapists - 2C-B, DOM or STP, the now-illegal DOB and DOI. Ethical and sincere in his beliefs, Sasha tried them first on himself, as did Hofmann with LSD and Salk with the polio vaccine. With a subversive-sounding chuckle, he makes a final charming quip: 'Oh, so many drugs and so little time.' So little time indeed, and there must quite a few out there who wish his calling were inventing a vaccine for Aids. ||||| Alexander Shulgin and the author. 
 
 A collage entitled Psychedelic Cuddle by Shulgin enthusiast William Rafti. Rafti also designs tattoos and blotter art. 
 
 1 
 
 1 A place where, I have a feeling, he has “tasted” many a psychedelic with various captains of industry. According to one friend, he was spotted offering to teach the head of Boeing “a new way to fly.” 
 
 π 
 
 π 
 
 π 
 
 2 
 
 2 “Fungi,” “fungus,” and “funguses,” with special attention paid to the variant pronunciations of “fungi”—“fun-gee” and “fun-guy.” It should be noted these questions come from a man who published a two-page editorial in the Journal of Clinical Toxicology dedicated to how irksome it is when people incorrectly pluralize the word “amphetamine.” The implication being that this grammatical error is the most heinous amphetamine abuse of all. So please, in the future remember Adderall contains amphetamine, not amphetamines. 
 
 A friendly reminder to the DEA should they try to harass Shulgin. 
 
 3 
 
 3 Shulgin’s first chemical modification to the mescaline molecule was the addition of a single carbon atom to the ethylamine side chain, which produced an amphetamine called TMA. From there he developed TMA-2 through TMA-6. They became moderately popular psychedelics in Japan and the US, and TMA-6 remains an unscheduled substance. Shulgin enjoyed TMA-6, although he felt “toasting the toast in the toaster was difficult.” 
 
 Inside the Pyrex jungle. 
 
 4 
 
 4 Shulgin created a series of sulfur-containing psychedelic amphetamines named after the Hebrew letter א . ALEPH-1 was the first. True to his method of vigilant titration, his first dose was 250 nanograms. Over the course of 18 trials he worked up to a single milligram. It detonated an intellectual hydrogen bomb in his prefrontal cortex. 
 
 A shelf of reagents, solvents, and a large jar of piperonal—one precursor for MDA. 
 
 5 
 
 5 2C-B is the archetypal Shulgin psychedelic. It possesses all the qualities he searched for throughout his carrier. 2C-B is potent, warm, corporeal, associative, shows no signs of physical toxicity, and has a short duration, ideal for psychotherapy. It is also extremely “erotic.” Shulgin said, “If there is anything ever found to be an effective aphrodisiac, it will probably be patterned after 2C-B in structure.” It was, unfortunately, made illegal after a brief stint as a legal sex enhancer and widespread distribution under the name Ubulawu Nomathotholo by South African shamans (an incredible story for another time). 
 
 The author touching a specimen of Trichocereus bridgesii forma monstrose, aka the penis cactus. It was very “erotic.” 
 
 It’s never easy to say goodbye. 
 
 I love Alexander Shulgin. I’ve loved him from the first moment I read about him. He is my idol, my hero, my sun, my O2. I love each of the 978 pages of his phenethylamine magnum opus,), and every milligram of his 1.13-kilogram tryptamine treatise,). Above my bed I’ve pinned a large picture of Shulgin cuddling with his wife, Ann. I often sleep with a copy ofnot under my pillow, buta pillow. He is the grandfather of Ecstasy, the molecular magician, the atomic conquistador. Over the span of 50 years he has created more new psychedelic drugs than the Amazon jungle ever has. He is more of a mythological creature, a chemical centaur, than he is a real person. But he does exist, as I am about to attest.After years of preparation I called the Shulgin residence, ostensibly for an interview. It was the sort of call that you prepare for by jotting down an index card’s worth of dialogue. The type of event that requires careful pre-call meditative deep breathing, positive affirmation, autohypnotic closed-eye success visualizations, and as many as five throat clears. I somehow managed to dial the number and, while I listened to the ring-back chirp two-second bursts of perfectly overlapping sinusoidal waves followed by four-second stretches of exophthalmic silence and yet another sinusoidal ring-back tone, my nose actually began towith anticipation. The call was answered by Ann.We had a conversation; she called me “honey,” which I enjoyed tremendously, and unexpectedly had a New Zealand accent. Ann told me that Sasha (Shulgin’s friends call him this) no longer grants interviews—he’s conserving his limited energy to finish his last book and work in the lab. After hearing this, I carefully explained that I did not specifically require an interview. I just wanted a meeting, an informal conversation. Eventually it was decided that I could visit for a few hours before an electrocardiogram appointment. She reminded me that he really does not give interviews anymore and if my meeting with him were to turn into one, it would be his last. I was elated.Although Alexander Shulgin is not exactly a household name, he is unquestionably the most important psychedelic chemist who has ever lived. Those who do know of him are usually only familiar with his role in the rediscovery and popularization of MDMA. But MDMA is just one of 100-plus unique chemicals that compose Shulgin’s pharmacopeia, which extends so far into the unknown that he often has to invent new terms to describe the effects (“eye romp” is one of my favorites). The drugs are selective auditory and tactile hallucinogens, psychedelics that dilate time or send the user into a state of amnesiac confusion, antidepressants, aphrodisiacs, stimulants, empathogens, entactogens, neurotoxins, and at least one very profitable insecticide. They are also some of the most valuable medicines known to man, and although only a fraction of them have been formally studied, they are the best tools we have for understanding the chemical composition of the human mind.Shulgin’s career started at the Dow Chemical Company, where he made a name for himself synthesizing Zectran, the first biodegradable insecticide. After this success he was given freedom to work on chemicals of his choosing. He chose psychedelics and went on to create an amphetamine called DOM, which at the time was second only to LSD in potency. A single large dose could last a solid 48 hours. In 1967, Brooklynite chemist Nick Sand realized the drug’s market potential. He built an industrial laboratory in San Francisco where he cooked DOM in a 150-gallon soup vessel and sold it by the kilo to the Hells Angels, who rode across America unleashing tens of thousands of excessively potent 20-mg DOM tablets on the public. The influx caused hordes of hippies to freak out at the Golden Gate Park Human Be-In.Meanwhile, less than a block from Tompkins Square Park, the NYPD busted down the door of a psychedelic chapel called the Church of the Mystifying Elation in an early-morning raid. Police seized $8 million worth of psychedelics, including 1,500 doses of DOM, two marijuana plants, and “numerous mattresses.” Stories of emergency-room DOM freak-outs abounded in the press; one user in Manhattan ingested a dose and ritualistically performed seppuku, disemboweling himself with a samurai sword on Mother’s Day. At this point the drug was still largely unidentified and was alternately reported in theto be a relative of a secret military nerve gas or as the “caviar of psychedelic drugs.” Eventually it was realized that DOM was the product of legitimate pharmaceutical research conducted by a then-unnamed chemist at Dow. Unsurprisingly, this made Dow very unhappy. Once the source was identified, Shulgin’s ties to the company were severed.Free from Dow, Shulgin set up a personal laboratory in his backyard and began researching drugs with complete independence and with the realization that the chemicals he created had the potential to find their way into the heads of at least 1 million people. He tested each new compound personally and, if he deemed it worthy, on his wife and friends, with a special emphasis on the sex-enhancing properties of psychedelics (or as he calls it, “the erotic”). Over the course of 50 years, he completed the most exhaustive examination of psychedelic structures ever accomplished and manufactured an array of drugs that rivals the output of many large pharmaceutical companies. All the while he has maintained his sanity and gentlemanly composure by playing the viola, teaching university classes, and attending elite soirees at Bohemian Grove.When I arrived at Shulgin’s home in Lafayette, California, he was peacefully sitting at the kitchen table. I walked through the sliding glass door, greeted him, and then embraced him, which produced a euphoria far greater than that of MDMA and a time dilation more profound than the effects of 2C-T-4. We disengaged and, without pause, he began to riddle me: “Can you name the two words in the English language that begin with two consecutive a’s?”I thought for a moment before answering, “Aardvark is one…”“Yes, good, and the other?”“I don’t know, I can’t think of another.”He bent down his head and said in a low whisper, “.”“Aardwolf?” I asked, and with that he had already risen from his chair and shuffled into the hallway to retrieve a giant yellow dictionary, which he dropped onto the kitchen table and pushed toward me. Sure enough, it’s there, and on his prompt I read the definition aloud:-'wu·lf·-lvz [Affric, fr.earth + wolf; akin to OEwolf–more at WOLF]a hyenalike quadruped of South Africa having a striped coat, five-toed forefeet, and a distinct mane, feeds chiefly on carrion and insects (as termites), and is usu. placed in thethough formerly separated in another family ().an (extremely) unexpected nonpsychedelic-related thing, which confuses me [see more at I’M NOT PREPARED FOR THIS].“OK,” Shulgin said, satisfied. “We’ve solved that problem. But now, for example, do you know what a lowena is?”“No, what’s that?” I asked credulously.“It’s the opposite of a highena.”“Aha!” I urinated a microliter in my pants and changed the subject. “I brought you a peach pie. Would you like a slice?”He answered the question with another question: “How many numbers are to the right of the decimal point in?”“Just one.” I had nervously confused right and left, but Shulgin immediately adjusted his line of questioning.“OK, so what is the value of? 3.14159265… But how many numbersappear in front of the decimal point inor in any rational number?”“Potentially an infinite amount of numbers.”“Right, and how large is this infinity?”“Excuse me?”“Howis this?”“That’s a difficult question to answer,” I replied.“I’ll give you another question and let you do a comparison: How many numbers are there to the right of the decimal point? One? An infinite number? Not only an infinite number but an infinitely larger infinite number.”“How can? OK, wait…”From there on our conversation wound through similar territory. We spoke mostly in riddles, including but not limited to numerical palindromes, hyphenated palindromes (or the lack thereof), SI units of mass with an emphasis on the femtogram, words that begin with the letterand words that begin with the sound, the ambiguities of cactus identification, the correct pluralization of the word “fungus” (of which there are three variations and four pronunciations), and an analysis of the peach pie I brought as a hypothetical new psychedelic drug (5-MeO-PEACHPIE). I was asked to calculate an appropriate portion for my first taste. After extrapolating data from its closest analog (5-MeO-APPLEPIE), we decided on a one-femtogram slice (for safety reasons). Then he put his sandals on over his black socks, picked up his silver cane, and asked, “Should we go to the lab?”Before we left, Ann brought out a large, frosty pitcher of strawberry lemonade. I had to remind myself that this was Ann Shulgin—the woman who pioneered the practice of MDMA psychotherapy—who in this very house, perhaps in this room, used MDMA and 2C-B to treat everything from nitrous-oxide addiction to demonic possession (or, technically, postexorcism demonic harassment), often with patients finding themselves cured in ways that years of conventional talk therapy could have only begun to remedy. I sipped some of her lemonade, gazed past their Huichol yarn paintings through a window that perfectly framed the two-humped Mount Diablo, and sighed. “I hope you don’t mind my using my bare hands,” Ann said as she dropped additional ice cubes into my glass. “Not at all,” I said. I wouldn’t have minded if the ice cubes were dropped into my cup with her bare feet.After sipping and savoring some lemonade, I took a nystagmic walk down the hall and entered the bathroom. The wallpaper’s lattice of black diamonds is the very same pattern that reached out and shook Shulgin’s hand during the first trials of TMA-6.As I stood over the powder-blue toilet attempting to pee, I pondered the contents of his septic tank—a pharmacokinetic treasure trove, which undoubtedly contains the world’s most diverse collection of psychedelic urinary and fecal metabolites!Even Shulgin’s modestly sized burgundy terrycloth hand towels and wintergreen mouth rinse demanded my attention. I could hardly pee.I left the bathroom to find Shulgin waiting in the backyard. We walked down the glittering stone path to his laboratory. The sun was shining through the leaves, casting shadows on his gargantuan collection of psychedelic cacti, including an enviable(a spineless phalliformic mescaline cactus, also known as the penis plant). We passed a coiled garden hose, which Shulgin once notionally unraveled while testing the effects of ALEPH-1, and crossed over a small metal bridge as the lab became visible. Overgrown with vines, it was a patchwork cottage of corrugated metal and plastic that emanated the sharp, musty scent of DMT. As he opened the door, he exclaimed, “Ho-ho-ho!”The lab was a Pyrex jungle, a barrage of borosilicate, a bevy of beakers, a bouquet of burettes, all manner of vulcanized rubber bung. Desiccation bells, pinned butterflies, and mason jars crammed with a slurry of what I could only guess were pickled mushrooms. Pressed behind a sheet of glass were three blades of ryegrass infected with deep purple fingers of, the fungal precursor to LSD and the mold responsible for the medieval scourge of Saint Anthony’s Fire. On his blackboard was a diagram of a yet-to-be-synthesized molecule, which I recognized as 3,4-MD-4-methylaminorex—a derivative of the highly euphoric psychostimulant 4-methylaminorex that, in the mid-80s, attained cult-drug status under the name U4E-uh. Beneath the molecular diagram was the simple caption “MAKE ME!”There was a collection of round-bottomed flasks on the table, each containing a small scab of impure tryptamine crust. One flask was labeled 5-MeO-MALT, another 5-MeO-NALT. Shulgin began to explain, “DALT is the first one—it’s the diallyl—and the methylallyl is MALT. Then EALT and then,” he puckered his lips and pushed out a plosive, “PALT and iso-PALT and so forth. 5-MeO-DALT was an active compound, so I’m pursuing that line further. Usually they wait about four years after I get something out that becomes popular, and then they make it illegal. But I sent the synthesis for 5-MeO-DALT to a friend. He put it on the internet, and one month later it was synthesized in China and sent via Europe to this country. Now it’s available on the street!”A bit of background on that statement: On May 24, 2004, Shulgin sent an email to a psychonaut named Murple regarding the synthesis and effects of 5-MeO-DALT. He formatted the description in the style of aentry and said that it would be included in his forthcoming book. That same day, Murple posted the 5-MeO-DALT synthesis on his personal website. On June 25, it became openly available from a gray-market laboratory for $200 per gram. On September 25, 2004, three months after the chemical hit the market, the first-recorded 5-MeO-DALT overdose occurred when a Floridian user accidentally ingested 225 mg (more than 11 times the maximum dose Shulgin tested) in the midst of Hurricane Jeanne. He survived the experience and shared numinous insights such as “Ozzy and the like do not mix well at all with this substance.”If Shulgin whispers even a word of praise about a new drug, it is almost guaranteed to traverse international borders within a few months. If someone dies after taking one of these substances, there will be irresponsible media coverage, public outrage, and hurried scheduling by various drug-enforcement agencies. The UK went so far as to ban the entire roster of drugs presented inin a single act. Despite his detractors, Shulgin firmly believes that his research must remain openly available for educational purposes—whether it’s DEA officers or DXM addicts. But there is one instance where Shulgin deemed his chemical revelations too enlightening for public consumption. While testing an amphetamine he christened ALEPH-1, he wrote in his notebook, “Tell NO ONE about this drug so that it can never be identified and there can be no moves made to destroy it… Persisting in scientific publication in all peripheral areas as subterfuge, diversion. Keep all progressive work in my appendices. Code them ‘SH’—too informative.” It was “too informative” because Shulgin believes ALEPH-1 is the “essence of power”and if the DEA discovered it they would attempt to destroy it. When I asked him whether he has ever felt that way since, he quickly said, “No, you must publish.” But part of me wonders whether there is in fact a special notebook labeled “SH” stashed away somewhere on a cobwebbed shelf.Later in the day, Paul D., Shulgin’s collaborator, joined us. He has known Shulgin for decades and began assisting him in the lab last year. I asked Paul whether he had tried any of the new tryptamines they were currently working on, and he shook his head, “No, Sasha isthe first to taste new materials.” The reason Shulgin is always the first to experience his creations is completely altruistic. Should a chemical have an unexpected toxic effect, such as inducing a seizure, he wants to protect his family and friends. Although I suspect there is another reason Shulgin likes to have the first taste: The sensation of synthesizing a completely unknown drug and ingesting it, a sensation that can only happen one time, is clearly druglike in and of itself. It’s the breaking of a transdimensional, neurochemical hymen. In a sense, it’s the one drug he keeps coming back to. Ask Shulgin what his favorite psychedelic is and he will say “2C-B”without hesitation. Ask him how many times he has taken it and he’ll say “a few.” This is a guy who has had approximately 10,000 psychedelic experiences. No drug, not even his cherished 2C-B, tastes better than the untasted.Eventually Paul brought in dozens of green cardboard boxes full of chemicals. They contained a physical history of Shulgin’s entire pharmacopeia. A life’s work corked up in three-dram vials. The collection wastantalizing and borderline pornographic. My heart rate increased and my brow began to perspire, as I tried my hardest to avoid undignified Tex Avery-type behaviors like panting, making ansound, or letting my eyeballs fall out of my head. He removed the lid, revealing 100 alphanumerically indexed cells that housed glass vials, with conspicuous lacunae once occupied by Schedule I drugs. Each vial’s gummed label was hand-inscribed with a small molecular diagram. Many of these substances don’t exist anywhere else in the known universe. Shulgin is not only a chemist, he is a collector. Early in his career he ambitiously sought to accumulate every psychoactive drug in the world but eventually realized he couldn’t keep up. According to the index card, the (partial) contents of the single box Paul opened included trichocereine, crude curare, isomescaline, amphetamine, R-DOM, MDMA, DET, DiPT, scopolamine, benz-phetamine, d-methamphetamine, aspirin, berberine, physostigmine, papaverine, pipradol, aconite, thebane, pilocarpine, oxycodone, oxymorphone, several forensic samples of PCP dated and labeled “illicit PCP 1975,” and my dear old friend Ritalin.Outside the lab Paul was sorting through another box of boxes, which contained at least 1,000 additional vials. “These are mostly chemical intermediates—a trimethoxybenzaldehyde oil,” he said as he uncorked one and held a sample of black goo to his nose for a sniff. “It has an interesting smell,” he remarked as he passed it to me. I closed one nostril and took a hard whiff. It smelled like Vicks VapoRub and sent a horrific pulse of nausea through my body, which was accompanied by an instantaneous pounding headache. Still, I’m glad to have allowed a few femtograms of chemical from Shulgin’s collection into my bloodstream. Paul continued, “This is 2-ethoxy-benzaldehyde.” He took another sniff and passed the vial to me as if we were assessing the bouquet of a fine wine. “More intermediates in the production of amphetamines and phenethylamines…” He pulled out a vial full of canary-yellow crystals and began deciphering the molecular structure on the label. “This is a diphenyl…” I craned my neck over the vial, totally hypnotized until Shulgin exclaimed, “Let’s go and have some lunch!” Paul stayed behind while we walked back to the house and I enjoyed a piping-hot pizza with Ann, while Shulgin opted for an egg-salad-on-white-bread sandwich. It was a very casual, nervous, and astonishing midsummer lunch with the greatest psychedelic chemist in the world. Suddenly Paul burst into the room, short of breath: “A team of scientists in Japan just discovered a 12-step total synthesis of Salvinorin A!” Everybody began to murmur; Shulgin was impressed. “Oh my, that’s a difficult one,” he said. “A real treasure of symmetry. You know, Salvinorin has 128 possible isomers.” I wished the day would never end.I sat looking at (and possibly ogling) Shulgin chewing his egg-salad sandwich and thought about the superhuman influence his work endued on the world. The hundreds of deaths, millions of freak-outs, tens of billions of dollars exchanged of which he has not received a dime, cumulative millennia of prison sentences, trillions of transformative experiences, decaliters of joy tears, decibels of laughter, and so forth. I wanted to tell him how much he has changed my life; I wanted to offer him 1,000 screaming genuflections of gratitude for everything that has happened to me on substances he has created and championed. My bed collapsing while I was on 2C-B. Being cradled like a child by a computer programmer as I lay dying on DOC. Biting a crisp Red Delicious in the seminary on 2C-E. Finding a nippy jug of milk on a stoop and being attacked by a dog on DiPT. The Central Park portrait artist who drew me as if I were Enrique Iglesias on 4-HO-MiPT. Memorizing the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram on 2C-D. Burying my face in a sopping-wet wig I found on the floor of a taxi on 4-HO-MET. These were all holy and wonderful things that I wanted to tell him. I would not be capable of giving him enough thanks.Near the end of our meeting, I asked whether I could look through the lab once more while the Shulgins finished their meal. I was granted permission and went back to touch and smell and examine things in silence. There may be empty slots in the green boxes where the 5-MeO-DiPT, 2C-B, DOB, and DOM once stood—they are the scars that his collection bears—but there is no way to retract a molecule. The fact that he has created these chemicals and published their syntheses ensures their survival. It’s no wonder he is still tripping at 84. In fact, he said that his newest creation, 5-MeO-MALT, is showing activity at 1.8 mg, which suggests it may be quite potent. But he also said that, as he has grown older, the dose required to produce an effect has decreased significantly. “Threshold effects?” I asked. He pauses for a moment. “Oh, ‘effects.’ I thought you said ‘sex’!”If, indeed, this non-interview was Shulgin’s last interview, it left me partially unfulfilled. I still have so many questions. But my visit with the Shulgins made me realize that maybe it’s time to answer my own questions. Which is fair and good, a gift even. He has, after all, answered more than enough. Regardless, it was difficult for me to leave his lab. I wanted to hide in the trash can or climb a tree; I really didn’t want this story to end.
– A chemist named Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin has died at age 88, notes Gawker, and while that might not be a household name, his nickname explains the attention: "godfather of ecstasy." Shulgin didn't invent the drug otherwise known as MDMA, but he "rescued the circa-1912 pharmaceutical from obscurity by suggesting it would be viable for mental therapy," explains LA Weekly. The rest is rave history. Shulgin did, however, invent somewhere around 150 psychedelic drug compounds with his wife, Ann, using themselves as test subjects. The respected chemist began his career with Dow Chemical and eventually authored two books with his wife titled TiHkal (Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved) and PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved). The Guardian and Vice have resurrected their interviews with Shulgin from years past. In its tribute to this "maverick chemist, psychedelic pioneer, and inspiring human being," Boing Boing quotes Shulgin himself: Everyone deserves "the license to explore the nature of his own soul."