HIGH
TIMES MAGAZINE (MAY 2005)
SASHA SHULGIN:
THE HIGH TIMES INTERVIEW
The Stepfather of Ecstasy reflects back on a highly productive
career.
BY DAVID BIENENSTOCK
Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin has taken more psychedelic
drugs than any human in history. Not in volume (godspeed to
that anonymous psychonaut), but in variety—including
scores of molecules that never even existed until he came
along to invent them.
The man who brought the world STP, 2CB, DOI and countless
other so-called designer drugs attended Harvard at age 16
on a full scholarship, but dropped out to join the Navy when
America entered World War II. As a child he had developed
an intense love of chemistry, which he continued to explore
during his military service—literally memorizing the
textbook he carried onboard his destroyer escort in the North
Atlantic. After the war, Shulgin earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry
from the University of California at Berkeley, did postdoctoral
work in psychiatry and pharmacology at U.C. San Francisco
and eventually became a senior research chemist at Dow Chemical
Company, where his invention of a lucrative organic pesticide
garnered him enough leeway at the office to quietly begin
pursuing decidedly more mind-expanding studies. Perpetually
straddling the line between drug research and drug “experimentation,”
Shulgin’s own psychedelic journey began in 1960 with
400 milligrams of mescaline—a huge dose, which unleashed
a flood of deeply suppressed brain functions. The experience
convinced the 35-year-old scientist to devote the rest of
his career to the study of psychedelics.
Eventually Shulgin would leave Dow and go independent, using
inside connections to secure a Schedule I license from the
DEA, which authorized its bearer to produce small amounts
of any illegal substance. Beholden to no one, he would offer
his research and insight to the government one day and return
to his low-tech backyard laboratory the next—ready to
continue work on one of the hundreds of psychedelic compounds
he has originated over the years. Both the inventor and his
creations managed to remain relatively obscure in this way
until the late ’70’s, when one of Shulgin’s
most promising genies jumped out of the bottle.
Although MDMA was first synthesized in 1912 by Merck Pharmaceuticals,
the magic formula remained buried deep within piles of otherwise
unremarkable research until 1965, when Shulgin rediscovered
the chemical compound—trying it himself first, and eventually
expanding his experiments to include a tight-knit group of
like-minded therapists, who found in MDMA the promise of a
wonder drug capable—in a clinical setting—of shepherding
patients to new levels of compassion and self-acceptance.
A secret this good, however, tends to get out. Renamed Ecstasy,
MDMA made its public debut in 1977, at a Texas nightclub.
The drug culture in America would never be the same, and neither
would Sasha Shulgin. His professional reputation staked on
the promising new therapy treatment, the man of science was
completely undercut by the all-night party called Ecstasy.
Eventually, his relationship with the establishment would
deteriorate, and although he has never been charged with a
crime, the DEA would force him to return his Schedule I license.
In 1994, DEA agents raided his home lab in the hills above
Berkeley, CA—again without any charges being filed.
Throughout it all, Shulgin has continued to invent, to experiment
and to publish his work—so that others might pick up
on his psychedelic trailblazing.
Dr. Shulgin and his wife, Ann, spoke with HIGH TIMES prior
to a lecture at the John Jay Law Library in New York City.
Let’s say you meet somebody on a bus or an airplane,
you get to talking, and they ask, "What do you do for
a living?" How do you respond?
Well, it depends on the environment and my take on the person.
In general, something to the effect of, "I am very interested
in tools for studying the brain, especially the mind and mental
process, and I invent new compounds as research tools to do
that exact task."
What are some of the things you’ve invented?
Oh, over 150 different psychedelic drugs.
What does “psychedelic mean”?
If I stop someone and ask them “What is psychedelic?”,
they kind of know in their heart that it’s something
that turns you on and gets your brain and mind in a very interesting
place—sometimes an uncomfortable place, but a very creative
place. They may not approve, but at least they know what I’m
talking about.
Would you prefer “psychedelic” to be a
neutral term, or does it express something that you believe
in?
I believe in it, and to me it’s more positive than neutral.
Where I get a little bit uncomfortable is when it goes into
the rave or the hippie scene, into the totally illegal direction—because
this jeopardizes its value as a research tool.
If the drug warriors manage to suppress all psychedelics,
what will we have lost?
A little bit more of our freedom. And our ability to look
into new areas.
Where do you do your work?
I have a laboratory behind my house. It’s known to the
authorities and not disapproved of. I keep all the inexpensive
equipment there, and I use the expensive equipment at a nearby
hospital, where I work in the clinical pharmacology group.
If somebody wanted to re-create your home lab, about
how much would they have to spend?
Well, I have a magic stockroom with 10-15,000 chemicals in
it. If they wanted to reproduce that, they’d be very
hard-pressed. I have been collecting materials from a university
here and a company there—anywhere they’re told
by the environmental people, "Get rid of these things.
They’re carcinogenic, they’re explosive, they’re
all kinds of negative things, and since you have people employed
here, you can’t keep this in stock." So I get a
phone call saying, "We’re coming in with a bunch
of boxes." And it’s beautiful. It’s sort
of an idea source. I browse amongst the latest and see what
I can do with it.
What do you have that’s the hardest to find?
If it’s hard to buy, or I need a starting material,
I’ll just make it, because I have complete synthetic
laboratories.
“To synthesize” means what?
Synthesizing is like cooking. You follow a recipe and, by
cooking, heating, filtering, decanting, something else, you
get your product. The process requires a recipe, and if it
hasn’t been done before, you have to make up the recipe
yourself. Pretty much, if you can do 10 things in the kitchen—boil
something, filter something, decant something—you can
do 10 things in the laboratory. You can be a cook or a chemist.
Subtlety comes with years of experience.
Would you say the process is more scientific or artistic,
or do they overlap?
Chemistry is like writing a piece of music. You try something,
it doesn’t sound good, and so you change the note. It’s
very much feeling your way into new territory, not following
the rigors of the textbook. There’s a rhythm to it.
How would you describe your relationship with these molecules?
You go into a laboratory and mix and mix and mix, and you
come up with a white crystalline solid, [that’s] never
been seen before—maybe on some distant planet, but certainly
not on this planet. It’s brand-new. You think it might
be a psychedelic drug. What’s your relationship with
that white solid? Would you get rid of it? Would you want
to learn from it? Would you treat it with care? With disgust?
How much would you take? A milligram? A gram? A microgram?
You don’t know. You have had no communication at all
yet, and you don’t know where to start. So you work
your way up, sneak up on the effects, and eventually you establish
a dialogue.
Are you the first person to ingest these molecules?
Yes.
Is that a break with scientific convention?
Ann Shulgin: Only very recent scientific convention.
How much different is it to take a drug when you really
don’t know what’s going to happen?
One of the more difficult experiences I had was one of the
higher 2CT compounds, which I had actually invented about
25 years earlier. I found myself in a state of bliss, which
is something way up there. You look at a cat, smile, wiggle
your nose, and the cat turns and runs away—that kind
of a complete control of everything around you. I said to
myself, “What if I stay here? My God, I don’t
want that.” I had the horrible feeling that I had just
thrown a bliss switch somewhere. Can you imagine being blissful
for the rest of your life? That’s nice for the first
little while, but if it doesn’t go away, it gets kind
of burdensome.
What do you think is really happening when you ingest
psychedelics?
A lot of people say, Well, this drug does so and so,”
or “It produces this visual thing.” Nonsense.
Drugs don’t do it; they allow you to do it. Each drug
allows you to open a different door. You can’t imagine
a little white solid could carry memories of your childhood.
Are there any drugs that you think should be illegal?
No.
What do you think about the government- and corporate-
approved drugs, like Paxil, Prozac, Ambien and that whole
field?
The direction in pharmaceutical research is to bring back
to normal people who are diagnosed as being not quite where
they should be—as if this were the ultimate goal, to
be normal. I believe a lot in researching how to take a person
and expand him it into areas that are not immediately apparent—not
to make a sick person well, but to let a well person see what
he is.
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