Pubdate: Sat, 12 Sep 2015
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Joe Schwarcz
Note: Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University's Office f or 
Science & Society ( www.mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on 
CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.
Page: B7

CHEMIST'S CURIOSITY CREATED RECIPE FOR ABUSE

"I'm curious!" That was Alexander Shulgin's simple answer to the 
question of why he had dedicated much of his life to the exploration 
of psychedelic drugs. The American chemist who died in 2014 at the 
age of 88 was famous not only for synthesizing a large number of 
mind-altering substances, but also for experimenting with them on 
himself, his wife and friends.

He worked within the context of existing laws because the compounds 
he synthesized had not existed before and therefore were legal at the 
time he made them.

Shulgin never intended his creations to be used as "street drugs"; 
his interest was in researching the effects of chemicals on the mind. 
Nevertheless, many of the drugs he created became the subject of 
abuse and were eventually made illegal.

Perhaps the best known of these is Ecstasy, which had actually been 
patented by Merck back in 1914, but was abandoned because the company 
could not find a use for it. Shulgin developed a novel synthesis for 
the drug, and after experimenting on himself, suggested it could be 
used as a treatment for anxiety. He never intended it to be used as a 
recreational substance.

Shulgin was interested in chemistry from a young age, but it was 
surgery for an infection of his thumb that launched his enthusiasm 
for pharmacology. Prior to the surgery, he was being given a glass of 
orange juice that had some undissolved crystals at the bottom. 
Convinced he had been given a sedative, he promptly fell asleep. As 
he was to learn later, the crystals were just sugar and it was his 
mind that had actually lulled him into sleep.

What sort of chemistry was going on in his brain, he wondered? He 
began to explore the literature of mind- altering substances and 
became interested in the chemistry of mescaline, the active 
ingredient in the peyote cactus. Eventually, he tried mescaline 
himself and was amazed by the hallucinations it produced.

After obtaining a PhD in biochemistry from the University of 
California at Berkley, Shulgin was hired by the Dow Chemical Co. to 
work on insecticides and came up with Zectran, one of the first such 
products that was biodegradable. It turned out to be so profitable 
that, as a reward, Dow allowed Shulgin to work on any project of his 
choosing. He didn't have to think much about what that would be.

Before long, he had prepared a number of compounds that were 
candidates for mind- altering effects with therapeutic potential. By 
this time, he had come to learn that many compounds that affected the 
mind, such as mescaline and amphetamine, shared a common feature in 
terms of molecular structure. They all had a "phenethylamine" 
grouping of atoms.

When Dow decided against pursuing this line of research, Shulgin 
left, set up a lab in his home, and began to churn out compounds. 
Because of the expertise he had acquired on drugs that had a 
potential for abuse, he developed an interesting relationship with 
the Drug Enforcement Agency, often giving talks to agents about the 
identification of such substances.

Shulgin did not work in secret; he published numerous scientific 
papers about the drugs he had made. But as drug abuse became more and 
more of a problem, he had increasing difficulty in getting his 
research into the scientific literature. He then decided to release 
it all in a self-published book written with his wife under the 
curious title of "PiHKAL." Readers would learn that it stood for 
"Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved."

The book was divided into two sections, with the first being a long- 
winded story about the couple's romance and numerous drug 
experiences, while the second section was a compilation of the 179 
compounds Shulgin had made, including dosages he had used, effects 
experienced, and details of synthesis.

Inevitably, this led to abuse, with the book essentially becoming a 
manual for making drugs that had a potential for doing harm through 
improper dosage or through impurities introduced by inexperienced 
chemists. Many of the listed compounds would eventually be made illegal.

There is no question that Shulgin's unconventional research methods 
and his descriptions of the effects of the compounds he synthesized 
stimulated pharmacological research into drugs, Ecstasy being an 
example, that may actually have therapeutic potential. But we are 
still left with the disturbing idea that curiosity sometimes kills the cat.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom