Alexander Shulgin
Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin (born June 17, 1925) is a pharmacologist, chemist and drug developer.
Shulgin is generally credited with the popularizing of ecstasy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books TiHKAL and PiHKAL. Shulgin discovered many other noteworthy phenethylamines including the 2C* family of which 2C-T-2, 2C-T-7, 2C-I, and 2C-B are most well known.
Shulgin was given authorization by the DEA to synthesize and test the effects of psychoactive drugs. He had a group of between 20 and 30 friends with whom he regularly tested his creations. They had a systematic way of ranking the effects of the various drugs, with a vocabulary to describe the visual, auditory and physical sensations. He personally tested hundreds of drugs, mainly analogues to various tryptamines (family containing DMT and Psilocybin) and phenethylamines (family containing MDMA, and Mescaline). There are an infinite number of slight chemical variations, all of which produce slight variations in effect--some pleasant and some unpleasant--and all (of the effects not the infinite number of possible variations) meticulously recorded in Shulgin's books.
Some of the more interesting chemicals mentioned in Shulgin's books include DIPT (di-isopropyl-tryptamine). This appears to almost exclusively effect the patient's sense of hearing. And this by nonlinearly (as opposed to each pitch dropping the same amount, indicating that the drug might affect cortical processing areas rather than the ear itself) shifting down the perceived frequencies of sounds.
He currently works at home in Lafayette, CA. He is producing two new books on isoquinoline analogues. These are primarily found in cactus. There is some early indication that he might have discovered MDMA naturally existing in a certain cactus, although this remains to be verified.
Books
- 2002 - The Simple Plants Isoquinolines
- 1997 - Entheogens and the Future of Religion (Contributor)
- 1997 -
- 1991 -
- 1988 - Controlled Substances: Chemical & Legal Guide to Federal Drug Laws
See also
