half past nomad

Sasha. Who would’ve thought?

That’s the nickname of the chemist who brought extasy (the drug) to the lime light. This guy graduated from Berkeley with a PhD in Organic Chemistry after dropping out of Harvard. But that doesn’t come as surprise; him being from Berkeley that is

Anyway, long story short: he graduates, gets a job at DuPont, invents the first biodegradable insecticide, DuPont makes mucho dinero and makes good on their promise to let Sasha work on what ever project he wants to.

So Alexander Shulgin aka Sasha decided to work on psychedelic drugs… specifically creating new ones.

Yes you heard me.

Although he was always a researcher first (evidenced by him publishing his works in Nature and Journal of Organic Chemistry) DuPont later asked him to no longer identify DuPont as the source of his “funding”.

The legality of his work was conditional in that he had to report to the DEA any new drug he created, which they would then automatically add to their list of Category 1 drugs. Drugs which had no medical benefit, could lead to substance abuse, etc.

All this was interesting, but it was nothing compared to what I read next:

To test the “psychedelic effects” of the psychedelic drugs he created… he would try them.

He would take only a little bit, and he kept an anti-convulsion drug nearby, such that if something went wrong he could remedy it by injecting himself

(He said he’s only had to inject himself twice).

But suppose the drug went well (like extasy)? In that case, he and his wife would try it.

But suppose it went really well. In that case, he and his wife and group of “research collaborators” would try it.

It wasn’t the rampant misuse of drugs that amazed me (Well, we’re talking about Berkely here…), it was the fact that this guy had the chutzpah to try his own drugs!

I’ve no idea how many times my chemistry 200 lab experiment either: 1) blew up, 2) didn’t turn the correct color or 3) melted the glass the experiment was occurring in.

Okay I made that all up. It was always pretty much the chemical thing not turning the right color or something. (Yeah you can see I loved chemistry)

In any event, I’m thinking of switching from WIRED magazine to the NewYorkTimes magazine. I mean with crazy stories like this …

-akds

This entry was posted on Friday, March 11th, 2005 at 12:36 pm and is filed under General Lee, akds404.