Alexander Shulgin

Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin (June 17, 1925 – June 2, 2014) was an American biochemist, broad researcher of synthetic psychoactive compounds, and author of works regarding these, who independently explored the organic chemistry and pharmacology of such agents—in his mid-life and later, many through preparation in his home laboratory, and testing on himself.

In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin compiled the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved, likewise for Tryptamines), from notebooks that extensively described their work and personal experiences with these two classes of psychoactive drugs. Shulgin documented the chemical synthesis of many of these compounds. Some of the syntheses catalogued by Shulgin in his books include chemicals in the 2C family (such as 2C-B), compounds of the DOx family (such as DOM), and tryptamines (such as 4-HO-MET and 4-HO-MiPT).

In describing Shulgin's work in psychedelic research and his preparation and experimentation with psychedelic drugs, he has been dubbed the "godfather of ecstasy").

Writing in 2005—in the decade before Shulgin's death—a retrospective by Drake Bennett of The New York Times Magazine noted that as a consequence of Shulgin's testing his various synthetic compounds "for activity by taking the chemicals himself ... most of the scientific community consider[ed] Shulgin at best a curiosity and at worst a menace", but Bennett goes on to say that "near the end ... [Shulgin's] faith in the potential of psychedelics ha[d] at least a chance at vindication", going on to note the various clinical trials underway on compounds of interest to Shulgin. The early 2000s also was a period when Shulgin was witness to a series of incidents in which young men overdosed on a novel psychoactive agent whose preparation was disclosed by Shulgin in one of his books. Before his death (and before the onset of his late life dementia), Shulgin expressed sadness over the deaths, but argued that all drugs, including aspirin, carry risks with incorrect use.

Early life and career

Shulgin was born on June 17, 1925, to Theodore Stevens Shulgin (1893–1978) and Henrietta D. (Aten) Shulgin (1894–1960). His father was born in Chelyabinsk, Russia; his mother was born in Illinois. Theodore and Henrietta were public school teachers in Alameda County.

Shulgin studied organic chemistry at Harvard University as a scholarship student, and was enrolled there at the age of 16. during his second year at Harvard. In 1944 a military nurse gave Shulgin a glass of orange juice prior to a surgery for a thumb infection,

After serving in the armed forces, Shulgin returned to California, and earned his PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Through the late 1950s, Shulgin completed post-doctoral work in the fields of psychiatry and pharmacology at University of California, San Francisco. After working at Bio-Rad Laboratories as a research director for a brief period, he began work at Dow Chemical Company, "I first explored mescaline in the late '50s ... Three-hundred-fifty to 400 milligrams. I learned there was a great deal inside me."

Shulgin later reported personal revelations that "had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid ... I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability." Eventually, Dow Chemical requested that he no longer use their name on his publications. on controlled substances, and received several awards from the DEA. Shulgin set up a chemical synthesis laboratory in a small building behind his house, which gave him a great deal of career autonomy. Shulgin used this freedom to synthesize and test the effects of potentially psychoactive drugs.

In 1976, Shulgin was introduced to MDMA by a student in the medicinal chemistry group he advised at San Francisco State University. MDMA had been synthesized in 1912 by Merck and patented in 1913 as an intermediate of another synthesis in order to block competitors, but was never explored in its own right. Shulgin went on to develop a new synthesis method, and in 1976, introduced the chemical to Leo Zeff, a psychologist from Oakland, California. Zeff used the substance in his practice in small doses as an aid to talk therapy. Zeff introduced the substance to hundreds of psychologists and lay therapists around the nation, including Ann (born Laura Ann Gotlieb), whom Alexander Shulgin met in 1979, and married in 1981.

thumb|left|275px|Shulgin at the home-based lab on his property, known as "the Farm", 2009

After judicious self-experiments, Shulgin enlisted a small group of friends with whom he regularly tested his creations, starting in 1960. They developed a systematic way of ranking the effects of the various drugs, known as the Shulgin Rating Scale, with a vocabulary to describe the visual, auditory and physical sensations. He personally tested hundreds of drugs, mainly analogues of various phenethylamines (family containing MDMA, mescaline, and the 2C* family), and tryptamines (family containing DMT, LSD and psilocin). There are a seemingly infinite number of slight chemical variations, which can produce variations in effect—some pleasant and some unpleasant, depending on the person, substance, and situation—all of which are meticulously recorded in Shulgin's laboratory notebooks. Shulgin published many of these objective and subjective reports in his books and papers.

In 1994, two years after the publication of PIHKAL, the DEA raided his lab. The agency requested that Shulgin surrender his license for violating its terms, and he was fined $25,000 for possession of anonymous samples sent to him for quality testing. In the 15 years preceding the publication of PIHKAL, two announced and scheduled reviews failed to find any irregularities. Richard Meyer, spokesman for DEA's San Francisco Field Division, has stated that, "It is our opinion that those books are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs. Agents tell me that in clandestine labs that they have raided, they have found copies of those books." He then married author Ann Gotlieb in 1981. On November 16, 2010, he suffered a stroke, from which he largely recovered. Also at the close of 2010, a skin-grafting surgery saved his left foot from being amputated. Around this time, Shulgin began showing early signs of dementia, mostly severe loss of short-term memory. With progression of the dementia since 2010, his wife, Ann Shulgin, had been trying to sell part of their property to raise more money to cover care costs.

On April 17, 2014, Ann Shulgin reported on Facebook that her husband had developed liver cancer, and in a May 31 update on Facebook she said that, although appearing frail, he seemed to be experiencing his last moments in peace and without pain. Shulgin died at his home on June 2, 2014, at the age of 88.

Shulgin is said to have had more than 4,000 psychedelic experiences during his life.

Legacy

In a 2014 review of the synthesis of designer drugs, the effects of Shulgin's work were described as "by far the most far-reaching" effects associated with the cultural climate of interest at the time in hallucinogenic compounds generally and mescaline in particular, with which various artists and writers had experimented. Shulgin said that mescaline made him aware of a world submerged in human spirit, whose "availability" was "catalyzed" by such chemicals; the consequences of his insights were called "devastating" by the reviewers. In the same review, an example of his insights was given by his description of MDMA as "his low-calorie Martini".

Societies

Shulgin was a member of Mensa International and frequently attended Mensa events in California.

Alexander was a Bohemian Club member.|

Bibliography

Books

Controlled Substances: Chemical & Legal Guide to Federal Drug Laws. Berkeley, Calif.: Ronin Publishing (1988). .
PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story, with Ann Shulgin. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (1991). .
TiHKAL: The Continuation, with Ann Shulgin. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (1997). .
The Simple Plant Isoquinolines , with Wendy Perry. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (2002). .
The Shulgin Index, vol. 1: Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds, with Tania Manning and Paul Daley. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (2011). . [https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mbdb/mbdb_info3.shtml]
Appendix B: Web Addresses for State Statutes on Phenethylamine Psychedelics.

Laboratory notebooks

Shulgin Notebooks and Lab Books

Documentaries

Documentaries about Alexander Shulgin include the following:

Dirty Pictures (2010) by Étienne Sauret
SiHKAL: Shulgins I Have Known and Loved (2010; Hamilton's Pharmacopeia web series; Vice Media) by Hamilton Morris
The Love Drug (2016; I Am Rebel, S01E03; National Geographic) by Hamilton Morris
Better Living Through Chemistry (2021) by Connie Littlefield

References

External links

Alexander Shulgin Research Institute (ASRI)
"Dirty Pictures". Documentary. 2010.
Erowid's Alexander Shulgin Vault
Transform Press – publisher of Alexander Shulgin's books