WHERE DO THEY COME FROM AND WHAT DO WE DO WITH THEM?

ECSTASY

DESIGNER DRUGS

WHERE DO THEY COME FROM AND WHAT DO WE DO WITH THEM?

ECSTASY

FLORIDA, October 11, 2012:  MDMA, or ecstasy, was invented by the German drug firm Merck in 1912.  In 1953 it was used for its mentally debilitating properties, when the US government tested it on animals as a possible chemical warfare Agent.  It was re-synthesised by Aledander Shulgin in 1976.  Shulgin published his formulation which went into production by underground labs around the world and fueled the 1980s rave party  dance-drug craze.   

Alexander Shulgin is a researcher and guru of the underground drug lab culture.  He completed post-doctoral training in psychiatry and pharmacology at University of California, San Francisco and worked for Dow Chemical Company as a senior research chemist.  While developing pesticides and other chemicals for Dow he was also given the freedom to experiment on psycho-active drugs.  

Shulgin left Dow in 1965 and continued to research and experiment on psychoactive drugs – experimenting on himself on each new substance.  Shulgin discovered, experimented with and synthesized over 230 psychoactive drugs and published his findings in two books – available today online free or through Amazon.com.  These books have become the bible of underground drug labs.  

Oddly enough, at the same time Shulgin worked with the DEA holding drug seminars for agents, supplying the DEA with samples of various compounds.  He received several awards from the DEA.

Shulgin was the creator of the compound commonly known in the 1960s as the potent psychedelic STP.

Asked by Wired magazine in a September, 2002 story how he feels about the worldwide ecstasy phenomenon, Shulgin responded off handedly, "It's pretty heavy-duty," and then added, "I don't think it's being used the way it should." 

While publicly he worried about the recreational use of his drugs, his wife more likely expressed his real feelings, "Speak for yourself, Sasha," she interjected, using her husband's nickname. "I like to turn on and observe the universe. Scientists try to explain that these drugs aren't for fun as if there's something wrong with fun."

Shulgin’s interview by journalist Luc Sala in 1996 is available on YouTube.  In it he described what he felt his role was: “My main drive is a tool maker – making of tools and letting other people exploit them.”

He said he began his experimentation after a personal experience with mescaline in around 1967.  “That caught my fancy,” he said.  Immediately prior to the experiment he had been studying sedatives, aphrodisiacs, and drugs involved in changing mental attitudes.  

When challenged that he is accused by some of research that “backfired,” “because you didn’t help the world, you put it into more misery,” he responded,  “I had no voice in how these things are used.  My point is putting them in the medical literature and scientific literature.  And let people use it.  Cause heavens,  people publish how to make gunpowder and how to make uranium isotopes.”  He emphasized, use the drugs, “for whatever use you want to put them.”

Two recent examples of Shulgin’s legacy are two young teens in East Grand Forks, North Dakota, who died while using the designer drug nicknamed “Smiles” otherwise known as 2C-I and synthesized from Shulgin’s 1991 book “PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story.”  After taking the drug one of the teens slammed his head against the ground and shortly thereafter stopped breathing.  The other died of an overdose of the drug.

For information on the origins of these drugs and and their effects, the Foundation for a Drug Free World sponsors a massive campaign to truly education people of all ages, but particular the young, of the dangers of drugs of abuse.

The Foundation for a Drug-Free World is a nonprofit public benefit corporation that empowers youth and adults with factual information about drugs so they can make informed decisions and live drug-free. For more information go to www.drugfreeworld.org

And for the person with a drug problem, there are real solutions to addiction.  Narconon, a drug rehabilitation program that utilizes the methods of L. Ron Hubbard, has a success rate of more than 75% (www.narconon.org).