Humans have been looking for ways to alter their consciousness by taking drugs that are found in nature since time immemorial. And it's really only in the last century that the labs have caught up to craft whatever kind of experience someone wants.
The use of chemicals to alter mood, both for therapy & for recreation, has created a shadow industry that law enforcement can't contain & pharmaceutical companies are desperate to control.
This, the century of the synthetic drug, begins but doesn't end here, in the shadow of the late Alexander Shulgin. It was in his lab in the 1960s, Alexander Sasha Shulgin, a renegade chemist, reimagine the study of drugs & by extension, human consciousness. He's recognized as the spiritual father of psychedelics, creating over 200 substances from scratch & experimenting them on himself with no absolute idea what the effects will be, not to mention the most important which is what dose to start with but he also, however inadvertently, set off a billion-dollar race to control the synthetics market.
The question that keeps coming to mind for me is; have we limited our access to potentially breakthrough therapies by making all these drugs illegal?
NB: Sasha had been working at Dow Chemical & had been very successful for them & made them quite a bit of money with developing one of the 1st biodegradable insecticides. They were sufficiently impressed with the success that they said; "well, what would you like to work on now?"
And at that time, the psychedelics were thought to be exciting new tools for psychotherapy but the problem then was that they were illegal at that time.
His most cited contribution came early in his career, when he took an experimental drug abandoned by a German pharmaceutical company & shared it with the world.
The substance is MDMA, Ecstasy, the most popular synthetic drug of all time. My curiosity is, if such a simple molecule can allow anyone this type of openness, this so called psychedelic experience, what modification of that molecule will modify, improve, change, redirect that type of introspection?
One of the most common ways to make MDMA is to start with the essential oil, Safrole.
A substance found in sassafra which is a naturally occurring compound with a zero psychoactive property.
(So this is Safrole, start with a benzene ring, these 2 oxygen & a carbon out here. That's Safrole. Synthetic drugs start of with a precursor, in this case, Safrole which is combined with Methylamine hydrochloride to make MDMA).
Sounds easy, but it's not. There's some complicated chemistry to get to the end product.
(So this is Safrole, start with a benzene ring, these 2 oxygen & a carbon out here. That's Safrole. Synthetic drugs start of with a precursor, in this case, Safrole which is combined with Methylamine hydrochloride to make MDMA).
Sounds easy, but it's not. There's some complicated chemistry to get to the end product.
Sasha Shulgin was the 1st person to recognise that MDMA could have that kind of therapeutic potential. Sasha's widow, Ann, was really his co-conspirator, & together, they tested a lot of substance on themselves, including MDMA.
If you take it for insight, what you also get is not just the ability to see where you are in your life & what your problems are & what your mistakes have been but the realisation comes without self-hate or anger at yourself. In some way which we don't understand, it allows you to have a true self-acceptance & a love for yourself. This is why MDMA is so extraordinarily valuable for PTSD.
MDMA is a mixture of stimulant & hallucinogens. It will make people feel this intense love & a huge part of that relates to the serotonin system. The serotonin impacts on our mood, so it gives these positive effects but before it's therapeutic uses could be explored, MDMA got derailed. It made it's way to the underground in the late '70s & early '80s, where it was packaged, branded & brought to the market as Ecstasy for people looking less for therapy & more for a straight-up good time but, the party didn't last.
Suspicious of it's popularity, the Feds made it illegal (a Schedule I drug) in 1985, effectively killing it's chance to be studied for therapeutic purposes as Shulgin had intended; something to create what we believe could be the final solution to this problem.
The WAR ON DRUGS was really the war on pharmaceutical research.
Here is how scheduling works, the DEA determines the legality of drugs in the United States, classifying new compounds into one of five schedules, depending on their medical uses & potential for abuse.
Numbered in reverse order, they start with things like certain cough medicines at Schedule V & go all the way up to I: fully illegal drugs for which the federal government acknowledges no therapeutic use. Globally, other institutions like World Health Organisation, provide guidance on the scheduling of substances.
MDMA is a mixture of stimulant & hallucinogens. It will make people feel this intense love & a huge part of that relates to the serotonin system. The serotonin impacts on our mood, so it gives these positive effects but before it's therapeutic uses could be explored, MDMA got derailed. It made it's way to the underground in the late '70s & early '80s, where it was packaged, branded & brought to the market as Ecstasy for people looking less for therapy & more for a straight-up good time but, the party didn't last.
Suspicious of it's popularity, the Feds made it illegal (a Schedule I drug) in 1985, effectively killing it's chance to be studied for therapeutic purposes as Shulgin had intended; something to create what we believe could be the final solution to this problem.
The WAR ON DRUGS was really the war on pharmaceutical research.
Here is how scheduling works, the DEA determines the legality of drugs in the United States, classifying new compounds into one of five schedules, depending on their medical uses & potential for abuse.
Numbered in reverse order, they start with things like certain cough medicines at Schedule V & go all the way up to I: fully illegal drugs for which the federal government acknowledges no therapeutic use. Globally, other institutions like World Health Organisation, provide guidance on the scheduling of substances.
While medical scheduling ground legal research to a halt, it did unleash an unintended global consequence: the rise of copycat drugs, known as Synthetic Analogs or NPS, New Psychoactive Substances. There are a small minority of users who sometimes call themselves psychonauts who want to try this new drugs that haven't been tested previously, or they want to push their boundaries of psychopharmacology in one way or another. They don't necessarily want to try these bizarre derivatives of controlled substances, but this is what happens in a prohibitionist market. Psychedelics serve as a key to unlock the door, exploring & pushing the boundaries of consciousness & the boundaries of what is real.
Psychedelics are interesting. They're definitely about the ego. They're about empathy, the closeness, being in touch. In fact, that's why psychedelics are being evaluated clinically because it opens up that person. They can now get beyond themselves, & psychedelics release all the walls that we all build up around ourselves & the emotions that are trapped inside.
The number of synthetic drugs has been estimated to be over 800. It's become huge. It's become bigger than I think a lot of people realise, because, to some extent, it's supplanted the traditional drug trade.
Because synthetics are designed in a lab, when they're put on the FDA's schedule for banned substances, it's technically the chemical formula that's made illegal. So, underground chemists will tweak the fomula just enough to make it a different compound while keeping the desired effects. Since it's not technically the same drug, it's legal again.
The problem with synthetic analogs is that every time you synthesize a new version, it has the potential to be stronger & more dangerous. And without sufficient lab controls, the end user is the unwitting test subject.
The MDMA mutes the fight or flight response, the physiological response to trauma in PTSD. FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy may sound like a long shot, but early clinical studies
on it's effectiveness for PTSD have been seriously encouraging. It eliminated the disorder in two out of three veterans & significantly reduced the symptoms in the rest.
The issue, in part, is what a shift to MDMA would mean to the existing $2.1 billion antidepressant industry.
Psychedelics are interesting. They're definitely about the ego. They're about empathy, the closeness, being in touch. In fact, that's why psychedelics are being evaluated clinically because it opens up that person. They can now get beyond themselves, & psychedelics release all the walls that we all build up around ourselves & the emotions that are trapped inside.
The number of synthetic drugs has been estimated to be over 800. It's become huge. It's become bigger than I think a lot of people realise, because, to some extent, it's supplanted the traditional drug trade.
Because synthetics are designed in a lab, when they're put on the FDA's schedule for banned substances, it's technically the chemical formula that's made illegal. So, underground chemists will tweak the fomula just enough to make it a different compound while keeping the desired effects. Since it's not technically the same drug, it's legal again.
The problem with synthetic analogs is that every time you synthesize a new version, it has the potential to be stronger & more dangerous. And without sufficient lab controls, the end user is the unwitting test subject.
The MDMA mutes the fight or flight response, the physiological response to trauma in PTSD. FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy may sound like a long shot, but early clinical studies
on it's effectiveness for PTSD have been seriously encouraging. It eliminated the disorder in two out of three veterans & significantly reduced the symptoms in the rest.
The issue, in part, is what a shift to MDMA would mean to the existing $2.1 billion antidepressant industry.
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