Posted by badhaircut on January 30, 2005, at 11:21:31
There's an article in today's New York Times Magazine on Alexander Shulgin, who re-invented MDMA (Ecstasy) in 1976. He's 79, still creating in his cottage lab, and still believing in Better Living Through Chemistry. "He has created nearly 200 psychedelic compounds, among them stimulants, depressants, aphrodisiacs, empathogens, convulsants, drugs that alter hearing, drugs that slow one's sense of time, drugs that speed it up, drugs that trigger violent outbursts, drugs that deaden emotion...." He still tries his creations on himself (and his wife and their friends).
The former Dow chemist has been raided a few times by police, but he has "powerful friends" in the DEA and other government offices and has avoided serious legal problems. Plus, "many of the drugs in his lab weren't illegal because they hadn't existed until he created them." The Shulgins wrote the autobiography / drug cookbook "Pihkal."
"Dr. Ecstasy" by Drake Bennett 1/30/05, free for the next week at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/magazine/30ECSTASY.html
-bhc
poster:badhaircut
thread:450115
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20050129/msgs/450115.html