Sri Lanka government wants to grow its own marijuana

Friday, October 24, 2008

Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:44am BST

By C. Bryson Hull

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's government wants to grow its own marijuana.

Facing a lack of the fresh weed for use in traditional Ayurvedic medical preparations, the government ministry responsible wants to be excepted from laws that have made marijuana illegal on the Indian Ocean island since the 1890s.

The Ministry of Indigenous Medicine this month broached a plan to grow 4,000 kg (8,818 lb) a year of marijuana, also known as cannabis, on a proposed 20 acre (8 hectares) farm.

"We are interested in getting some approval to grow some cannabis with government sponsorship, but there must be controls. It is under study," Asoka Malimage, secretary at the Ministry of Indigenous Medicine, told Reuters Thursday.

Ayurveda is a traditional medicine with roots in the early Hindu era which makes wide use of herbs and natural remedies with the goal of healing the body and mind. In Sri Lanka, ayurveda practitioners outnumber Western-trained doctors.

Fresh marijuana fried in ghee, a form of clarified butter, is used in about 18 different traditional medicines for treating a wide variety of ailments, Malimage said.

"At the moment they are getting some stocks from the courts of law, because there are people who grow this cannabis illegally and they have been raided by the police," Malimage said.

But the problem with that weed is that it is old and dried out, said Dr. Dayangani Senasekara, head of state-run Bandaranaike Memorial Ayurvedic Research Institute in Colombo.

"You can't get the fresh juice from old cannabis. What we get now is the powdered form and it's not effective," Senasekara said.

The institute is making preparations that use marijuana to treat high cholesterol, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and skin discolorations, and soon will formulate one for treating cataracts, Senasekara said.

The use of marijuana to treat glaucoma, nausea, pain and the loss of appetite from diseases like cancer and AIDS has been the subject of great medical debate in the west.

Some countries and parts of the United States have permitted its use to treat those conditions, after some medical studies showed it was effective.

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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Vernon Coleman - The Drugs Myth

Vernon Coleman - The Drugs Myth: "Contents

1 We are all addicts
2 Why prohibition fails
3 Toxic stress
4 Heroin, cocaine, cannabis and LSD
5 Legal drugs and their dangers
6 The drugs war
7 The only way ahead"

Complete Marijuana (Weed) Documentary

Complete Marijuana (Weed) Documentary

Why marijuana improves the parenting experience

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Hemp: The outlawed plant (Drugs)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

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On Being Stoned

LONDON - JANUARY 17:  Singer Pete Doherty arri...Image by Getty Images via DaylifeOn Being Stoned: "On Being Stoned
A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication
Charles T. Tart, Ph. D."

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LSD What is it ?

Friday, October 10, 2008

A typical full size page of LSD blotter paper ...Image via WikipediaWhat is it?

Mostly known as acid, LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide) is the most powerful mind-altering substance known to man. Normally only used for having fun, this psychedelic drug comes from a very bizarro fungus called ergot. Measured in micrograms (millionths of a gram), it would only take a half a kilo to send every single man, woman and child in the country off to the land of vibrating rainbows.

LSD is colourless, tasteless and odourless, that's why it comes soaked into little squares (tabs) of paper with with lame hippy designs like sunflowers, strawberries or rockets on them.

Street LSD varies massively in quality (anywhere between 40 and 150 micrograms). Heat, air and light all degrade the tiny amounts involved, so you can never be sure how much you are actually taking until it's too late, and like it or not, you're on your trip.

As you might expect, this powerful and often unpredictable drug is against the law in New Zealand. What you might not know is that it is a Class A. That means that if you are caught using, selling or giving it to friends you could end up in the big, bad High Court instead of the usual District Court.

How does it feel?

Taking acid is described as 'a trip' because it can last as long as 8 to 12 hours from start to finish. Kicking in anywhere between 20 minutes and two hours after taking, the first signs are a sense of euphoria and expectation, along with a tingling body. Once you start to feel these effects, you'll be peaking within half an hour to 45 minutes. At this stage it's pretty common to feel a bit sick.

The actual peak lasts anywhere from two to five hours. A lame tab might make you feel relaxed, laughing, a bit like being stoned but with super hero vision; colours may seem brighter, patterns on the surface of things more eye-grabbing. Take a better tab, and you'll have rich visual hallucinations; colours will seem more vibrant, flat surfaces may ripple and shimmer. You may notice tiny details on objects. Music sounds better and louder. At the same time, you might feel blissed out, have flashes of insight into yourself or the world, feel yourself dissolving, or see objects merging into one another.

LSD works by diddling with, or completely removing the normal filters your mind creates between it and the outside world. With these filters down, more information comes in: You sense more, think more, and feel more. At higher doses, the rush becomes a flood, and your senses actually begin to merge until you can see sounds or smell colours. The experts (a bunch of very experienced 'travellers') have recognised four levels of trip. The strength of the tab is the biggest factor, but how relaxed and comfortable you are also plays a big part.

+One: Strong visual hallucinations. Bright colours stand out, objects appear to ripple or breathe. Coloured patterns behind the eyes are vivid, more active. Moments of reflection and distractive thought patterns. Thoughts and thinking become enhanced. Creative urges. Euphoria. Connection with others, empathy. Sense of time distorted or lost.

+Two: Very obvious visual effects. Curved or warped patterns. Familiar objects appear strange as surface details distract the eye. Imagination and 'mind's eye' images become vivid and three dimensional. Some confusion of the senses. Some awareness of background mental processes such as balance systems or auditory visual perception. Old memories becomes accessible. Images or experiences may rise up. Music is powerful and can affect your mood. Sense of time lost.

+Three: Very strong hallucinations such as objects morphing into other objects. Intense depersonalisation - the barriers between you and the universe begin to break down. You feel you have connection with everything around you. You can experience contradictory feelings simultaneously. Some loss of reality. Time meaningless. Senses blend into one. Feeling of being born. Multiple splitting of the ego. Powerful awareness of your own mental processes and senses. Highly symbolic visions when eyes are closed.

+Four: A very rare experience. Total loss of visual connection with reality. The senses cease to function in the normal way. Total loss of self. Merging with space, other objects, or the universe. The loss of reality becomes so severe that it defies explanation. Pure white light.

Comedown

The trip wears off gradually after 8 to 12 hours, but you might continue to feel a bit messed up and weird until you get a full night's sleep. Physically, you can feel tired and drained right into the next day. Psychologically, any thoughts or feelings you had during your trip will stay with you. A positive experience can give you a kind of happiness lasting hours, days, or even weeks afterwards. A bad trip could freak you out for the same length of time.

Problems

As an actual drug, LSD is amazingly safe. It has no known physical side-effects, other than fatigue and a lingering sensation that your head has been messed with. However, as you will have guessed by now, acid is a powerful mental amplifier. That means that if you are feeling bummed or uptight, or deeply pissed off with commercial radio thrashing the same songs over and over, you should probably stay away from acid.

Most people who have a bad trip never touch the drug again. Experienced users and serious trippers accept that bad trips as part of the territory. Flashbacks can happen (where you temporarily feel like you're out of it again), days or even months afterwards, although this is not that common.

Addiction

LSD has zero physical addiction potential. It's not physically addictive and it's not a drug that you will want to do again right away. But, as with any substance, people can and do become psychologically addicted to LSD, and it can become very hard to function if you are taking acid on a regular basis. That, by the way, is the understatement of the fucking century.

Tolerance

This builds up rapidly with LSD, so that the same amount the next day will be noticeably less interesting. This wears off after three to four days, but to be honest, you're not going to be that keen on tripping so soon again anyway.

Mixing

LSD is powerful and unpredictable, so it's not such a good idea to use it with other mind-altering drugs, especially if you're a newb, or far from home. But hey, if you still want to know what might happen, visit our mixing section for more info.

Benefits

Apparently, LSD has been successfully used in some countries to treat serious drug addiction. Of course, the boffins don't just hand over a few tabs and say 'good luck'; like other experimental drug treatment programmes (including ecstasy), everything is strictly controlled and monitored with lots of counselling included.

Tips for using more safely

If you are new to LSD, or just want to be a bit sensible, check out these main points. They are just the basics though; you should fully read this whole article and visit our links page for all the info.

  • First timers - try taking a quarter or half a tab; as with all drugs, it's better to go easy than have a full on freak-out the first time you take it.
  • Because LSD makes you very, very sensitive to your environment, you should always be in a safe, comfortable space, preferably with a friend you trust. The higher you fly, the softer the landing pad should be.
  • Be in a nice place: No phone calls. No visitors. Sorry to sound like an old hippy, but see if you can be near nature, or surround yourself with nice plants, pictures, fruit etc.
  • Have a selection of nice, cruisy music within reach. This will help you relax and bring on a good trip.
  • Trip on an empty stomach. This will help you avoid feeling sick at the acid starts to take effect.
  • Don't do it alone: An experienced and trusted friend should either be your tripping partner, or stay sober to help you if you get into black spider land.
  • If you are taking with a group of friends, make sure you all take the same amount, at the same time, in full view of everyone else. This will decrease any chance of paranoia and ensure you are all on the same level.
  • Wait - always hang back at least two hours before deciding a tab is not working. The come-up period can sometimes take this long. Do not take another tab as you may well end up in the asteroid belt.
  • Remember, you really don't want to have a bad trip, so always try to follow this advice as much as possible.
  • from:

    ">>FAST-TIMES.CO.NZ: L.S.D." 11 Oct. 2008 .

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How I make a spoon

How I make a spoon

21st Century Highs The Future of Psychedelics

A NIDA educational pamphlet.Image via WikipediaAlexander Shulgin is the world's foremost developer and explorer of psychedelic drugs. Born in 1925, this self-described "manic libertarian psychedelic chemist", over the past 30 odd years or so, has been a prolific writer and his publications (150 scientific papers, 20 patents and a handful of books) provide a great introduction into the world of psychedelics and also he is the discover of DOM (at one time known as STP), MMDA and many other psychedelics and is generally regarded as the reinventor or stepfather of MDMA (Ecstasy - E).

With a PhD in Biochemistry from UC Berkeley, he has been a scientific consultant for such state-run organisations as The US National Institute on Drug Abuse, NASA, the US Drug Enforcement Organisation etc., but in private, has used his government licensed research lab, discreetly, but legally, designing hundreds of new psychoactive compounds, together with his wife Ann and a small, but dedicated research team, who sample each new drug as it's developed. Through cautious escalation of dosage, they discover and map out the range of each new drug's effects, experimenting with the various aspects of their psychological and/or spiritual potential.

In fact, one of the reasons he decided to write his autobiographical "chemical love story" Pihkal (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) and its continuation, Tihkal (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved), published late in 1997 and reviewed in Fringecore 2, was because he could see the need to get a lot of information published into a form that could not be destroyed. The books not only detail Sasha and Ann's remarkable adventures, but also set out recipes for recreating hundreds of Sasha's finely crafted magic molecules.

Sasha claims to be inspired partly by the history of Wilhelm Reich and considers Castanada to be his model and hero, not only seeing psychedelics as a potential enrichment to everyday life, but also as a means to increasing personal insight and expansion of one's mental and emotional horizons.

Psychedelics may be best defined as physically non-addictive compounds which temporarily alter the state of one's consciousness. Sasha believes that the use of psychedelic drugs, including the minor risks involved (an occasional difficult experience or perhaps some body malaise) are more than balanced by the potential for learning. He has a strong preference for psychedelics over heroin or cocaine (especially crack), both of which he has tried, because he feels both tend to allow the user to escape from who he or she really is, even to the point, from who you are not. Heroin, in particular, he feels, creates a loss of motivation and alertness and under its influence, nothing seems important to him. Cocaine, on the other hand stimulates a sense of power, but also the inescapable knowledge that it is not true power.

There is a healthy dose of humour in Sasha's writings and I was looking forward to talking with him about the future of psychedelics and the likely highs for the 21st C.

Dee: What effect will future users be looking for, particularly in terms of ASC (Altered State of Consciousness)?

Sasha Shulgin: The effects that will be sought by future users of psychedelic drugs will, I believe, depend on the circumstances of their use. In a public environment, the uses will certainly parallel those of today such as socializing and person-to-person interactions. The disinhibition with honesty that often accompanies the pursuit of the alteration of one's consciousness allows an intimacy of interaction, not necessarily in the sexual sense but rather in the trusting sense. In a clinical environment, such as in psychological counseling or psychotherapy, the search might be directed more to establishing access to one's unconscious, with the expectation of unearthing the sources of personal problems and addressing them. In a private environment, the user may venture an exploration along spiritual paths, or some similar interior search for answers to personal questions.


Explain the different forms of contact high and how is it, do you think that it creates unintentional participation?

S: A contact high is an often unintentional joining into the spirit of a group interaction without the use of any drug that might have been used by the others. This is the very nature of man as a social animal. When those about you laugh, you laugh even though you may be unaware of just what, if anything, is funny. When there is a sad feeling about you, you can truly feel sad. The spirit of people in a rave scene, for example, can be contagious and, if there may happen to be a general use of psychotropic drugs, you may find the feelings contagious. I have often seen, in small groups, the behavior of a pet cat who just seems to know that something unusual is going on. It is an amazing animal model of the "contact high."


Ketamine and scopolamine are delusional anaesthetic drugs which actually produce true hallucinations, whereas, most psychedelic drugs contrary to common belief only create visual distortions of the real surroundings. When do you think there will be hallucinogens available that have the effect of ketamine, but less of the side-effects?

S: The separation of mind from body with Ketamine and similar drugs is not a side-effect - it is the intended effect. These are anaesthetics that have been designed for medical use to achieve just this result. They keep the afferent signals from the body from ever reaching the brain, thus allowing the patient to remain conscious and to travel out there in the cosmos, without being bothered by the otherwise painful input from the resetting of a broken leg.


In your experience which drugs produce the most potent mind-body separation, often known as the "Ketamine State" and are there different types of states?

S: I have had very little experience with the Ketamine world of psychotropic drugs. My search has, as a rule, been for materials that would tend to bring body and mind together, rather than to separate them.


Have you ever reached or come close to a plus 4 (++++) (by means of a drug, of course), if so, was it truly bliss and what produced it?

S: The +4 state is not simply a more intense place - it is a unique mental state that is a phenomenon unto itself. As Ann and I noted in PIHKAL, it is a rare and precious transcendental state which has been called a "peak experience," a "divine transformation" or a "state of Samadhi." It has been known to come from a drug experience, and it has been known to occur to a person spontaneously with no drug having been involved. I have had two drug-related reactions that I have called "bliss" or "timeless" or "omnipotent" states where I can move things without touching them and make cloud patterns assume shapes of my own choosing. But as extraordinary as they are, they are also exhausting and an eventual return to a normal "stoned" condition is truly appreciated.


Have you found that recipes such as Aleph 2 from Pihkal or AL-LAD in Tihkal, which seem to give a more peaceful trip than LSD often does, are likely to become more popular?

S: Probably not. Both of these materials call upon rather sophisticated chemical skills, and I suspect that they would not be the choice of the inexperienced layman. I suspect that the peacefulness of a psychedelic experience would be more likely to come from a familiarity with the ups and downs that might be met, and with a careful titration of one's own personal dosage requirements.


Which new "target compounds" are you researching?

S: I am currently totally caught up with an earlier interest I had had with the relationship between the structures of the alkaloids of the cacti and the poppy world. Most of this I had never published, but now I am resynthesizing and getting spectroscopic definitions of many fascinating compounds. One hears about a psychoactive cactus, thinks of peyote and mescaline. One hears about a psychoactive poppy, one thinks of morphine. And then turns to another topic. But both families are treasure houses of some remarkable compounds called tetrahydroisoquinolines, and I hope to put these findings together into a new book in the near future.


In the chapter on designer drugs in Tihkal "Shura" mentions that the drugs could be accepted as being of great social value, in that they could contribute to a better standard of living. In which way do you seeing this value being best expressed other than in purely improved basic health reasons?

S: The positive social value of these materials is a direct consequence of the enhanced openness and trust that can follow their exploration. This can come from a better understanding of one's own nature, and from an increased acceptance of the ideas and motives of others. Anything that can contribute in any way to the structuring and reinforcement of a community has the potential of true social value.


You have always found ways of by-passing the barriers/obstacles placed in the way of your research, the various controlled substance laws, the schedules etc. These seem to be coming more rigorous as you will know a large number of the recipes/drugs covered in Pihkal were recently made illegal in the UK. As I understand your stance to be that you do nothing illegal, how do you balance these factors?

S: The writing of new law, or the amending of old law, is a two-edged sword. The increase of complexity or of fine detail makes a structure stronger but, at the same time, more rigid. And I believe that the ends intended are very rarely met. Some 130 of the compounds mentioned in Pihkal were not specifically named, as it was felt that the generalized structure definition in the "Analogue Amendment" to the MODA covered them already. A careful comparison between their chemical structures and the precise wording of this amendment gives official acknowledgment of some remarkable limitations. And the explicit naming of the some 40-odd compounds in Pihkal that were believed to lie outside the scope of this amendment gives unprecedented publicity to several interesting psychedelic compounds that would have otherwise faded into oblivion. I have completed a working draft for a Chapter in my new book, entitled, "Britain: A Class A Country."


What is your current stance on human experimentation?

S: It is an absolutely essential procedure in the development of any research tool or medicine that will have eventual application in the study of the function of the human mind, or in the medical treatment of the problems that are associated with it. Research with animals has great values in determining the duration of sedatives or the effectiveness of narcotics, but can play no role in the discovery and evaluation of potential drugs that might improve self-image or recapture lost memories. These are uniquely human mind needs and require the human animal as the test animal. In the United States, a law was passed in 1986 that effectively outlawed the giving of any analogue of a Controlled Drug to anyone with the intent of achieving the effects of a Controlled Drug. This effectively outlawed the giving of any stimulant, depressant or hallucinogenic drugs to man. This was put in place to prohibit exploration in these areas, but two areas remain totally open. No case can be made against the self-administration of a new chemical without an established effect. And, if no stimulant, or depressant, or hallucinogenic effect is intended but, rather, something in the area of an anti-depressant or a mood-enhancer, then the analogue law does not apply to the experiment.


Do you think we will see increasing interest in natural psychedelics, such as those containing psychedelic beta carbolines, such as peganum harmala; or ayahuasca, yage etc. What are the new base types evolving?

S: Very much so. Nature around us is an unbelievably rich, largely unknown, source of many plants and there are many quiet dedicated people exploring it. And some not so quiet! There are many herbs and potions being explored by an ever-increasing number of people. The ayahuasca concept is becoming widely known. This is the mixing of two plants, one of which contains a potentially active compound that is destroyed by the body's chemistry before the action can be realized, and the other containing a different compound that inhibits this destruction. And clues to certain botanical threads are being pursued with vigor. A recent addition to the psychedelic scene is the Mexican sacred mint plant which contains the very potent compound salvinorin-A. I have recently heard that as an outgrowth of this knowledge, several people are systematically eating or smoking other Salvia species to see if they too might contain active components. And so far, this search seems to be somewhat successful.


It seems that users will look for faster-acting psychedelics in the future, are there even newer forms of tryptamines being developed that are more effective than the derivatives and analogues of DMT, DET, DPT, DBT discussed in Tihkal etc?

S:I am not sure that speed of action and effectiveness are necessarily related. Rapid onset of a drug is as much a consequence of route of administration as it is an intrinsic property. Consider N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) or even better 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) as examples. When smoked, they are effective within seconds. But this very short onset period and the often correspondingly short duration is seen by some users as a negative property. You are hit quickly, you are pretty much on your back totally out of it, and then you recover and wonder just what that was all about! These materials, when taken orally with some metabolic poison such as an amine-oxidase inhibitor, can be much slower in onset and much longer lived. And in the eyes of many users, with an action that is much more acceptable.


Do you envisage that one of the pharmaceutical corporations will find a legal justification of bringing out a new line of psychoactive/psychedelic drugs within the next five years?

S: I would be most surprised if this were to happen. The ubiquitous anti-illegal drug propaganda all about us has been prompted primarily by the two most newsworthy entities cocaine and heroin. But the psychedelics have been caught up in this generality and the public has lumped them together as being similarly evil. And I cannot see any pharmaceutical house risking its reputation for health and goodness on the promotion of something that smells of evil. Look at the struggles that the advocates of medical marijuana are undergoing, all in the face of this relentless Government noise about drug abuse and related criminality. I am afraid that both the laws and public opinion will have to change before any responsible corporation offers a psychedelic drug commercially. And even then, its action will have to have a description identification without words such as psychedelic, or spiritual, or visionary, or God in it.


You invented MMDA, which despite popular confusion is a totally separate drug from MDMA. I believe you stated that it has many times the activity of mescaline. Do you feel that your original learnings on this drug and its analogues in terms of its effects have been verified? Will you find a way of producing MMDA-4 or 5 and what would you expect its power to be?

S: Yes, MMDA and MDMA are totally different materials. The first has initials that stand for Methoxy-Methylene-Dioxy-Amphetamine, and is structurally related to the essential oil myristicin. The second stand for Methylene-Dioxy-Meth-Amphetamine and is related to the essential oil safrole. I first discovered and published the nature of the activity of MMDA in 1962 and of the five theoretically possible positional isomers it is the second, MMDA-2, that is about ten times the potency of mescaline. I don't believe that anyone has ever succeeded in even making the isomer MMDA-4, let alone having evaluated it. I didn't publish the human activity on MDMA, however, until some fifteen years later, in 1978.


Phenethylamines and tryptamines are the two basic building blocks of psychedelics, by boosting their neurotransmitter counterparts in the brain. Are you researching any newly-found substances that can stimulate other, similar transmitters?

S: The brain neurotransmitters that are most closely related to phenethylamine and to tryptamine are dopamine and serotonin respectively. I am not sure that I would use the word "boosting" as a description however! These brain neurotransmitters are clearly involved in the action of the psychedelic drugs, but the interrelationships are not as simple nor as well understood and the neurologists would have you believe. There is a chemically related natural neurological agent that has the potential of parallel chemistry; this is the material histamine. With a black-board and a good supply of chalk, one could parallel the chemistry of both the phenethylamines and the tryptamines and draw a host of compounds that might possibly be psychoactive. But this is a theoretical world without any present known promise, and must wait for some future enthusiast to champion it.


Do you think that all of the states of consciousness which psychedelics induce are naturally present in the human or are they sometimes a unique reaction created by the interfacing of the chemicals with the endogenous neurotransmitters?

S: I am a strong advocate of the hypothesis that psychedelic drugs do not do things, but rather they allow things to happen. All the states of consciousness that can be revealed have always been present within that remarkable organ we call the brain, but we normally remain ignorant of our potentials. There is no way that a few micrograms or milligrams of a simple white solid could have the property of producing a religious experience or of seeing a divine image, all tucked away in its crystalline lattice. It is we, as curious and uninformed individuals, who bring these new states of consciousness into our awareness. The drug is merely the catalyst that lets this happen. All possible states are all with us all the time, and we were simply unaware of them.


Do you think that the use of psychedelics can lead to a completely new form of perception?

S: Not really. This is an extension of the question I just answered above. We have a handsome array of sensory skills normally at our disposal, and I believe that the psychedelics allow them to be more fully appreciated. In my first experiment with mescaline, almost 40 years ago, I saw colors that I had never seen before. But there was no way this could be argued as a new form of perception. They must have always been there, but I simply had never paid much attention before.


Are there long-term negative residues of psychedelics left in the body after a number of years of recreational use, if so is there any way of minimalising this in the future?

S: This is an ongoing concern of many people, and there is no direct way of answering it. There have been quite a few animal studies with various psychedelic drugs that have shown believable neurological change. Most of these have involved large and continuing dosages, but change is change and it simply cannot be said with any confidence that these results cannot apply to man. I don't want to attempt to make here a critical review of the mountain of medical literature that has appeared to attempt to tie MDMA to clinical problems. Most of the connections are weak, but some are real and demand that close and continuous attention be paid to the possibility of its being an instrument of causality. As to chronic use leading to long term damage, it is easy to say, "we have no way of knowing what might lie twenty years down the road," but the same can be said of any of the several new and well tested pharmaceutical agents that are introduced into medical practice every year. One must always remain cautious and observant.


Do you believe there will be an even more widespread use of psychedelics in the future?

S:This is hard to answer because it is impossible to say just how widespread the use of psychedelic drugs is today! There are many closet users who for some personal reasons choose not to reveal these interests. If the negative image that stains these drugs were to be removed and their use were to achieve social acceptability, there might be some rather remarkable public acknowledgments eventually made. And this could be interpreted as an increase in their use. I don't believe that the needed information is available to answer this.


What will be the next "Ecstasy", (not a psychedelic, of course) in terms of mass scene usage?

S: Oh there will surely be some event, some factor, some symbol of something that will define the "mass scene" but it need not be another "Ecstasy" and it need not even be another drug. As all of us get older, year by year, we tend to assume that the human animal, everywhere, is getting older and older. Not so! There has always been, and there will always be, a segment of the population that is at the rebellious age. They will search for, and discover a way of saying, "We are who we are. We are immortal. We will not march to our parent's drum." Time will move each individual towards old age and mortality. But at any given time, there is a real and exciting rebellious population who will use some prohibited drug, or explore some disallowed sexual things, or become devoted to some gung-ho musical phenomenon that the elders disapprove of. It is in the nature of youth to define itself in some new and preferably offensive way (at least as seen by the adults of the moment). It is an expression of defiance. I have been there and I have survived it. But I also remember it and very much respect it.


Although E is losing its popularity, it is still a regular at raves, which bearing in mind the fact that the magic and its "set" seem lost after the first few uses, presumably means that new users are coming into the fold all the time. By the way, do you consider yourself the "reinventor" of E (MDMA)?

S: The magic of the experience of MDMA ("E". Ecstasy) is sadly lost after the first few exposures to it, at least for most users. But it is keenly remembered, and the experienced user can recapture the memory of that magic by seeing a new person trying it for the first time. This is certainly one of the factors that has kept it alive and in demand over the years. Am I the "reinventor" of MDMA? I will settle for being called its step-father in that it was first invented many years before I was born. But as I was the first person to describe its remarkable properties in the scientific literature, maybe reinvention is an OK term.
"Alexander Shulgin on the future of psychedelics." 11 Oct. 2008 .

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Rabbit Addcited