Alexander Shulgin

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Alexander Shulgin 2010

Alexander "Sasha" Theodore Shulgin (born June 17, 1925 in Alameda , California , † June 2, 2014 in Lafayette , California) was an American chemist and pharmacologist of Russian descent. He is known for his decades of work in the systematic development of synthetic hallucinogens , mainly from the structural classes of phenethylamines and tryptamines . In the 1990s, Shulgin addressed the general public with his books PiHKAL and TiHKAL.

Life

After serving in the US Navy , Shulgin studied biochemistry at UC Berkeley . Doctoral degrees Ph. D. he obtained in 1954. In the late 1950s, he conducted research as a post-doctoral researcher at the UC San Francisco in the field of pharmacology . After a brief stint as Research Director at Bio-Rad Laboratories , he became a research chemist at Dow Chemical . There he developed the first biodegradable insecticide Mexacarbat , which was marketed by Dow Chemical under the brand name Zectran . In recognition of this, his employer gave him plenty of space for his private research into psychedelic substances, which he had previously done casually. After some time, however, the company no longer wanted to be associated with Shulgin's psychedelic work and forbade him to continue to use the address of Dow Chemical as the author's address in its publications.

In 1965 he left Dow Chemical. He then worked as a scientific advisor to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), teaching forensic toxicology and public health at the Universities of San Francisco and at the San Francisco General Hospital. Until 1994 he had the privilege of holding a state license that allowed him to work with prohibited drugs (" Schedule I Drugs "). After the DEA raided his laboratory in his shed in 1994, this special permit was withdrawn from him and a fine of $ 25,000 was demanded for work for anonymous clients, which he then paid. Shulgin said in an interview that he complied with the law.

In the 1960s, Shulgin manufactured several mescaline analogues and published the results in the journal Nature . In 1976 he was made aware of the psychoactive effects of MDMA - nowadays one of the main components of ecstasy - by a student when its psychoactive properties were still little known. Shulgin called MDMA his "low-calorie martini". In the same year he then developed a new synthesis method for the substance, which was first manufactured by Merck in 1912 and patented in 1914 but was classified as commercially worthless. As a result, in 1976 he introduced MDMA to his friend, psychologist Leo Zeff. Zeff then used MDMA in low doses as an aid in his talk therapy sessions. Shulgin became prominent in the history of MDMA when he published the first psychopharmacological study on MDMA together with US pharmacologist David Nichols in 1978.

Since then, Shulgin has synthesized more than three hundred psychoactive compounds and tested them on self with his wife Ann Shulgin. He has published the experience, synthesis routes and dose information gained from this in four books and in over two hundred journal publications. Shulgin's best-known discoveries are the DOB and the 2C-B . He is also the namesake of the 2C group of substances . He was active in the "psychedelic community", lecturing at conferences and giving interviews.

His life and work was presented in the documentary "Dirty Pictures" (German title: "Ecstasy Bandits").

reception

Shulgin publicly advocated the right to explore the limits of human consciousness without government interference. Although he was not the inventor of MDMA, but rather described a simplified synthesis, he has been referred to as the Godfather of Ecstasy in the club culture of electronic music . In a systematic review of 2014 the synthesis of designer drugs , the consequences of Shulgin's insights were stated to "devastating".

literature

Web links

Commons : Alexander Shulgin  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ gawker.com: Sasha Shulgin, "Godfather of Ecstasy," Dead at 88 , June 2, 2014.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Alexander Shulgin obituary. In: The Guardian. February 3, 2018 (accessed February 21, 2018).
  3. ↑ a b Drake Bennett: Dr. Ecstasy. In: The New York Times Magazine. January 30, 2005, accessed February 20, 2018.
  4. ^ P. Jacob, AT Shulgin: Structure-activity relationships of the classic hallucinogens and their analogs. In: NIDA Research Monograph. 146, 1994, pp. 74-91.
  5. ↑ archives.drugabuse.gov (PDF file)
  6. ↑ articles.latimes.com
  7. ^ Nicolas David Langlitz: Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research Since the Decade of the Brain. University of California, Berkeley with the University of California, San Francisco 2007, ISBN 978-0-520-27481-5 , pp. 77-78.
  8. ↑ a b c shulginresearch.org: Alexander 'Sasha' Shulgin
  9. ^ Brian Vastag: Chemist Alexander Shulgin, popularizer of the drug Ecstasy, dies at 88. In: The Washington Post. June 3, 2014 (accessed February 21, 2018).
  10. ↑ AT Shulgin et al.: The Psychotomimetic Properties of 3,4,5-Trimethoxyamphetamine. In: Nature. Vol. 189, 1961, pp. 1011-1012, doi: 10.1038 / 1891011a0 .
  11. ↑ AT Shulgin: The ethyl homologs of 2,4,5-trimethoxyphenylisopropylamine. In: J. Med. Chem. Vol. 11 (54), 1968, pp. 186-187. PMID 5637180 .
  12. ↑ a b G. Appendino, A. Minassi, O. Taglialatela-Scafati: Recreational drug discovery: natural products as lead structures for the synthesis of smart drugs. In: Natural product reports. Volume 31, Number 7, July 2014, pp. 880-904, doi: 10.1039 / c4np00010b . PMID 24823967 (Review) ( free full text ). "Shulgin claimed that mescaline made him aware of the existence of a world buried in our spirit, whose" availability "was" catalyzed "by chemicals. The consequences of these insights were devastating. "
  13. ↑ Drake Bennett: Dr. Ecstasy. (No longer available online.) In: New York Times Magazine. January 30, 2005, archived from the original on July 13, 2012 ; Retrieved May 22, 2013 .
  14. ^ AT Shulgin, DE Nichols: Characterization of three new psychotomimetics. In: RC Stillman, RE Willette (Ed.): The Psychopharmacology of Hallucinogens. Pergamon Press, New York 1978, pp. 74-83.
  15. ↑ T. Passie, U. Benzenhöfer: The History of MDMA as an Underground Drug in the United States, 1960–1979. In: Journal of psychoactive drugs. Volume 48, number 2, Apr-Jun 2016, pp. 67-75, doi: 10.1080 / 02791072.2015.1128580 . PMID 26940772 .
  16. ^ Dirty Pictures. Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Shulgin, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shulgin, Alexander Theodore (full name); Shulgin, Sasha Theodore (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist and pharmacologist of Russian descent
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Alameda , California
DATE OF DEATH 2nd June 2014
Place of death Lafayette , California