Alexander Shulgin

Alexander Shulgin
PhD
Shulgin with his wife Ann in 2011
Born
Alexander Theodore Shulgin

(1925-06-17)June 17, 1925
Berkeley, California, U.S.
DiedJune 2, 2014(2014-06-02) (aged 88)
Lafayette, California, U.S.
Other nameAlexander "Sasha" Shulgin
EducationHarvard University, University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Known forWork in psychedelic chemistry on phenethylamines and tryptamines, including MDMA, 2C-B, DOM, and others
Notable workPiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (1991); TiHKAL: The Continuation (1997); The Shulgin Index, Volume One (2011); Others
SpousesNina Gordon (deceased)
Ann Gotlieb (deceased)
ChildrenTheodore "Ted" Shulgin
AwardsSeveral DEA awards
Scientific career
FieldsChemistry, biochemistry
WorkplacesBio-Rad Laboratories, Dow Chemical Company, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco State University, San Francisco General Hospital, others
ThesisThe Synthesis of Several Isotopically Labelled Amino Acids (1955)
David M. Greenberg
WebsiteAsk Dr. Shulgin Online

Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin (June 17, 1925 – June 2, 2014) was an American biochemist who synthesized and tested over 200 psychedelic and related chemical compounds. Among the most notable psychedelic and related drugs that Shulgin developed include 2C-B, DOM (STP), and Ariadne (4C-D; BL-3912; Dimoxamine). In addition, he is known for discovering and describing the unique effects of the entactogen MDMA (ecstasy), which led to its use in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and to its widespread use as a recreational drug, for instance in the rave scene.

Shulgin studied chemistry at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1955. He developed the best-selling biodegradable pesticide mexacarbate (Zectran) while working at Dow Chemical Company in the early 1960s. Shulgin became interested in psychedelic chemistry after having his first psychedelic experience in 1960 and from then on began developing new psychedelic compounds in his lab at his home in Lafayette, California. His approach was to synthesize the compounds, test them on himself and a small group of trusted others, and document his findings. He formally published on psychedelics in the scientific literature for decades, before publishing his books PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) in 1991 and TiHKAL: The Continuation (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved) in 1997. These books documented his and others' work with hundreds of phenethylamines, tryptamines, and lysergamides, including their chemical syntheses, properties and effects, and discussion. They were coauthored by Shulgin and by his wife Ann Shulgin, a pioneering psychedelic therapist, whom he met in 1978 and married in 1981. Shulgin was an academic and taught at universities such as the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco State University.

Shulgin had a close and friendly relationship with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for many decades and held a DEA license to work with Schedule I controlled substances. Following the publication of PiHKAL however, Shulgin's lab was raided by the DEA in 1993. He was stripped of his license and fined due to a violation of its terms. According to a DEA representative, "It is our opinion that those books are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs." There have also been overdoses and deaths due to compounds that Shulgin developed, which he has expressed frustration and sadness about, but also emphasized personal freedom and that all drugs have risks. During his life, Shulgin advocated for use of psychedelics and for legalization of all drugs. He has historically been a polarizing figure, seen variously as a "hero of the counterculture", "curiosity", and "menace".

Shulgin has been described as the "greatest psychedelic chemist of all time". He has also been dubbed the "godfather of ecstasy" and as the "godfather of psychedelics". Several documentaries have been made about Shulgin and his work and life. Transform Press, the publisher of PiHKAL and TiHKAL, and the Alexander Shulgin Research Institute (ASRI) were founded by Shulgin and/or by his family and close colleagues. In addition, Shulgin's home and lab, known as the Shulgin Farm, have been memorialized as a center for psychedelic education and community. Shulgin died in 2014 at the age of 88 and was followed by his wife Ann Shulgin in 2022. As of the 2020s, many psychedelics and entactogens, including some associated with Shulgin like MDMA, are under investigation for potential medical use to treat mental health conditions.

Early life and education

Shulgin was born on June 17, 1925, in Berkeley, California, to Theodore Stevens Shulgin (1893–1978) and Henrietta D. (Aten) Shulgin (1894–1960). His father was born in Chelyabinsk, Russia and was a refugee of the Russian Revolution; his mother was born in Illinois. Theodore and Henrietta were public school teachers in Alameda County, California.

Shulgin studied organic chemistry at Harvard University as a scholarship student, and was enrolled there at the age of 16. He dropped out to join the U.S. Navy, during his second year at Harvard. In 1944, a military nurse gave Shulgin a glass of orange juice prior to a surgery for a thumb infection, while serving on USS Pope during World War II; he drank the juice and, assuming that crystals at the bottom of the glass were a sedative, "fell unconscious".[additional citation(s) needed] Upon waking he learned that the crystals were undissolved sugar, and that doctors had administered anesthesia after he was already unconscious—an experience Drake Bennett of The New York Times Magazine referred to as "revelatory", and a "tantalizing hint of the mind's odd strength", as "his collapse was caused entirely by the placebo effect".[additional citation(s) needed]

After serving in the armed forces, Shulgin returned to California, and earned his PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Through the late 1950s, Shulgin completed post-doctoral work in the fields of psychiatry and pharmacology at University of California, San Francisco.

Career

After working at Bio-Rad Laboratories as a research director for a brief period, Shulgin began his career at Dow Chemical Company.

Shulgin first heard of mescaline in the mid-1940s and read about it over the years, including the works of early researchers like Kurt Beringer and Alexandre Rouhier and the later works of Aldous Huxley among others. A psychologist friend of Shulgin's named Terry Major offered to let him try mescaline and he eagerly accepted. Shulgin's first experience with the drug, at a dose of 350 or 400 mg of the sulfate salt, was on April 2, 1960. Speaking of the experience, Shulgin said "I learned there was a great deal inside me". In addition, he said that the experience "unquestionably confirmed the entire direction of my life". Shulgin described experiencing color and visual changes, insights, recall of childhood memories, and experiencing the world as amazing like when he was a child again. He later reported personal revelations that "had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid ... I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability." With the experience, Shulgin decided to study psychedelic drugs and their chemistry and began publishing in this area in early 1961.

Mexacarbate (Zectran)-containing pesticide manufactured by Dow; photo taken at the Farm in 2009.

Shulgin's professional activities continued to lean in the direction of psychopharmacology, furthered by his personal experiences with psychedelics. But during this period he was unable to do much independent research. His opportunity for further research came in 1961 after his development of mexacarbate (brand name Zectran), the first biodegradable pesticide and a highly profitable product. In his book PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story, Shulgin limits his pesticide days at Dow Chemical to one sentence of the almost 1,000 pages. Dow Chemical Company, in return for mexacarbate's valuable patent, gave Shulgin great freedom. During this time, he created and patented drugs when Dow asked, and published findings on other drugs in journals such as Nature and the Journal of Organic Chemistry.

Shulgin discovered the psychedelic drug DOM, which has around 100 times the potency of mescaline, while working at Dow Chemical Company in 1963. This led to a research program on DOM and its analogue DOET at the company in the mid-1960s, including clinical studies of DOET for potential medical use at sub-hallucinogenic doses as a "psychic energizer". They tasked neuroscientist Solomon H. Snyder at Johns Hopkins University with conducting the studies. Soon after LSD was banned in California in October 1966, LSD chemist Owsley Stanley began looking for a legal replacement for it. Shulgin provided Stanley with information about DOM's synthesis on index cards and a 50 g sample of the drug. Stanley then began distributing DOM to the public in very-high-dose tablets under the nickname STP in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco starting in April 1967. This resulted in a small public health crisis due to unintentional overdoses, the drug's potential for very long durations, and its greater adverse effects compared to LSD. It was soon uncovered and published in the news media that DOM had originated at Dow Chemical Company. As a result, the company cancelled its research program into DOET. In addition, at some point, Dow Chemical Company requested that Shulgin no longer use their name as an affiliation on his publications.

In December 1966, shortly before the DOM epidemic, Shulgin left Dow Chemical company in order to pursue his own interests. He first spent two years in medical school studying neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, leaving to work on a consulting project. Shulgin set up a home-based lab on his property, known as "the Farm" (later called the Shulgin Farm), and became a private consultant. He also taught classes at local universities including the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco State University. Through his friend Bob Sager, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)'s Western Laboratories, Shulgin formed a relationship with the DEA and began holding pharmacology seminars for the agents, supplying the DEA with samples of various compounds, and occasionally serving as an expert witness in court. In 1988, he authored a then-definitive law enforcement reference book on controlled substances called The Controlled Substances Act: A Resource Manual of the Current Status of the Federal Drug Laws. He also served as an expert witness for the DEA and received several awards from them.

Shulgin developed Ariadne (4C-D; BL-3912), a non-hallucinogenic analogue of DOM, in 1968. Though Ariadne was not psychedelic, it was still psychoactive, producing feelings of well-being and mental alertness analogously to sub-hallucinogenic doses of DOM and DOET. Shulgin introduced Ariadne to Bristol-Myers Company, which started clinical trials of the drug for various uses in 1974. It reached phase 3 trials and had the tentative brand name Dimoxamine, but development was ultimately discontinued for strategic economic reasons.

Independent research

In order to work with scheduled psychoactive chemicals, Shulgin obtained a DEA Schedule I license for an analytical laboratory, which allowed him to synthesize and possess any otherwise illicit drug. Shulgin set up a chemical synthesis laboratory in a small building behind his house, which gave him a great deal of career autonomy. Shulgin used this freedom to synthesize and test the effects of potentially psychoactive drugs.

In 1976, Shulgin was reintroduced to MDMA by a student in the medicinal chemistry group he advised at San Francisco State University. MDMA had been synthesized in 1912 by Merck and patented in 1913 as an intermediate of another synthesis in order to block competitors, but was never explored in its own right. Shulgin went on to develop a new synthesis method, and in 1976, introduced the chemical to Leo Zeff, a psychologist from Oakland, California. Zeff used the substance in his practice in small doses as an aid to talk therapy. Zeff introduced the substance to hundreds of psychologists and lay therapists around the nation, including Ann Gotlieb, whom Alexander Shulgin met in 1979 and married in 1981. It was her fourth marriage, and she had four children.

Most of the Shulgin research group circa 1980. From left to right, Darrell Lemaire, unknown, Myron Stolaroff, Dale, Phyllis, Alexander Shulgin, Ann Shulgin, and Peyton Jacob III.

After judicious self-experiments, Shulgin enlisted a small group of friends with whom he regularly tested his creations, starting in 1960. Among these friends included Peyton Jacob III, Myron Stolaroff, Jean Stolaroff, and Darrell Lemaire, among others. Shulgin developed a systematic way of ranking the effects of the various drugs, known as the Shulgin Rating Scale, with a vocabulary to describe the visual, auditory and physical sensations. He personally tested hundreds of drugs, mainly analogues of various phenethylamines (family containing MDMA, mescaline, 2Cs, and the DOx), and tryptamines (family containing DMT, psilocin, and LSD). There are a seemingly infinite number of slight chemical variations, which can produce variations in effect—some pleasant and some unpleasant, depending on the person, substance, and situation—all of which are meticulously recorded in Shulgin's laboratory notebooks. Shulgin published many of these objective and subjective reports in his books and papers. About 2C-B he said in 2003: "It is, in my opinion, one of the most graceful, erotic, sensual, introspective compounds I have ever invented. For most people, it is a short-lived and comfortable psychedelic, with neither toxic side-effects nor next-day hang-over."

With his wife Ann, Shulgin published the books PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) in 1991 and TiHKAL: The Continuation (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved) in 1997. These books documented his and others' work with hundreds of phenethylamines, tryptamines, and lysergamides, including their chemical syntheses, properties and effects, and discussion. The Shulgins started their own publishing company, Transform Press, to publish the books.

In 1994, two years after the publication of PiHKAL, the DEA raided his lab. The agency requested that Shulgin surrender his license for violating its terms, and he was fined $25,000 for possession of anonymous samples sent to him for quality testing. In the 15 years preceding the publication of PiHKAL, two announced and scheduled reviews failed to find any irregularities. Richard Meyer, spokesman for DEA's San Francisco Field Division, has stated that, "It is our opinion that those books are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs. Agents tell me that in clandestine labs that they have raided, they have found copies of those books."

Shulgin at the home-based lab on his property, known as "the Farm", 2009. He is wearing an Erowid shirt.

In the 2000s, Shulgin had been working on a series of N-allylated tryptamines including DALT, 5-MeO-DALT, and 5-MeO-MALT. He had also been working in the 2000s to identify the active constituents of Pachycereus pringlei (cardón or elephant cactus), a psychedelic cactus native to northwestern Mexico that does not contain mescaline, though these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. He published the book The Simple Plant Isoquinolines in 2003. Shulgin ran a web column called Ask Dr. Shulgin Online through the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (CCLE) from 2001 to 2005. His final book published during his life, The Shulgin Index, Volume One: Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds, was published in 2011. A second volume on tryptamines was also being prepared but was ultimately never completed. His book The Nature of Drugs: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact, based on his lectures for a pharmacology course he taught at San Francisco State University in the late 1980s, was published posthumously in two volumes in 2021 and 2023.

Personal life, health, and death

Shulgin was married to Nina Shulgin (née Gordon) until her death from a stroke in 1977. He had a son with her, Theodore "Ted" Shulgin. Following Nina's death, Shulgin married Ann Shulgin (née Gotlieb) in 1981. He spent most of his later life at the Farm in Lafayette, California. Shulgin's son Ted died in 2011 at the age of 61. Ted had helped Shulgin in synthesizing DOM as a teenager in 1963.

On April 8, 2008, at the age of 82, Shulgin underwent surgery to replace a defective aortic valve. He is said to have been almost blind in 2010. On November 16, 2010, Shulgin suffered a stroke, from which he largely recovered. Also at the close of 2010, a skin-grafting surgery saved his left foot from being amputated. Around this time, Shulgin began showing early signs of dementia, mostly severe loss of short-term memory. With progression of the dementia since 2010, his wife, Ann Shulgin, had been trying to sell part of their property to raise more money to cover care costs. On April 17, 2014, Ann Shulgin reported on Facebook that her husband had developed liver cancer, and in a May 31 update on Facebook she said that, although appearing frail, he seemed to be experiencing his last moments in peace and without pain. Shulgin died at his home on June 2, 2014, at the age of 88.

Shulgin is said to have had more than 4,000 psychedelic experiences during his life. His favorite psychedelic drug is said to have been LSD, while his favorite psychedelic of his own creations was 2C-B. When asked what his favorite psychoactive drug in general was, he responded "probably a nice, moderately expensive Zinfandel" (a type of red wine). Shulgin personally disliked cannabis and ketamine, as he didn't like feeling that disoriented and as he valued drugs that provided learning experiences, which he felt that these substances didn't provide in his case. When asked which psychedelic he would recommend for someone who had not previously had a psychedelic experience, Shulgin would often say 2C-B.

Shulgin was a self-proclaimed and staunch libertarian in the area of psychoactive drugs, advocating personal freedom and cognitive liberty with little in the way of restrictions. He was a member of Mensa International and frequently attended Mensa events in California. Shulgin was also a Bohemian Club member and described this briefly in his book PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story.

Response and legacy

In a 2014 review of the synthesis of designer drugs, the effects of Shulgin's work were described as "by far the most far-reaching" effects associated with the cultural climate of interest at the time in hallucinogenic compounds generally and mescaline in particular, with which various artists and writers had experimented. Shulgin said that mescaline made him aware of a world submerged in human spirit, whose "availability" was "catalyzed" by such chemicals; the consequences of his insights were called "devastating" by the reviewers. In the same review, an example of his insights was given by his description of MDMA as "his low-calorie Martini".

Bibliography

Books

  • The Controlled Substances Act: A Resource Manual of the Current Status of the Federal Drug Laws (1st edition). Lafayette, Calif. (1988). OCLC 22676094.
  • Controlled Substances: Chemical & Legal Guide to Federal Drug Laws (2nd edition). Berkeley, Calif.: Ronin Publishing (1992). ISBN 9780914171430.
  • PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story, with Ann Shulgin. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (1991). ISBN 978-0-9630096-0-9.
  • TiHKAL: The Continuation, with Ann Shulgin. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (1997). ISBN 978-0-9630096-9-2.
  • The Simple Plant Isoquinolines, with Wendy Perry. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (2002). ISBN 978-0-9630096-2-3.
  • The Shulgin Index, Volume One: Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds, with Tania Manning and Paul F. Daley. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (2011). ISBN 978-0-9630096-3-0.
  • The Nature of Drugs: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact, Volume One. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (2021). ISBN 978-0-9995472-1-2.
  • The Nature of Drugs: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact, Volume Two. Berkeley, Calif.: Transform Press (2023). ISBN 978-0-9995472-5-0

Laboratory notebooks

Documentaries

Documentaries about Alexander Shulgin include the following:

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Ancestry.com. California Birth Index, 1905–1995 [database on-line]. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Original data: State of California. California Birth Index, 1905–1995. Sacramento, California: State of California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Bennett, Drake (January 30, 2005). "Dr. Ecstasy". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on November 17, 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2006. Shulgin tested for activity by taking the chemicals himself ... Most of the scientific community considers Shulgin at best a curiosity and at worst a menace. Now, however, near the end of his career, his faith in the potential of psychedelics has at least a chance at vindication. A little more than a month ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved a Harvard Medical School study looking at whether MDMA can alleviate the fear and anxiety of terminal cancer patients. And next month will mark a year since Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist in Charleston, S.C., started his study of Ecstasy-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Power, Mike (June 3, 2014). "Alexander Shulgin obituary". The Guardian.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Romero, Dennis (September 5, 1995). "Sasha Shulgin, Psychedelic Chemist". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 26, 2007. Retrieved July 8, 2006. "I first explored mescaline in the late '50s," Shulgin says. "Three-hundred-fifty to 400 milligrams. I learned there was a great deal inside me," he replies.
  5. ↑ Nolan, James (March 5, 2019). "2C-B Is the Drug Taking Over the UK's Clubs". VICE. Retrieved July 16, 2026. First synthesised in 1974 by Alexander Shulgin – the man who famously popularised MDMA's use in psychology – 2C-B itself began as a therapeutic aid, [...]
  6. ↑ Ford, Celia (November 4, 2024). "What in the world is pink cocaine?". Vox. Retrieved July 16, 2026.
  7. ↑ Lambert, Molly (June 4, 2014). "» Alexander Shulgin (1925-2014): Godfather of Psychedelics and Ecstacist". » Sports and Pop Culture from our rotating cast of writers – Grantland. Retrieved July 16, 2026.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Trout K, Daley PF (December 2024). "The origin of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM, STP)" (PDF). Drug Test Anal. 16 (12): 1496–1508. doi:10.1002/dta.3667. PMID 38419183.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Baggott, Matthew J. (October 1, 2023). "Learning about STP: A Forgotten Psychedelic from the Summer of Love" (PDF). History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals. 65 (1): 93–116. doi:10.3368/hopp.65.1.93. ISSN 2694-3034.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Cunningham MJ, Bock HA, Serrano IC, Bechand B, Vidyadhara DJ, Bonniwell EM, Lankri D, Duggan P, Nazarova AL, Cao AB, Calkins MM, Khirsariya P, Hwu C, Katritch V, Chandra SS, McCorvy JD, Sames D (January 2023). "Pharmacological Mechanism of the Non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A Agonist Ariadne and Analogs". ACS Chemical Neuroscience. 14 (1): 119–135. doi:10.1021/acschemneuro.2c00597. PMC 10147382. PMID 36521179.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Shulgin, Alexander; Shulgin, Ann (September 1991). PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, California: Transform Press. ISBN 0-9630096-0-5. OCLC 25627628. "Mescaline: a magic name and a magic compound. My first encounter with this word was just after World War II, when I returned to Berkeley [...] In the area of serious and thoughtful texts, there were the writings and the famous maps of Alexander Rouhier in 1926. There was the treatise by Kurt Beringer, which described the responses of many scores of subjects to effective doses of mescaline, administered almost always by injection. His book, “Der Meskalinrauche siene Geschichte und Erscheinungsweise,” (1927) has never been translated into English. [...] I read all the more recent literature about it that had appeared, the essays of Aldous Huxley in the mid-1950’s (the exuberant Doors of Perception and the more cautious Heaven and Hell) [...] But it was not until April of 1960 that a psychologist friend of mine, Terry Major, and a friend of his who was studying medicine, Sam Golding, reinforced my interest and provided me with the opportunity to be “babysat” on an experience with 400 milligrams of mescaline sulfate. It was a day that will remain blazingly vivid in my memory, and one which unquestionably confirmed the entire direction of my life. [...]"
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Shulgin A, Manning T, Daley PF (2011). "#7. ARIADNE". The Shulgin Index, Volume One: Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds. Vol. 1. Berkeley, CA: Transform Press. pp. 7–9. ISBN 978-0-9630096-3-0. OCLC 709667010. It was developed commercially by the Bristol-Myers Company to increase mental alertness in geriatric patients, and was patented in Germany, France, and the United States (Shulgin, 1974a, 1974b, 1977a). Its commercial name, Dimoxamine, does not have a classic female ring to it. [...] In normal human subjects, R-4C-DOM orally at 25—50 mg increased mental alertness and feelings of well-being. At 100 mg/day, the symptoms of Parkinson's disease went into remission. With psychotic patients there was a consistent relief of manic depression at doses of 50-100 mg (Shulgin, 1977a; Partyka et al., 1978). A single human oral ingestion of 270 mg produced a change of state of consciousness but evoked no psychedelic effects (Winter, 1980).
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Shulgin AT (1987). "The "Social-Chemistry" of Pharmacological Discovery: Interview with Dr. Alexander T. Shulgin. January 26, 1986". Social Pharmacology. 1 (3): 279–290. Archived from the original on July 12, 2025.
  14. ↑ Benzenhöfer U, Passie T (August 2010). "Rediscovering MDMA (ecstasy): the role of the American chemist Alexander T. Shulgin". Addiction. 105 (8): 1355–1361. doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.02948.x. PMID 20653618.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kent, James L. (September 10, 2014). "Godfather of Ecstasy: Alexander Shulgin's Last Trip". High Times. Archived from the original on March 11, 2020. Retrieved April 15, 2023. When I ask Ann about his favorite among all the chemical compounds he'd created, she answers immediately: "It would have to be 2C-B. He was always very proud of that one. He called it the 'Great Teacher' … although I preferred 2C-B-FLY a bit more." [...] Although Shulgin worked with many types of drugs, his favorites were the phenethylamines, psychedelics that are more thoughtful than overpowering.
  16. 1 2 3 4 Peplow, Mark (June 11, 2014). "A mind-blowing legacy". Chemistry World. Retrieved July 16, 2026. For some, Alexander Shulgin was a bold explorer at the frontiers of neurochemistry. To others, he was the wanton architect of a wave of dangerous recreational drugs: the godfather of ecstasy. [...] Perhaps it is because pure motives are not always enough to absolve a chemist of responsibility when their work is misused. Or, as a hysterical Mail on Sunday headline screamed after a spate of ecstasy-related deaths in 2001: 'Has Dr Shulgin killed 100 British teenagers?'
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Jay, Mike (June 18, 2019). Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-23107-6. The most consequential mescaline trip of the sixties was, with hindsight, the one taken in April 1960 by Alexander Shulgin, a biochemist at Dow Chemical Company in California who had recently completed his postdoctoral studies in pharmacology at Berkeley. He had read Huxley and followed his footsteps back to Beringer and Rouhier, and was surprised by how little pharmacological work had been done on mescaline's wider chemical family. When a psychologist offered him the chance to try it, he accepted eagerly, and the experience 'unquestionably confirmed the entire direction of my life'. He was awoken to colour and visual detail as never before, and continually struck with novel insights, but 'more than anything else, the world amazed me, in that I saw it as I had when I was a child'. He found himself immersed in 'a space wherein I had once roamed as an immortal explorer, and I was recalling everything that had been known authentically to me then, and which I had abandoned, then forgotten, with the coming of age'.52 He decided on the spot that if there were similar compounds as yet unknown, he would discover them. [...]
  18. ↑ Pollan M (2021). "Mescaline". This Is Your Mind on Plants. New York: Penguin Press. pp. 161–248. ISBN 978-0-593-29690-5.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 Passie T, Brandt SD (2018). "Self-Experiments with Psychoactive Substances: A Historical Perspective". Handb Exp Pharmacol. 252: 69–110. doi:10.1007/164_2018_177. PMID 30478735.
  20. ↑ Langlitz, Nicolas (November 7, 2012). "Between Animality and Divinity". Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research since the Decade of the Brain. University of California Press. pp. 166–203. doi:10.1525/california/9780520274815.003.0006. ISBN 978-0-520-27481-5. They had invited [...] and Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin who, since quitting his job as a research chemist at Dole Chemical Company in 1966, had dedicated his life to developing new psychedelic drugs in a private lab on his farm in Lafayette, California.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Shulgin, Alexander; Shulgin, Ann (September 1997). TiHKAL: The Continuation. Berkeley, California: Transform Press. ISBN 0-9630096-9-9. OCLC 38503252.
  22. 1 2 3 4 Risen, Clay (July 19, 2022). "Ann Shulgin, 91, Who Explored Psychedelics With Her Husband, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved July 15, 2026.
  23. 1 2 3 Warren, Penny (August 5, 2022). "Ann Shulgin obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved July 15, 2026.
  24. 1 2 3 4 Hanna, Jon (June 9, 2014). "Alexander Theodore Shulgin (1925–2014)". openDemocracy. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
  25. 1 2 3 Greendyk, Ryan (August 17, 2021). "On Drugs, Freedom, and Human Nature: A Course with Alexander Shulgin". Lucid News - Psychedelics. Retrieved July 16, 2026.
  26. 1 2 Platoni, Kara (May 1, 2002). "2C-T-7's Bad Trip". East Bay Express (EBX).
  27. ↑ Davidson, Ros (June 3, 2014) [1997]. "Archive, 1997: Interview with Alexander Shulgin, 'godfather of ecstasy'". The Guardian.
  28. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Appendino G, Minassi A, Taglialatela-Scafati O (July 2014). "Recreational drug discovery: natural products as lead structures for the synthesis of smart drugs". Natural Product Reports. 31 (7): 880–904. doi:10.1039/c4np00010b. PMID 24823967. Archived from the original on September 28, 2020. Retrieved September 3, 2019. While various artists and writers, including Sartre, experimented with mescaline at that time, by far the most far-reaching effects associated to this cultural climate and to the secularization of mescaline are those related to Alexander Shulgin. After experiencing with mescaline, Shulgin, a Berkeley graduate, developed an active interest in mind-altering drugs and the systematic study of their effect in humans. 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. [...]
  29. 1 2 3 4 Hamilton Morris (May 2, 2010). "The Last Interview With Alexander Shulgin: Which, Technically, Was Not an Interview at All". vice.com. Vice Media. Archived from the original on October 18, 2020. Ask Shulgin what his favorite psychedelic is and he will say "2CB"5 without hesitation. Ask him how many times he has taken it and he'll say "a few." This is a guy who has had approximately 10,000 psychedelic experiences. No drug, not even his cherished 2C-B, tastes better than the untasted.
  30. ↑ Baggot MJ (2018). "Seed crystal: on the contributions of Alexander Shulgin to the science of consciousness". The Commemorative Edition of Pihkal and Tihkal. Berkeley: Transform Press. pp. 474–482. ISBN 9780963009661. OCLC 1176317484. [Shulgin's] staggering achievements in psychedelic chemistry are matched only by David Nichols, with whom Sasha gave the first scientific report of MDMA's effects in humans.
  31. 1 2 Calamur, Krishnadev (June 3, 2014). "Alexander Shulgin, The 'Godfather Of Ecstasy,' Dies At 88 : The Two-Way". NPR. Archived from the original on May 2, 2015. Retrieved November 17, 2015.
  32. ↑ The Telegraph. "Alexander Shulgin - obituary: Alexander Shulgin was a chemist dubbed the 'Godfather of Psychedelics' who synthesised the drug that became known as Ecstasy". The Telegraph. Retrieved July 15, 2026.
  33. ↑ Bender E (September 2022). "Finding medical value in mescaline". Nature. 609 (7929): S90–S91. doi:10.1038/d41586-022-02873-8. PMID 36171368. For Alexander Shulgin, the twentieth-century biochemist often called the godfather of psychedelics, it all began with mescaline. "The world amazed me, in that I saw it as I had when I was a child," he wrote1 about his first experience of the drug in 1960. "I had forgotten the beauty and the magic and the knowingness of it and me." Shulgin went on to synthesize hundreds of psychoactive substances, and other scientists focused mostly on LSD and psilocybin.
  34. ↑ Bauer, Barbara E. (December 19, 2018). "Alexander Shulgin". Psychedelic Science Review. Retrieved July 15, 2026.
  35. 1 2 3 4 Étienne Sauret (director), Alexander Shulgin (subject), Ann Shulgin (subject), David E. Nichols (subject), William E. Fantegrossi (subject), Roland Griffiths (subject), Solomon H. Snyder (subject), others (March 13, 2010). Dirty Pictures (Motion picture (documentary)). United States: Turn of the Century Pictures, Breaking Glass Pictures. Archived from the original on February 11, 2010.
  36. 1 2 Hamilton Morris (December 22, 2010). "SiHKAL: Shulgins I Have Known and Loved: The Man Who Birthed Ecstasy in a Test-Tube". Hamilton's Pharmacopeia [web series]. Episode S0E4. Vice Media. [Web article].
  37. 1 2 Hamilton Morris (writer), Alexander Shulgin (subject), Ann Shulgin (guest), Jason Wallach (guest), David E. Nichols (guest), Rick Doblin (guest), Raffi Kahatchadorourian (guest), Wendy Tucker (guest), David Meyer (guest), Paul Daley (guest), Julie Holland (guest), others (June 19, 2016). "The Love Drug". I Am Rebel. Season 1. Episode 3. National Geographic. Archived from the original on November 23, 2025. Retrieved December 27, 2025.{{cite episode}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  38. 1 2 Connie Littlefield (director, writer), Siobhan Flanagan, Alexander Shulgin (subject), Ann Shulgin (subject), Paul F. Daley (subject), Myron Stolaroff (subject), Jean Stolaroff (subject), Wendy Perry Tucker (subject), Tania Manning (subject), Greg Manning (subject), Keeper Trout (subject), Earth and Fire Erowid, others (2021). Better Living Through Chemistry (Motion picture). Better Living Through Film, Incorporated. Archived from the original on February 24, 2026. Retrieved March 11, 2026.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  39. 1 2 Presti, David (July 14, 2022). "Ann Shulgin, Forerunner of Today's Psychedelic Reemergence, Dies at 91". Lucid News - Psychedelics. Retrieved July 16, 2026.
  40. ↑ Busby, Mattha (November 2, 2023). "The Heirs to a Vault of Novel Psychedelics Take a Trip Into the Unknown". DoubleBlind Mag. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
  41. ↑ Lighthouse, Charles (August 23, 2024). "Barn Raising For Shulgin Farm". Lucid News - Psychedelics. Retrieved July 16, 2026.
  42. ↑ "The Living Legacy of Sasha Shulgin – Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies – MAPS". Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies – MAPS – Psychedelic Research for Psychological Healing. September 15, 2025. Retrieved July 16, 2026.
  43. 1 2 3 4 Vastag, Brian (June 3, 2014). "Chemist Alexander Shulgin, popularizer of the drug Ecstasy, dies at 88". Washington Post. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
  44. 1 2 3 Weber, Bruce (June 7, 2014). "Alexander Shulgin, Psychedelia Researcher, Dies at 88". The New York Times. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
  45. ↑ Aday JS, Barnett BS, Grossman D, Murnane KS, Nichols CD, Hendricks PS (September 2023). "Psychedelic Commercialization: A Wide-Spanning Overview of the Emerging Psychedelic Industry". Psychedelic Med (New Rochelle). 1 (3): 150–165. doi:10.1089/psymed.2023.0013. PMID 40046566.
  46. ↑ Geyer MA (May 2024). "A Brief Historical Overview of Psychedelic Research". Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 9 (5): 464–471. doi:10.1016/j.bpsc.2023.11.003. PMID 38000715.
  47. ↑ Casey AB, Heifets BD (July 2026). "History, pharmacology and therapeutic mechanisms of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)". Br J Pharmacol. 183 (14): 3950–3969. doi:10.1111/bph.70225. PMID 41121647.
  48. ↑ Reiff CM, Richman EE, Nemeroff CB, Carpenter LL, Widge AS, Rodriguez CI, Kalin NH, McDonald WM (May 2020). "Psychedelics and Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy". Am J Psychiatry. 177 (5): 391–410. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010035. PMID 32098487.
  49. ↑ Arikci D, Borgulya J, Straumann I, Vizeli P, Luethi D, Thomann J, Rudin D, Vukalovic I, Eckert A, Liechti ME, Holze F (July 2026). "Acute dose-dependent effects of 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine (2C-B) compared with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and psilocybin in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study in healthy participants". Neuropsychopharmacology. 51 (8): 1511–1518. doi:10.1038/s41386-026-02428-9. PMID 42049943.
  50. 1 2 Ancestry.com. California Death Index, 1940–1997 [database on-line]. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. Original data: State of California. California Death Index, 1940–1997. Sacramento, California: State of California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics.
  51. ↑ Lawrence, Alberta Chamberlain (1952). Authors Biographical Monthly Service. Golden Syndicate Publishing Company.
  52. 1 2 Margolin, Madison (July 11, 2022). "Inside the Chemistry Lab Where the MDMA Godfather Synthesized Novel Psychedelics". DoubleBlind Mag. Retrieved July 18, 2026.
  53. ↑ Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002. Year: 1930; Census Place: Berkeley, Alameda, California; Roll 111; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 320; File: 1029.0.
  54. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wolfson, Philip (2014). "Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin 1925-2014". Herbalgram: The Journal of the American Botanical Council (104): 75–76.
  55. 1 2 "Chemist Alexander Shulgin, Popularizer of the Drug Ecstasy, Dies at 88". MAPS. June 3, 2014.
  56. 1 2 "Erowid Peyote Vault : Timeline". www.erowid.org. Dr. Alexander Shulgin first tries mescaline at 350 mg. 16, 17 [Details] Notebook 4, page 471 April 2, 1960. 350mg of mescaline administered orally at 9:15A.M. Subjects: A.T. Shulgin, Robert Thompson, Nina Shulgin Observers: Taylor + Veronica Wolf, Henry Brock. There is some confusion around this because he told an LA Times Reporter I first explored mescaline in the late '50s, Shulgin says. Three-hundred-fifty to 400 milligrams. I learned there was a great deal inside me, he replies. However PIHKAL indicates his first mescaline trip was in April 1960 at 400mg, but the hand written notes in Pharmacology Notes IV gives 350mg as the dose. However, a different notebook records a different mescaline trip on April 16, 1960 with just ATS and one observer (DP) where the dose taken was 400mg. We assume that his offhand remark to a reporter about the '50s was just a small memory error and the confusion between 350 and 400mg as his first dose is of no historical importance. [...] 16. Shulgin AT. Pharmacology Notes IV. Page 471. 17. Shulgin AT, Shulgin A. PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story. Transform Press. 1991.
  57. ↑ "Psychedelic Timeline". Psychedelic Times. 2025. 1960: April 16th Alexander Shulgin ingested 400mg of mescaline sulfate for the first time. The experience "unquestionably confirmed the entire direction of my life". He would go on to create over 200 new psychedelic compounds.
  58. ↑ Shulgin, Alexander (1981). Pharmacology Lab Notes #4 (PDF). Erowid. pp. 471–472. April 2, 1960. 350mg of mescaline administered orally at 9:15A.M. Subjects: A.T. Shulgin, Robert Thompson, Nina Shulgin Observers: Taylor + Veronica Wolf, Henry Brock. [...]
  59. ↑ Shulgin, Alexander T.; Bunnell, Sterling; Sargent, Thornton (1961). "The Psychotomimetic Properties of 3,4,5-Trimethoxyamphetamine". Nature. 189 (4769): 1011–1012. Bibcode:1961Natur.189.1011S. doi:10.1038/1891011a0. ISSN 0028-0836. Archived from the original on July 12, 2025.
  60. ↑ Shulgin AT (1988). The Controlled Substances Act: A Resource Manual of the Current Status of the Federal Drug Laws (1 ed.). Lafayette, California: A. T. Shulgin. OCLC 22676094. OL 58242586M.
  61. ↑ Shulgin AT (1992). Controlled Substances: A Chemical and Legal Guide to the Federal Drug Laws (2 ed.). Berkeley, California: Ronin Publishing. ISBN 9780914171430. OCLC 26815633. OL 1140749M.
  62. ↑ Johnson, Cody (2018). Magic Medicine: A Trip Through the Intoxicating History and Modern-Day Use of Psychedelic Plants & Substances. Beverly, MA. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-59233-772-9. OCLC 1029780854.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  63. 1 2 3 4 Brown, Ethan (September 1, 2002). "Professor X". Wired. Archived from the original on June 25, 2015. Retrieved January 4, 2015.
  64. ↑ "Ann Shulgin". Shulginresearch.org. Archived from the original on May 14, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2016. Detailed biography of Ann Shulgin
  65. 1 2 3 Simone, S. (February 2016). "Faces & Places: Sorting Photos in the Shulgin Archive". Erowid Extracts (28): 2.
  66. ↑ Connie Littlefield (director, writer), Siobhan Flanagan, Alexander Shulgin (subject), Ann Shulgin (subject), Paul F. Daley (subject), Myron Stolaroff (subject), Jean Stolaroff (subject), Wendy Perry Tucker (subject), Tania Manning (subject), Greg Manning (subject), Keeper Trout (subject), Earth and Fire Erowid, others (2021). Better Living Through Chemistry (Motion picture). Better Living Through Film, Incorporated. Archived from the original on September 21, 2021. Alt URL
  67. ↑ "Ask Dr. Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin Online – 2C-B". www.cognitiveliberty.org. Retrieved July 4, 2022.
  68. ↑ "DEA Raid of Shulgin's Laboratory". Erowid. January 8, 2004. Archived from the original on March 26, 2007. Retrieved July 8, 2006.
  69. ↑ Shulgin AT, Shulgin A (2004). "DALT". Entry from a Forthcoming Book.
  70. ↑ Shulgin AT, Shulgin A (August 2004). "5-MeO-DALT". Entry from a Forthcoming Book. Archived from the original on July 7, 2025. Retrieved July 7, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  71. ↑ Alexander Shulgin. Cacti: A Discourse by Sasha Shulgin. Mind States: Jamaica, October 1–6, 2002. Event occurs at 16:28–17:55, 25:45–28:44, [...]
  72. ↑ Telegraph Obituaries (July 15, 2022). "Ann Shulgin, pioneering researcher who with her husband Alexander explored the uses of psychedelic drugs – obituary". The Telegraph. Retrieved May 20, 2025. By no means all Ann and Sasha's experiences with psychedelics were happy ones. In 2001 they tested the cactus Pachycereus pringlei, native to northwestern Mexico, dissolving an extract in fruit juice and each drinking a 100 ml cup. While Sasha was overcome by a fear of movement, Ann "could see the full moon shining down on me with what felt like chilling contempt". This would be, she reflected, "an awful, stupid way to die".
  73. ↑ "Future Psychedelics". Ask Dr. Shulgin Online. June 12, 2002. Retrieved May 20, 2025.
  74. ↑ Earl Crockett; Alexander Shulgin (October 2005). A New Elixir. Sacred Elixir Conference, San Jose, California on October 22–24, 2005. Archived from the original on November 20, 2008. Retrieved May 20, 2025. Earl Crockett has not only discovered that the cactus Pachycereus pringlei has psychedelic properties, he has also discovered cave paintings which reveal its ancient use as a sacrament. His talk describing the discovery of this remarkable plant will be accompanied by slides of the cactus and of the cave paintings. Dr. Shulgin will describe the processes of gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy, how one goes about determining what alkaloids are in a plant and what he found to be present in this cactus.{{cite conference}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  75. ↑ Keeper Trout & friends (2014). Cactus Chemistry By Species (Sacred Cacti 4th edition Part C Cactus Chemistry: Section 2) (PDF). Mydriatic Productions/Better Days Publishing.
  76. 1 2 3 Sumnall HR, Evans-Brown M, McVeigh J (2011). "Social, policy, and public health perspectives on new psychoactive substances". Drug Test Anal. 3 (7–8): 515–523. doi:10.1002/dta.310. PMID 21744515. Shulgin's PIHKAL[25] and TIHKAL[26] describe synthesis routes and basic human psychopharmacology of many potential hallucinogenic and entactogenic compounds [...] The Shulgin Index Volume 1, Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds (to be followed by a similar volume on tryptamines) was published in 2011,[119] providing a focused, fully referenced examination of the chemistry and pharmacology of 126 compounds, many of them new.
  77. ↑ Clark, Jaysen M. (2008). "The San Pedro Long Dance: Transpersonal aspects of a contemporary entheogenic ritual". ProQuest. Retrieved May 21, 2025. For those interested in the chemistry of San Pedro, Shulgin and Perry's recent publication The Simple Plant Isoquinolines (2002) was an attempt at both sorting through the complex taxonomy of several different cacti and isolating the various chemical constituents within them..
  78. ↑ Shulgin, Alexander Theodore; Perry, Wendy E. (2002). The Simple Plant Isoquinolines. Transform Press. ISBN 978-0-9630096-2-3. OCLC 51006569. OL 8521520M.
  79. ↑ "Ask Dr. Shulgin Online". cognitiveliberty.org. September 19, 2019.
  80. ↑ Francis, Arie P.; Smith, Silas W. (2022). "Availability and supply of novel psychoactive substances". Novel Psychoactive Substances. Elsevier. pp. 57–84. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-818788-3.00001-2. ISBN 978-0-12-818788-3. [Novel psychoactive substance (NPS)] development and manufacturing efforts are aided by those with scientific training who develop or scan research literature for novel structures or derivatives [59]. Substituted phenethylamines and tryptamines were explicitly described in the 1990s by synthetic chemist Alexander Shulgin in the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL, which maintain an online presence [101,102]. The Shulgin Index, cataloguing psychedelic phenethylamines, amphetamines, phenylpiperazines, and others, including synthesis and pharmacological properties, was released in 2011 [103].
  81. ↑ Shulgin, A.; Manning, T.; Daley, P.F. (2011). The Shulgin Index, Volume One: Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds. Vol. 1. Berkeley: Transform Press. ISBN 978-0-9630096-3-0.
  82. ↑ Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (Summer 2014). "In Memoriam: Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, Ph.D. (June 17, 1925–June 2, 2014)" (PDF). MAPS Newsletter. 24 (2): 9–12 (11). ON JUNE 2, 2014, AT THE age of 88, pioneering psychedelic researcher Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin died surrounded by friends and family at his home in Lafayette, California. [...] In 2011, his life's work was published in The Shulgin Index, Volume 1: Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds. While the first volume contains over 1,300 compounds, there is more to come. The Shulgin Index, Volume 2 will be published in the near future. Sasha understood that the exploration of novel psychoactive compounds—and ways to use them—would not be completed in his lifetime, so he preserved his research in these volumes for future generations.
  83. ↑ Stone, Katie (July 26, 2021). "Grandparents of Psychedelics Ann and Sasha Shulgin Honored by Friends and Fellow Researchers". Lucid News - Psychedelics. Retrieved July 16, 2026.
  84. ↑ Psychedelic Today (June 23, 2021). "Book Review: Alexander Shulgin's The Nature of Drugs". Psychedelics Today. Retrieved July 16, 2026.
  85. ↑ Shulgin, Alexander (2021). The Nature of Drugs: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact, Volume One. Vol. 1. Transform Press. ISBN 978-0-9995472-1-2. OCLC 1202745911.
  86. ↑ Shulgin, Alexander (2023). The Nature of Drugs: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact, Volume Two. Vol. 2. Transform Press. ISBN 9780999547250. OCLC 1388539720.
  87. ↑ Brown, David Jay (June 19, 2008). "MAPS News: June 2008 – First legal dose of LSD administered!". MAPS News. Archived from the original on March 2, 2012.
  88. ↑ Martin, Michael (August 20, 2010). "Love and Other Drugs". Interview Magazine. Retrieved August 17, 2026.
  89. ↑ Power, Mike (November 23, 2010). "'Godfather of ecstasy' Alexander Shulgin suffers stroke". The Guardian. Retrieved July 18, 2026.
  90. ↑ "Sasha Shulgin". Psychedelic Research. November 18, 2010. Archived from the original on February 22, 2015.
  91. ↑ Pescovitz, David (June 1, 2014). "Psychedelic hero Alexander Shulgin nearing death / Boing Boing". Boingboing.net. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved November 17, 2015.
  92. 1 2 3 4 Kent, James (June 17, 2022). "Remembering Psychedelic Chemist Alexander Shulgin". Psychedelic Spotlight. Retrieved February 11, 2026. Although Shulgin never met a psychoactive plant he wouldn't explore, he was not fond of smoking marijuana. "He didn't really get along with pot," says Ann, who shared a similar dislike of the experience. "He just thought, you know, what's the point of sitting around being stoned all the time. He didn't think there was much to be learned from the experience." He had a similar feeling about the dissociative hallucinogen Ketamine. "He really didn't like being that disoriented," says Ann. "He was always looking to learn something from the experience. He was looking for a teacher to show him something." Shulgin's favorite drug was LSD, [...] When I ask Ann what Sasha's favorite of his own chemicals is she knows immediately. "It would have to be 2C-B. He was always very proud of that one. He called it the Great Teacher. Although I preferred 2C-B-Fly a bit more." But there are so many to choose from. DiPT, 5-MeO-AMT, 5-MeO-DALT, Methylone, 2C-T-7, and this list goes on. Ann can't say for sure how many trips they shared together, she just smiles and says, "We stopped counting at around two-thousand." This is a mind-boggling number considering the total may actually be closer to four-thousand.
  93. ↑ Biello, David (March 20, 2008). "Self-Experimenters: Psychedelic Chemist Explores the Surreality of Inner Space, One Drug at a Time". Scientific American. Retrieved February 11, 2026. His personal favorite, which he describes as "extraordinarily comfortable and quite erotic," is known simply as 2C-B for its chemical makeup.
  94. ↑ Oroc, James (February 28, 2014). "The Second Psychedelic Revolution Part Two: Alexander 'Sasha' Shulgin, The Psychedelic Godfather". Reality Sandwich. Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. Retrieved August 31, 2026. Alt URL
  95. ↑ Hamilton Morris (August 2010). "Psychadelic Maturity". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved August 17, 2026.
  96. ↑ Nick Carew (director), Alexander Shulgin (subject), Ann Shulgin (interviewee), Hamilton Morris (interviewee), others (July 14, 2020). "Synthetics". The Business of Drugs. Season 1. Episode 2. Netflix.