these days this article gets lots of hits. it was linked a few places. there are a couple small errors in the article that i keep meaning to correct. one, i think i have the time-of-year wrong with ref to the British raids. two, the term 'Research Chemical' predates all these substances and was used earlier in reference to LSD and many other substances; the term literally only means a new chemical still considered to be under research. when i say i don't know how the term 'Research Chemicals' came about, i mean i don't know why the market and culture around these substances chose that term. they could have been called 'designer drugs' or many other things, but they were and are still called 'research chemicals'.

other than that, i feel the article is pretty accurate. enjoy. xo, math+

I was there when Rolling Stone broke the story; I was there when the DEA came to everybody's house. Were You There?

It falls upon everyone, at one point or another, to memorialize a scene like the Research Chemical scene. I was merely present - another urban kid who went to class, did drugs, was online. It was not ever one of those stories by which I sought to define myself, so there's a fundamental level at which

__it's not even my story to tell;
__but yeah: i was there when it happened, taking note and
__it was wicked for sure.

For you, I attempt to conjure that burst world. In My Day: Oh Let Me Tell You.

I start with the Fucking Poets, Alexander and Ann Shulgin. One of the great psychedelic couples, if not The Great one. Tellingly, they're American. Generally credited with popularizing mdma [traditional 'ecstasy'] and 2cb ['nexus'] as both recreational drugs and therapeutic agents during the 1980s, the Shulgins published Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved: A Chemical Love Story [PIHKaL] in 1991. This beautiful book with atrociously ugly cover art contained experience reports and synthesis recipes for such now-famous psychedelic phenethylamines as 2ci, 2ct7, methylone, tma-2, and 'so many others' that such a phrase is rendered comic.

What is a phenethylamine?
A compound containing β-Phenylethylamine [C8H11N] or a substitution for β-Phenylethylamine.

Know any phenethylamines?
Aside from those listed above, the most famous psychedelic phenethylamines are mescaline and 2cb.

The Shulgins ran into all kinds of terrible problems with the government after publishing PIHKaL, but they are precisely those 70-year-old hippie types who always have their shit jaw-droppingly together. I don't know how they do all their legal thisthat. I guess they are... clever fucks [?]. I lived in the Haight, in San Francisco, until I was ten [1983-1993]. I met an awful lot of people like the Shulgins when I was a little kid. The people who promote Burning Man, the people who own cannabis clubs: older hippies with mad money, mad lawyers, and Mad Science. I feel like their existence should shock, but for me, it's too familiar.

In 1997, the Shulgins followed PIHKaL with Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved: A Continuation [TIHKaL].

What is a tryptamine?
A compound containing 3-(2-Aminoethyl)indole [C10H12N2] or a substitution.

Know any?
Famous psychedelic tryptamines: all dmt, including organic dmt in shrooms and ayahuasca, as well as all types of synthesized dmt; lsd; ibogaine. More listed below.

TIHKaL included 'trip reports' and recipes for, again, now-famous compounds like 5-meo-dmt, dpt, 4-ho-dmt, det, 5-meo-dipt. So Many Others too, of course. TIHKaL also offered reports on, and recipes for, a few already-famous tryptamines, such as ibogaine [favorite of Wm Burroughs], lsd, harmine. Chemically minded readers will further note that 4-ho-dmt is otherwise known as psilocin, famous for its organic agent of production: psilocybin mushrooms. TIHKaL contained the first recipe for chemical synthesis of psilocin.

A note on the Shulgins' 'recipies'. They're inaccessible for people who don't possess a degree in chemistry, but apparently, if you know your shit, the pair suggest ingredients/reagents/etc that may seem unusual or uncommon, but are fairly easy to procure.

So, somebody somewhere set up some labs? I guess?

Before I entered the internet drug scene, some of the drugs in PIHKaL had already risen to popularity. In the early 1990s, 2cb enjoyed popularity as 'nexus', a European club drug, but I was still a little kid; I heard about it only later.

I started reading about drugs online in about 1994-95. For as long as I can remember, 5-meo-dmt has held its reputation as the most intense psychedelic drug available. It lasts 10-30 minutes and, yeah, basically rewires you: bring on the identity crisis, communion with imaginary winged whatnot, You Can Never Go Home Again. It's never had a name, really; people simply call it 5-meo-dmt. The similarly-labeled-but-experientially-wildly-different... 5-meo-dipt... had also become popular before I got online. 5-meo-dipt is streetnamed for its libidinous hallucinatory character: 'foxy methoxy' or just 'foxy', an hallucinogen to have sex on. I guess it was pretty big in Amsterdam in about 1999-2000.

I don't know how the name 'Research Chemicals' came about. I suppose it must have originated to legitimize the strange commerce that sprang up around 1999. It started happening that you could buy, say, anywhere from 100mg to 5g of any one of these chemicals, over the internet. To dose, you needed a milligram scale; thus the scene always remained fairly elite, as the scale is a $1,000+ item. The gossip at the time was that the powders were being synthesized in southeast Asia somewhere. Americans and Europeans were importing and reselling. For the most part, it wasn't about pressing new party pills, even though pills were inevitably made: mostly, avant-trippers were weighing the powders at home, licking doses off their own scales. To buy these chemicals, you had to establish or convincingly claim that you were a scientist using these 'chemicals' for 'research'. That was basically it: to buy this, you gotta fake a lab. Human ingestion was always explicitly banned by resellers, but the market was, of course, based around ingestion.

PIHKaL and TIHKaL are vast works, containing substances that preceded the Research Chemical phenomenon as well as many promising-sounding substances that have not yet become available. The Research Chemicals were drugs that had faddish internet popularity from about 1999 to 2004. The vast majority of Research Chemicals were hallucinogenic, but some were closer in effects to amphetamines and empathogens [drugs that make you 'empathize', like mdma]. In the final year or so of the Research Chemical boom, new substances became available so rapidly: like watching a candy store through an especially filthy kaleidoscope. More More More More! For me, the famous Research Chemicals are 5-meo-dmt, 5-meo-dipt [foxy methoxy], 2ci [banned in britain / called something else in Britain], 2ct2, 2ct7 [blue mystic], amt, dob [dragonfly], doi, dom, tma-2, 4-ho-dmt [synthetic psilocin / 'shroom pills', a confusing name i thoroughly discourage], 4-ho-dipt, 4-fmp, mdmc [methylone, Explosion]. And a few others.

In 1999, you could buy 5 or 6 of these substances, if you knew where to look online. 'Looking' involved technique, to be sure. By 2003, however, all you had to do was Google 'research chemicals', and you'd find several competing suppliers with a combined offering of 25+ substances, some massively obscure by the standards of 2006. Indeed, it got to the point that several shockingly brazen souls became Google's _sponsored businesses_ for query 'research chemicals'.

Rolling Stone published an article called 'The New (legal) Killer Drug' about 2ct7 in January 2002, with a massive headline on the magazine cover. Apparently some college kid had taken an unknown amount of 2ct7, in combination with unknown quantities of mdma, ephedrine, and nitrous oxide. Then he had died. The DEA emergency-scheduled 2ct7 in the U.S., but it remained mostly available elsewhere. In a particularly weird cultural moment, '2ct7' was quietly escorted out of Amsterdam smartshops after the Rolling Stone article... _however_, for the most part, what was being sold in the Dam as 2ct7 was in fact 2ct2, a considerably less intense analogue.

In Los Angeles around this time, insane amounts of both 2ct7 and 2ct2 began to taint the ecstasy market. This annoyance reached its eventual apex in summer 2004, when everyone and their brother were attempting to unload all these white fleur-de-lis pills, surely pressed originally as 'rave pills' rather than ecstasy, sold as ecstasy nevertheless, and laced with enough 2ct7 to make you trip hard for a good 10 hours. [I took some at a concert and felt the need to jump onstage waving a noose, but I believe that is called Another Story.]

JLF Poisonous Non-Consumables, the first internet supplier of Research Chemicals that I remember, was raided around Christmas 2002. All assets were frozen, lives were ruined forever, etc etc. JLF had been fingered in the Rolling Stone article by an internet personality named Murple. If you were ever vaguely in this scene, you sure do hate that fucking Murple. He was this mildly arrogant Usenet dude; he had a minor following before he decided to talk to Rolling Stone... I remember him from long before the JLF bust. I wonder, wonder, wonder where he is today. The JLF raid set the ugly precedent for all Research Chemical raids afterward.

By the start of 2004, 2ci, one of the scene's more potent hallucinogens, had won popularity with British ravers. Pills with 15-25mg doses were apparently available at raves and festivals, usually stamped with an 'i'. Kids reported a catchy name for it, in Britain, around this time [something cute like 'ecstasy', 'acid' etc, but i can't seem to find the name now]. Britain outlawed 2ci around March 2004. Thereafter in Hollywood, 2ci became briefly known as Banned in Britain. As these things generally go, the ban raised the drug's profile - to the point, in fact, that British music weekly the NME did a sidebar about it in late 2004. Horrifyingly, they likened it to cocaine, in that they proffered it as another white powder for snorting. 'Only do small bumps,' they advised. I wrote NME a letter about the milligram scale business and the kind of rampantly unsafe behavior they were encouraging - not that I don't want indie kids snortin-n-trippin, but YEEK! - and anyway they never printed my letter and I guess British music fans didn't die.

In July 2004, the DEA ran Operation Web Tryp [extra linx: Wiki; DEA Press Release], in cooperation with British authorities. American resellers were arrested en masse. When Michael Burton of Las Vegas went down, everyone knew the phenomenon was over: Michael's shop had been the first to buy a Google ad. The UK lacked any major suppliers, but individual users' homes were raided. Mostly, these users were random kids who'd bought insanely small amounts. The searches happened early one morning in in May 2005 [yes, bafflingly, a _year_ after resellers were arrested]. The British police had finally obtained the customer records from the now-raided American suppliers. So, the British police busted into houses before the sun had risen that morning [around 50 searches were reported; 22 arrests were made]. Ravers got horribly embarrassed in front of their parents and so on. The police found caches of... oh, you could probably guess... mountains of heroin and guns?, not so much!, cheap bongs and pirated CDs?, loads of em!. I guess it was pretty traumatic for the largely teenaged crowd involved, and legitimately shitty for thirty-year-olds who also happened to have a gram of speed/etc when the police searched their homes. Lots of Brits spoke about it on the internet, and in every story I followed to the end, the accused had to go to court, but got off with a warning [a fairly uniform result; if something nuts happened to anyone in the UK, i missed it]. In the U.S., some individual users were also contacted and pressured into testifying against the suppliers, but there was no pre-dawn raid to inspire fear in souls and so on.

The Web Tryp busts included Pondman.nu, a strange site that never openly advertised its products and had no search engine hits. Instead, it masqueraded as a pond supply business and, who knew!, had its main business in selling 5-meo-dmt, amt, and 5-meo-dipt to customers in the U.S. Navy. At the time, the U.S. Navy was, it was reported, having a lot of 'secret raves'. There's vague mention of this in the same DEA Press Release linked above [scroll down to the Pondman section]. If anyone else knows a bit more about this, I sure would be interested. The whole 'secret Navy raves' bit was rapidly forgotten, swept under, whatever, but it was certainly my favorite, and most unexpected, part of the story.

Operation Web Tryp effectively shut down the American reseller business of Research Chemicals. I imagine resellers still exist, but they fly under the radar instead of buying Google ads. I never purchased any of these drugs online in the first place, so I can't offer any advice about trying to procure them now. I wouldn't advise having them shipped into the U.S. or UK, but I guess if you're in a safe place, they're not particularly hard to get. The most popular ones have a pretty good following in Amsterdam smartshops. In America, I always bought my doses from those kids saving up for Burning Man.

And then, there's Japan. I've never been to Japan, so I can't place these reports in context, but _reportedly_, Research Chemicals are huge in Roppongi, the district of Tokyo famous for its giant nightclubs. Methylone, popularly known there as 'M-rone' or 'rone', is, I guess, just massive. You can get a vague idea of the Tokyo scene by checking out the MySpace page of another internet personality, Mistress K. She's about as famous, these days, as Murple once was. She reports on her blog that the Tokyo police have taken a rather pragmatic approach to the popularity of Research Chemicals, simply testing seized batches for purity, and declining to issue any harsh penalties. In her opinion, the drugs are, at this point, too widespread to police anyway.

The milligram scale is an interesting gatekeeper. Since Research Chemicals were, and remain, mostly a powder market rather than a pill market, you need a scale to dose safely. There are a few exceptions, such as the ever-popular methlyone, which requires doses of 100-200mg. 100mg is a fair amount of powder; while no one _recommends_ it, we all _suppose_ you could eyeball it. Other Research Chemicals, however, require dosing literally to the milligram: 2ci, for example, is hugely different when ingested in a quantity of 20mg vs 25mg, with 50mg generally being considered an overdose [not yet fatal but sure not recommended]. So, you know. Don't try any of this shit without a really good scale. With all drugs, you hand your life to your supplier, but in this case, you also hand your life to your scale.

Here's some trivia about Research Chemicals, should an occasion ever arise wherein you need to look like you _impeccably_ know your shit on this topic.

How to say it?
HO, as in 4-HO-DiPT: 'hydroxy'
MeO, as in 5-MeO-DMT: 'methoxy'
PIHKaL: peakle
TIHKaL: teekle

Which Research Chemicals were banned first?
2ct7, amt, 2ci.

The most popular Research Chemicals today?
still 5-meo-dmt, 2ci, methylone; though dob and dom are rapidly making names for themselves.

Alexander Shulgin's nickname?
Sasha.

Similar chemical names?
Mean similarity in chemical structure, but, usually, not in effects. The various drugs beginning with '5-meo' or ending in '-dipt' are hugely different. Exceptions exist, of course, but generally, it's unwise to assume that similarly named chemicals have similar effects.

What are we waiting for?
Aside from mdma and 2cb, neither of them Research Chemicals, _none_ of Shulgin's favorite compounds have ever become available. Shulgin blessed his favorite drugs [all phenethylamines] with sexy names, in PIHKaL: Beatrice, Ganesha, Madam-6. Shulgin's favorite compounds are what he calls the 'ideal ladies'. I've often wondered why none of these substances became available during the Research Chemical boom. The larger world is still, more or less, waiting to try them.

The math [tinder] of the situation: I've had these powders in me on many occasions. I'm a particular fan of methylone, which is perhaps the most popular Research Chemical [though the Shulgins don't really like it]. Methylone is mdmc: the methcathinone analogue of mdma or 'ecstasy'. In contrast to most Research Chemicals, methylone is non-hallucinogenic. It's a riff on ecstasy: happy, but less blastingly euphoric, less overwhelming, more chill. Methylone is like mde, which is sometimes sold as ecstasy anyway. Of the hallucinogenic Research Chems, I prefer 2ci.

I've taken lots of: methylone, 2ci, 5-meo-dmt, 4-fmp. I've taken at least twice: 2ce, 2ct7, 2ct2, amt, 5-meo-amt, 5-meo-dipt. Those experiences mark years-n-years-n-years-n-years in a young American's life: so many substances, locations, crowds, jokes, implications, slogans, theories, trysts, lisps. Every time I've attempted to write an overall sketch of my personal use, it's rapidly approached the length of a memoir. Too Much Too Much. But if anyone has questions about specific substances, I'm happy to answer based on my experience.

_The_ internet source for information about these chemicals is the Vaults of Erowid, where you can find part of PIHKaL and part of TIHKaL. Erowid also boasts the largest collection of user reports for Research Chemicals - and, indeed, for _all drugs_. It's an incredible resource for psychonauts, one that has particularly lacked funding since Bob Wallace, Godfather of The Scene, died. I send Erowid my pennies annually.

Another spot of note is the Psychedelic Drugs Discussion Board at Bluelight.ru [formerly Bluelight.nu]. There, you can see people chat about these fairly obscure substances. A caveat, though; the Bluelight.ru drug boards are full of misinformation - the Psychedelic Drug board is generally better than the rest, but still falls victim to this tendency.

To close: a scene from my eventual memoir. 2002: I'm visiting some friends at Stanford and we all eat 2ci. Some of us also take mdma. We're wandering around campus when I spot 'Sasha' and Ann Shulgin in front of the bookstore. Incoherently, I attempt to illustrate for my friends who the Shulgins are, how important they are. My friends encourage me to go say hi, and I wobble between feeling totally confident, and feeling totally confident that I'll make an ass of myself. For God's Sake, It's The Shulgins!! Would they really want to hear 'hey, right now I'm tripping on a drug you invented!'? They must hear it all the time, right?

I get pushed in the Great Couple's direction, so I approach them. I see them drawn in that 1960s style popular on music posters: black silhouettes outlined in white glimmer, with giant rainbows of hair. By the time I'm next to them, I don't even see humans.

'Are you the Shulgins?' I ask.

'Yes,' they approximately say.

'You... are... fucking... POETSSSSSS,' I return.

It felt like it took me a year to say those words. The Shulgins, shee-it!, they were quick!;

Ann: 'Later. Tonight, maybe.'
m+: 'What?'
Sasha: 'Tonight we should be fucking some poets.'

Link: Alexander Shulgin's blog, last updated December 2005.

A piece I wrote for Dennis Cooper's blog in September 2006. Direct any comments, questions, clarifications, objections, gifted ponies; to this post where I talk a little about writing the article.

Many thanks to Dennis for posting this bit of my writing, and flurries of kisses to anyone who reads it.