Research, psychedelic

To varying degrees, such inadequacies are present in most medical research with psychedelics, and progress in this area can be expected to be very slow, especially in view of the legal hindrances due to neanderthaloid legislators. 

Extracts of the plant Piper melhysticum have been used in Polynesia, probably for thousands of years, and Piper plantagiveum is similarly used in Mexico and the Caribbean. They produce a sleepy, relaxed feeling with eventual difficulty in walking. Dihydro-methysticin seems to be the most active constituent, but even this has little effect until about 3 g is taken. There would appear to be no point in synthesizing this or the other active compounds, but those interested may consult JOC 24,1829(1959) and Prog. Chem. Org. Nat. Prod. 20,131(1962). and Pacific Sci. 22,293(1968). For the best review see Bull, on Narcotics 25 59-74(1973). Some people find kava extracts quite pleasant. There is very little human research on these compounds and probably won t be (unless they become popular psychedelics). 

One famous set of DMT studies involves physician Rick Strassman, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. In 1990, Strassman began the first new research in the United States in more than twenty years on the effects of psychedelic drugs on humans. During the project s five years, he administered approximately four hundred doses of DMT to sixty human volunteers. 

EXTENSIONS AND COMMENTARY This base, a-ET or etryptamine, was a promising antidepressant, explored clinically as the acetate salt by Upjohn under the name of Monase. Its central stimulant activity is probably not due to its monoamineoxidase inhibition activity, but appears to stem from its structural relationship to the indolic psychedelics. It was withdrawn from potential commercial use with the appearance of an unacceptable incidence of a medical condition known as agranulocytosis, but the extra mural research into its action, among the lay population, goes on. 

One intrepid researcher called Salvia divinorum "the best-tasting psychedelic plant he d ever eaten." Good point. 

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The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is a membership-based non-profit research and educational organization. We assist scientists to design, fund, obtain approval for and report on studies into the healing and spiritual potentials of MDMA, psychedelic drugs and marijuana. 

On this site you can browse the MAPS Bulletin, read news updates, learn about ongoing psychedelic research projects around the world and events conferences, explore bibliographies, join our free email forum and join MAPS. 

Leary, Timothy, and Beverly Potter. Change Your Brain. Berkeley, Calif. Ronin Publishing, 2000. An account of Leary s early research on psychedelics in... 

Thus, there were serotonin 1 receptors, and then there were 1 and 2 receptors, and then la and lb and 2a and 2b receptors, and on and on. These are called 5-HT receptors, since the chemical name for serotonin is 5-hy-droxytryptamine, and the scientist would never want to let the layman know just what he is talking about. DOI has been synthesized with a variety of radioactive iodine isotopes in it, and these tools have been of considerable value in mapping out its brain distribution. And by extrapolation, the possible localization of other psychedelic compounds that cannot be so easily labelled. A small neurochemical research company on the East Coast picked up on these properties of DOI, and offered it as a commercial item for research experiments. But I doubt that they are completely innocent of the fact that DOI is an extremely potent psychedelic and that it is still unrecognized by the Federal drug laws since, in their most recent catalog, the price had almost doubled and a note had been added to the effect that telephone orders cannot be accepted for this compound. 

Many of the reports of MEM effects have been with experiments in which an effective dose of MDMA had been taken shortly earlier. There has developed a concept, embraced by a number of researchers, that the ease and quietness usually seen with the development of the MDMA experience can mitigate some of the physically disturbing symptoms sometimes seen with other psychedelics. This may be partly due to a familiar entry into a altered place, and partly due to a lessening of dosage usually required for full effects. MEM seems to have had more trials using this combination than many of the other psychedelic drugs. 

Its intrinsic worth proved, however, to be its very limitation. It was quickly apparent that the principal value, to behavioral researchers, of the reports of new hallucinogenic drugs, was not in the nature of their action but in the amount of stuff needed to produce that action. This was an essential axis against which the animal pharmacologist could plot his findings. A number was wanted, and the mescaline unit was just that number. Sadly, the major question that is asked by most academic researchers in their evaluation of the psychedelic materials is, How much does it take, rather than What does it do. The marvelous nuances of action, the subtle variations of effect, are dismissed as being hopelessly subjective and thus without scientific worth. But they are, I believe, of great worth. That is exactly what this book is all about. 

MDA was also one of the major drugs that was being popularly used in the late 1960 s when the psychedelic concept exploded on the public scene. MDA was called the hug-drug and was said to stand for Mellow Drug of America. There was no difficulty in obtaining unending quantities of it, as it was available as a research chemical from several scientific supply houses (as were mescaline and LSD) and... 

EXTENSIONS AND COMMENTARY TMA was the very first totally synthetic psychedelic phenethylamine that was found to be active in man, for which there had been any attempt to describe such drug effects in any detail. This was the report of research done in Canada, and it appeared in 1955, six years before my own report on the material. There was an earlier report on TMPEA which is mentioned in the appropriate recipe, but there were few details given. Also there had been interest in reports that adrenalin that had become old and discolored seemed to elicit central effects in man. The oxidation products were identified as the deeply colored indolic compound adrenochrome and the colorless analogue adrenolutin. The controversy that these reports created just sort of died away, and the adrenochrome family has never been accepted as being psychedelic. Noone in the scientific community today is looking in and about the area, and at present this is considered as an interesting historical footnote. But, in any case, they are not phenethylamines and so not part of this book. 

The passion of my life over the last forty years has been a compelling interest in psychedelic drugs. They have given me not only an exciting area of research and discovery, but also a personal understanding of just who I am and why I am. Certainly these guides and sacraments will eventually play an accepted role in our community and in our culture. Almost all of these drugs have either been isolated from psychoactive plants, or are the results of subtle variations of the molecular structures of these isolates. 

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