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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Christian Sager.

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Speaker 1: Today we are going to be talking about a drug.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about m d m A, also

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Speaker 1: known as ecstasy, but specifically we're gonna be getting into

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Speaker 1: kind of in this episode. What the you know, breakdown

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Speaker 1: of it is, how it works in chemistry, how it

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Speaker 1: works in biology, what its effects are on human body.

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Speaker 1: And then we're gonna do a second episode that's going

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Speaker 1: to be mainly about experiments that have been conducted for

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Speaker 1: what thirty years now maybe longer on how you can

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Speaker 1: use m d m A to cure all kinds of

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Speaker 1: things or at least alleviate things from cancer to uh

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Speaker 1: using it in psychotherapy, and using it to help people

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Speaker 1: with PTSD. Yes, so you can think of it as

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Speaker 1: a one to approach to looking at a particular er

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Speaker 1: drug and if you guide some gals like this, we

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Speaker 1: can take the same approach with other substances in the future. Yeah, definitely.

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Speaker 1: It seems like once we did the research for this,

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Speaker 1: it seems like this is rife. This avenue is right

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Speaker 1: for for more research and in episodes along these lines.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'd love to do another kind of episode

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Speaker 1: that's based on the pharmacology of designer drug or or

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Speaker 1: a commercial kind of street drug. Yeah, science based, open

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Speaker 1: minded exploration of what the substance is, what its properties are,

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Speaker 1: and then how can those properties conceivably be used to

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Speaker 1: our advantage in a non recreational way. Now, before we

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Speaker 1: get started, I want to remind you all where you

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Speaker 1: can find us and all the other things that we do.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people that we encounter actually think that

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Speaker 1: the podcast is the only thing that Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind is, But we actually have blog posts and

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Speaker 1: articles that we write every week that are available on

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Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Uh. Robert and

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Speaker 1: I and Joe are also all working for How Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works still and we write articles for the new How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works Now site, and robertson doing videos for them

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Speaker 1: as well. Right, what was the last one that was?

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Speaker 1: It was about the god helmet, right, which we've talked

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Speaker 1: about doing on the show. Yeah, that's most recently want

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Speaker 1: to come out. But yeah, it's generally something kind of

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Speaker 1: weird in science. E and I generally put together one

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Speaker 1: a week, So if you wanna, you know, find out

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Speaker 1: all this other stuff about us. So you just want

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Speaker 1: to engage with us directly, We're on social media all

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Speaker 1: over the place. You can interact with us on Facebook, Twitter,

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Speaker 1: and Tumbler. And also every Friday at noon Eastern Standard time,

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Speaker 1: we do a periscope where you can talk to us

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Speaker 1: for like twenty or thirty minutes. We just hang out

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Speaker 1: in front of an iPad and chat with our audience. Hey,

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Speaker 1: and if you want to support the show, here's something

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Speaker 1: you can do. Uh, give us a little love on

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Speaker 1: iTunes if you happen to listen to us through iTunes.

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Speaker 1: We have a lot of reviews on there. A lot

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Speaker 1: of them are pretty old. Help us out, help the algorithm.

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Speaker 1: Give us a little positive review there, give us a

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Speaker 1: little love. Would great really appreciate it. Okay, so let's

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Speaker 1: get into m d MC. First of all, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of preconceived notions about this drug, and in particular, uh,

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Speaker 1: we we were talking about this before the show that

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Speaker 1: they're preconceived notions on both sides, right, which there's the

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Speaker 1: anti drug side, the sort of uh, you know, this

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Speaker 1: has to be a legal side, and then there's the

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Speaker 1: the the side that's like this is going to expand

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Speaker 1: your mind and open up new horizons to you that

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Speaker 1: you weren't at all aware of UM and and change

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Speaker 1: your life side kind of right, Yeah, Because yeah, on

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Speaker 1: one side you have the anti drug one drugs statements

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Speaker 1: and then and then yeah, on the recreational side of it,

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Speaker 1: you see basically two different types of messaging, right. You

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Speaker 1: see individuals who are perhaps over emphasizing the spiritual qualities

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Speaker 1: of a particular substance, and this goes around the board

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Speaker 1: for a number of different drugs. Yeah. Sure, but then

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Speaker 1: you also see myths about its origin, myths about what

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Speaker 1: it does, and myths about the potential negative side effects,

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know, between all of this, there's certainly

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Speaker 1: a more objective you of what it is, where it

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Speaker 1: came from, and what it can potentially do in a

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Speaker 1: beneficial So our goal in these episodes is going to

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Speaker 1: be to kind of drill down between those lines and

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Speaker 1: debunk some of this stuff or explain some of these stuff,

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Speaker 1: some of this stuff a little bit more thoroughly cleanly.

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Speaker 1: And I think a good place for us to start

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Speaker 1: is UM with the journal entries of a guy named

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Speaker 1: Alexander Shulgin, who will talk more about later, but he

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Speaker 1: is considered the godfather of ecstasy, the godfather of M

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Speaker 1: d M a uh. And these are his journal entries

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Speaker 1: published in his book Peak Hall about his first time

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Speaker 1: after he synthesized M d m A taking it. This

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Speaker 1: is I believe in the seventies. So um, we've got

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Speaker 1: two quotes here. This first one I'm going to read.

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Speaker 1: This is from his journal entry on taking a hundred milligrams.

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Speaker 1: He says, M d m A intrigued me because everyone

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Speaker 1: I asked about it who had used it, answered the

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Speaker 1: question what's it's like in the same way, and they said,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, So what happened? They would say nothing?

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Speaker 1: And now I understand those answers. I too think nothing happened,

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Speaker 1: but something seemed changed. Before the window open completely, I

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Speaker 1: had some somatic effects, a tingling sensation in the fingers

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Speaker 1: and temples, a pleasant sensation that wasn't distracting. However, just

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Speaker 1: after that, there was a slight naja and a dizziness

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Speaker 1: similar to a little bit too much alcohol. All these

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Speaker 1: details disappeared as I walked outside. My mood was light

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Speaker 1: and happy, but with an underlying conviction that something significant

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Speaker 1: was about to happen. There was a change in perspective,

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Speaker 1: both in the near visual field and in the distance.

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Speaker 1: My usually poor vision was sharpened. That's something that's really

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Speaker 1: interesting to me. Uh and that he caught onto that immediately,

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Speaker 1: because that's a that's a side effect that isn't that

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Speaker 1: isn't well known. I saw details in the distance that

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Speaker 1: I could not normally see. After the peak experience had passed,

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Speaker 1: my major state was one of deep relaxation. I felt

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Speaker 1: that I could talk about deep or personal subjects with

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Speaker 1: special clarity, and I experienced some of the feeling one

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Speaker 1: has after a second martini, that one is discoursing brilliantly

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Speaker 1: and with a particularly acute analytical power. So that's that's

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Speaker 1: his first the key he synthesized it, and as we'll

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Speaker 1: get into later, he basically always started with with small doses.

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Speaker 1: He I think he starts sometimes with quite a bit

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Speaker 1: smaller than a hundred milligrams, but at the hundred milligram

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Speaker 1: this is where he started to really experience this mental clarity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the one certainly gets a sense if you've ever heard

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Speaker 1: like an album review where an individual was maybe chewing

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Speaker 1: a little more than they did off, as if maybe

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Speaker 1: the there's less substance to really focus on and he's

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Speaker 1: having to really reach to find it. Um you get

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Speaker 1: a sense of that at the hundred milligram level. Something

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Speaker 1: that's worth keeping in mind about these descriptions too, is

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Speaker 1: that Peakal was written in the nineties, a good twenty

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Speaker 1: years after he took so I'm sure he took his

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Speaker 1: journal entries and kind of spiced him up a little bit,

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Speaker 1: you know, out of a little poetry, all right. So

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Speaker 1: the next entry is from when he tried in d

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Speaker 1: m A at the hundred and twenty milligram level, and

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Speaker 1: you'll see a bit of a difference here. Quote. I

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Speaker 1: feel absolute clean inside, and there is nothing but pure euphoria.

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Speaker 1: I have never felt so great or believed this to

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Speaker 1: be possible. The cleanliness, clarity, and marvelous feeling of solid

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Speaker 1: inner strength continued throughout the rest of the day and

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Speaker 1: evening and through the next day. I am overcome by

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Speaker 1: the profundity of the experience and how much more powerful

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Speaker 1: it was than previous experiences. For no apparent reason other

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Speaker 1: than a continually improving state of being. All the next

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Speaker 1: day I felt like a citizen of the universe rather

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Speaker 1: than a citizen of the planet, completely disconnecting time and

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Speaker 1: flowing easily from one activity to the next. And again

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Speaker 1: these are from Alexander Shulgan's book Peak Hall, which is

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Speaker 1: uh subtitled a chemical love Story. We're we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: more about Shulgan later because he on his own is

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Speaker 1: just totally fascinating. But there's another quote that that you

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Speaker 1: put in here that's from that book, which is M

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Speaker 1: D m A. It was beginning to be a parent

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Speaker 1: could be all things to all people. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: interesting because, uh, it hasn't now or until until recently

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Speaker 1: with what you know what we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: towards the end of these two episodes about the I

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Speaker 1: guess medical applications, medical and therapeutic applications, but it is

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Speaker 1: it is all things, you know what. I'll take it back,

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Speaker 1: it's all things to all people in that like everybody

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Speaker 1: kind of brings their own thing to it. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: that's part of the problem as well discussed. That's one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons that that legitimate exploration of M D

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Speaker 1: m A fell out of favor because it became this

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Speaker 1: counterculture thing it became this recreational farm, pharmacological vehicle. And

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Speaker 1: I actually have one quick quote that I want to

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Speaker 1: read just to drive home kind of the the other

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Speaker 1: end of the pool, and this is from a UK

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Speaker 1: disco DJ, DJ Harvey Born DJ Born Harvey Bassett. He says, quote,

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Speaker 1: you can't understand the Blues until you've had your heartbroken,

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Speaker 1: and you can't understand my music until you've had group

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Speaker 1: sex on ecstasy on. So that that's the kind of

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Speaker 1: quote where it instantly makes you think, Okay, maybe I'm

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Speaker 1: a less into this idea of m d m A.

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Speaker 1: Is this this pure window into ourself? Um? It helps

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Speaker 1: perpetuate a sort of mythology about it. Yeah, and we

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Speaker 1: and we should talk a little about about the mythology

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Speaker 1: because I'm thinking we largely have three types of individuals

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Speaker 1: out there. They're the individuals who have some level of

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Speaker 1: experience with m d m A, with ecstasy, molly adam,

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Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. And then and then

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Speaker 1: their individuals who maybe have never heard of this before.

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Speaker 1: But I think for the most part, you're gonna have

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Speaker 1: that group who have encountered it time and time again

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Speaker 1: in movies and on TV shows. So many TV shows.

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Speaker 1: It's become a standard trope. It's like giving birth to

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Speaker 1: a baby in an elevator. Yeah, it really did. I

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Speaker 1: think probably the nineties was one that took off the most,

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Speaker 1: um Robert. Robert posted to the again another reason why

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Speaker 1: you should follow us on social media. We occasionally throw

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Speaker 1: out questions the audience for these episodes. Robert asked our

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Speaker 1: audience yesterday for examples of these from TV and my wife,

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Speaker 1: of all people, it was one of the people who

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Speaker 1: posted this example from Beverly Hills nine O two and oh, okay,

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Speaker 1: yeah the when Uh was his name Brandon? Was he

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Speaker 1: the main character on I O two and No? I

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Speaker 1: can't remember the Uh yeah, so that's the same by

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Speaker 1: the Bell Show. Okay, yeah, I get this, Uh yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: no two and no. He dated this girl for a

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Speaker 1: little while. He was like kind of a bad girl,

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Speaker 1: wore a leather jacket and had bleached hair and like,

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Speaker 1: of course, like she wanted to do M D M A.

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Speaker 1: And so there's a whole episode about about his experience

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Speaker 1: with that and and that, you know, you know, Frankly,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of these TV examples perpetuate one

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Speaker 1: of one side or the other of these stereotypes that

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Speaker 1: we've been talking about. Yeah, it's either like the crazy

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Speaker 1: rave person. Instantly think of the the episode of Space,

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Speaker 1: the classic British show, we had the raver character. I

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Speaker 1: think he was like a bike career. It's his name's Tires.

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Speaker 1: Rewatched the episode last night because it's one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite episodes of Space, and when we all day doing

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Speaker 1: the research for this, I just had Tires in my

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Speaker 1: head and scene with Nick Frost all in like army

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Speaker 1: gear at a rave doing ecstasy and kind of like

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Speaker 1: put pointing fake guns at the audience and shooting at them.

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Speaker 1: And then he like puts a fake gun in his

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Speaker 1: mouth and everybody's collapping. It's so ridiculous. But yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: the other side, which is the like this is so amazing.

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Speaker 1: It makes you feel so great. And even at the

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Speaker 1: very end, Tires the bike career like he leaves and

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Speaker 1: the voiceover says, my job is done here or my

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Speaker 1: work is done here. So you have that, and then

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Speaker 1: you have sort of the comic oops, I took ecstasy

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Speaker 1: kind of trope. And then uh, an increasingly dominant trope

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Speaker 1: that that I see in a lot of series these

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Speaker 1: days is um is one of more of a shamanistic

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Speaker 1: ecstasy experience where the characters are are learning something about themselves.

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Speaker 1: I think there's an episode of six ft Under that

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Speaker 1: that dealt with this, especially where think, I remember this

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Speaker 1: is David who takes it right, and maybe more than

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Speaker 1: one character because I think the mother, Oh yeah, she

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Speaker 1: accidentally takes it too. Yeah, it's been a while and

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Speaker 1: she ends up having this profound experience and this, you know,

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Speaker 1: experiences this openness with the world, which which I think

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Speaker 1: ties in rather nicely with some of the the objective

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Speaker 1: material that we're going to look at here. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but but yeah, there's a we have a small list.

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Speaker 1: This is not everything. I'm sure there's far more than this. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but but here just a few. We've seen ecstasy M

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Speaker 1: d M A play in two episodes of Transparent. Excellent show. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Carrie Diaries. Like it's like Sex in the City prequel, right,

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Speaker 1: she's in high school. I think, how to make it

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Speaker 1: in America, Orphan Black Skins, it's always stunning in Philadelphia

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Speaker 1: peep show. Um, you're a big fan. I still haven't

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Speaker 1: seen people you've recommended it to me? Yes, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's I can't remember precisely what happened, but I know

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Speaker 1: I do remember what happened, and I can't mention it here.

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Speaker 1: But so there's Peep Show, Workaholics, Californication Party down the

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Speaker 1: episode it is, I like that one each founding down

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Speaker 1: um looking and uh yeah, just so many more. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it's funny. A lot of those examples are kind

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Speaker 1: of more recent actually, And and I gravitate to that

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Speaker 1: nine O two on O example because that's what I

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Speaker 1: remember in the nineties, the like kind of like after

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Speaker 1: school special plot that's like, alright, somebody's gonna get you

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Speaker 1: to try to take this and they're gonna tell you

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Speaker 1: that it's gonna feel so good, but watch what really happens,

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Speaker 1: you know, Like before we came into the studio, I

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Speaker 1: was talking to Joe about this, and Joe says to me, Oh,

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Speaker 1: are you guys gonna talk about the myth that it

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Speaker 1: puts holes in your brain? And I was like, I've

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Speaker 1: never even heard of that, And and sure enough, like

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Speaker 1: Joe had heard this whole myth growing up that you know,

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Speaker 1: you take ecstasy and it's literally two through your brain matter.

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Speaker 1: So which, as far as I can tell from the

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Speaker 1: research is not true. Right. It's interesting though that in

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Speaker 1: just looking at the the television portrayals we see this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this change from the the anti drug messaging. It's just

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Speaker 1: this is something evil and awful, stay away from it

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Speaker 1: to where it is portrayed as more of a like

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Speaker 1: a rite of passage, as this really more of a

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Speaker 1: shamanistic experience. Even if the character is engaging in the

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Speaker 1: shamanistic experience, are not prepared, uh for the experience. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess like what I would like to see and

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Speaker 1: move more towards and from reading the research on this, definitely,

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Speaker 1: like the scholars who are studying this seemed to be

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Speaker 1: in this area is understanding the chemical and the chemistry

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Speaker 1: and how it interacts with human biology, as if like

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Speaker 1: the brain is like a machine run on chemicals, which

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Speaker 1: it is, you know, and how those are how those

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Speaker 1: kind of work together. Right. That seems like a much

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Speaker 1: more mature approach to this to me than than one

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Speaker 1: side or the other. And and uh and hopefully we

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Speaker 1: can kind of you know, bring that here. But also

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Speaker 1: obviously we're gonna dip our toes into into the pop

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Speaker 1: culture examples because that's what we're all familiar with. All right. Well,

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Speaker 1: on that note, let's let's go ahead and dive in

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Speaker 1: when we're talking about m d M A and ecstasy.

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Speaker 1: First of all, ecstasy. Ecstasy is of course the street variant, right,

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Speaker 1: this is the pill version, and generally speaking there's M

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Speaker 1: d m A in there, but there are probably other

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Speaker 1: properties in there as well. Yeah, I mean, let's admit it, like,

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Speaker 1: who knows who's making this stuff unless you're making it yourself. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's coming from a lab and another continent. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's kind of an unknown quantity. One thing that was

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Speaker 1: interesting that I saw in the research though, is that

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Speaker 1: m d m A, among many street drugs, is known

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Speaker 1: for its purity, uh, and that it wasn't until I believe,

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Speaker 1: like the late nineties or no, mid nineties that uh,

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Speaker 1: the purity was in question. When they would test it,

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Speaker 1: it was, you know, significantly lower than but since the

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Speaker 1: mid two thousand's when they've been testing it, it's always been.

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Speaker 1: So I don't want to perpetuate like this fear that like, oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: somebody cut like PCP into your m d M A

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Speaker 1: or what who knows whatever? You know, all right, so

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Speaker 1: let's talk about it. M D N A the The

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Speaker 1: substance itself, m d m A stands for methylene dioxy

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Speaker 1: meth amphetamine, and it's a synthetic psychoactive drug. It's chemically

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Speaker 1: similar to the stimulant and meth ampthetamine and the hallucinogen mescaline.

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Speaker 1: It produces feelings of increased energy, euphoria, emotional warmth, distortions,

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Speaker 1: and time perception tactile experiences. Interestingly enough, you don't see

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Speaker 1: these um these experiences described generally as as states of ecstasy.

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Speaker 1: Like it's really kind of a misnomer to even call

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Speaker 1: it that. It's more euphoric, it's more openness. It's more

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Speaker 1: like the self becomes permeable and uh, you're allowed to

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Speaker 1: interact with the world a little more. That's another myth

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Speaker 1: that I think is perpetuated by TV and movies a

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Speaker 1: little bit too about it, right, is that like everybody

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Speaker 1: just wants to have sex the minute to take M

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Speaker 1: d m A because it's ecstasy, right, And that's not

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Speaker 1: necessarily the case. There was another TV example which I've

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Speaker 1: mentioned this show several times on on on our show

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Speaker 1: Uh Millennium than the ninety nineties show starring Lance Hendrickson.

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Speaker 1: The very first episode of that show, I believe, or

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Speaker 1: maybe it was like the third or fourth featured a

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Speaker 1: couple who took M D M A and they were

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Speaker 1: just so out of it and so in love with

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Speaker 1: each other that a serial killer was able to capture

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Speaker 1: them and kill them both. It was just ridiculous. But

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Speaker 1: so anyways, it's important to remember that this drug, basically,

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Speaker 1: it's a central nervous system stimulant right when you get

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Speaker 1: down to it, and UH, it is particularly connected to

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Speaker 1: the serotonin transporters in our brain. We're gonna drill down

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Speaker 1: and look at that further later. Let's let's continue on

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Speaker 1: with the basics. Yeah, it's so as I've said, it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a unique combination of both stimulant and UH

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Speaker 1: and a psychato mimetic substance. So some people actually tend

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Speaker 1: to classify it as enactogen or an empathogen, all due

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Speaker 1: to its power to induce emotional communion again, the sense

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Speaker 1: of oneness, UH, emotional openness in the form of empathy

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Speaker 1: and sympathy. Yeah, so it's pretty popular, and we know

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Speaker 1: this because not just for from it showing up on

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Speaker 1: TV and movies, but actually population surveys show that it's

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Speaker 1: the third most widely used illegal drug in the world,

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Speaker 1: after cannabis and cocaine, which surprised me. I guess I,

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Speaker 1: I guess I was surprised that cocaine was so much

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Speaker 1: higher too. But um uh, I mean the the various

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Speaker 1: effects that we've discussed, I mean, without getting into any

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Speaker 1: of the legal side of it, or the or the

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Speaker 1: ramifications like who wouldn't want to feel that way? If

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Speaker 1: someone said, hey, let me just ask you one quick question,

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Speaker 1: would you like to feel like this? And you would

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Speaker 1: say yes, I'd like to hear some more information about

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Speaker 1: what you're proposed. Yeah, exactly, Like it's like, uh, somebody

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Speaker 1: handing up pamphlets at the trade station. Yeah, yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I agree. I was talking with a friend last night

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Speaker 1: actually who experienced using M d m A in the seventies,

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Speaker 1: actually around the same time the children was first experimenting

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Speaker 1: with it, and uh, and that was kind of the

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Speaker 1: conclusion that you know, he came to is that you know, well,

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Speaker 1: people would say, you know, people even before there was

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Speaker 1: a usage of it for psychoanalysts and therapy applications, they

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Speaker 1: would say, well, do you want to feel good? You know,

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Speaker 1: and and and lots of people out there. Don't want

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Speaker 1: to feel sad, don't want to be angry, don't want

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Speaker 1: to be lonely. Sure, I want to feel good. But

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Speaker 1: as we'll get to this isn't a particularly addictive drug either.

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Speaker 1: So it's not like cocaine in the sense where it's

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Speaker 1: like you're gonna feel good and then you're gonna have

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Speaker 1: to feed in that monkey, right, you know. Um, it's

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Speaker 1: like this is more of a situation where you're gonna

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Speaker 1: feel really good and then you're probably gonna want to

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Speaker 1: take it again and uh a month or two, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: yeah exactly, maybe never depending you know. It's um, yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll get into those properties. And in fact, to give

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Speaker 1: you a sort of a you know, a broad look

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Speaker 1: at how many people have potential, they done it. European

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Speaker 1: Monitoring the the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug

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Speaker 1: Addiction surveyed all of Europe for how much they had

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Speaker 1: used m d m A, how much the population used

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Speaker 1: m d A m d M A, and they found

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Speaker 1: that people between the ages of sixteen and sixty five,

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Speaker 1: eight point six percent of them acknowledged that they had

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Speaker 1: used it, but like you said, the majority only used

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Speaker 1: it a few times. Regular uses very rare. It's very

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Speaker 1: rare that somebody is taking ecstasy all the time. The

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Speaker 1: vast majority of individuals seem to have taken it ten

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Speaker 1: times or less. Yea, yeah, exactly, that was the average.

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Speaker 1: All right, So let's get into the origin story. This

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Speaker 1: M d M A is a synthetic substance. It does

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Speaker 1: not occur in nature. So you can't go pick m

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Speaker 1: d m A in a field of flowers, right. A

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Speaker 1: shaman watering in the woods did not discover m d

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Speaker 1: m A m the monk of picking mushrooms, and then

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Speaker 1: the hills didn't discover m d m A. M d

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Speaker 1: M A was created in a laboratory, in a very

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Speaker 1: interesting laboratory situation. Actually, yeah, so the origins of m

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Speaker 1: d m A only go back to around nineteen twelve,

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Speaker 1: and specifically you have to go to Uh to the

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Speaker 1: laboratories of the German pharmaceutical company Mark. It's here that

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Speaker 1: German chemist and Tom Kolish Uh was actually discovered the substance.

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Speaker 1: And Uh, it's we know next to nothing about this individual.

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Speaker 1: We know that he died in nineteen sixteen, but that's

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Speaker 1: about it. Um. We don't know when he was born,

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00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 1: not a lot of forthcoming biological biographical information about him. Um.

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Speaker 1: And there's this really interesting study that we read for

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Speaker 1: for this. That was all the study was about, was

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Speaker 1: drilling down, going through all of Mark's archives to try

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Speaker 1: to figure out what the exact origin story was. And

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Speaker 1: you know, basically they came up with what we're telling you,

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Speaker 1: It wasn't a whole lot more on the record. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a wonderful paper. Will link to a

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Speaker 1: copy of the full paper on the landing page for

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Speaker 1: this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: But it was probably in two thousand six in the

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Speaker 1: German journal uh Pharma Z. And the English title is

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Speaker 1: the Origin of M D M. A Ecstasy Separating the

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Speaker 1: facts from the myth uh and uh some of the myths.

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Speaker 1: Just to get this out out there, there's a there

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Speaker 1: are a couple of different myths relating to different actual chemists,

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Speaker 1: one of whom was a Nobel Prize winner. Uh. So

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Speaker 1: a lot of people like to gravitate towards that. They

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Speaker 1: want there to be like a like a more fantastic origins. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like like they want to know the guy responsible as

426
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 1: opposed to uh, poor Anton here who's just completely lost

427
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: to history. Um. The soldier myth is also very uh attractive.

428
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:41,399
Speaker 1: There's this misconception that that it was, you know, some

429
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:45,879
Speaker 1: sort of an army uh project, either a U. S.

430
00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:49,600
Speaker 1: Army project or or or a German military project trying

431
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: to create some sort of uh, you know, soldier enhancement drug.

432
00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:56,840
Speaker 1: And while it's true that pretty much the military has

433
00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 1: always been interested in ways to of course improve uh

434
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 1: so your performance, and certainly in the age of aviation,

435
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: there's always been an interest in trying to keep your

436
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 1: soldiers awake, develop developed stimulants, etcetera. But there's basically this

437
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:15,399
Speaker 1: myth originates from just confusing the origin, saying all right,

438
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:19,360
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve Germany and then thinking about US army experiments

439
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties and getting it all kind of

440
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 1: mixed up, because ultimately, ecstasy is probably not the drug

441
00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 1: of choice when it comes to sending soldiers out into

442
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 1: the field. It's it's probably not what you want to

443
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: be giving uh people in the field when their job

444
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 1: is to kill people. Yeah, you don't want them theories

445
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: found openness with the world. Yeah. Well, and I think

446
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:40,679
Speaker 1: it's also worth pointing out that as far as I

447
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:44,320
Speaker 1: can tell from the research, the only application for military

448
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: use that it is now being used is for soldiers

449
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 1: coming back with PTSD, and that there are soldiers who

450
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 1: are being recommended for clinical trials of using m d

451
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: M A to treat PTSD. But we'll get into that

452
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: in the next episode. So if you look back at

453
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: the original German patents, and that's certainly what they did

454
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 1: in this two thousand six UH Pharmacy Journal paper. You

455
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:11,400
Speaker 1: look back at these original patents, the first one mentions

456
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: no specific purpose or medical indication such as the use

457
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 1: of as an appetite suppressant for soldiers as is sometimes cited.

458
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 1: It was just a quote procedural patent for compounds which

459
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: are important key precursors for therapeutics. And in the second patent,

460
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: m d m A is mentioned only as a byproduct

461
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 1: and chemical intermediate in one in in the in one

462
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:39,120
Speaker 1: of the pathways that started from saffrol, that's a sassafras

463
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 1: derived precursor to m d m A, also a precursor

464
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: to an insecticide and a fragrance. So essentially the you know,

465
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 1: these chemists are just they're exploring and they're they're creating

466
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:53,160
Speaker 1: this road map of chemical interactions, and along the way,

467
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:55,679
Speaker 1: you know they're in the car. Anton is there and

468
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: he says, hey, that's m d M A right there.

469
00:24:57,560 --> 00:24:59,399
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about it, but there it is

470
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 1: in it's kind of it's noted in a ledger, and

471
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 1: then everyone keeps going. Um careers at these chemical companies

472
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century sound fascinating to me, both

473
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: both Murk and then reading later. Dow Chemical is another

474
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 1: place where psychedelics were developed under the auspices of commercial pharmaceuticals,

475
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:24,159
Speaker 1: and especially when you're talking German chemists, because some of

476
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: the more profound uh advancements in chemistry have come out

477
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: of German chemistry labs in in the early part of

478
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:33,680
Speaker 1: the twice but who knows, like they were for the

479
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: most part, like you said, they're trying to design pesticides

480
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 1: or something, and it just shows up as a curiosity.

481
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:44,200
Speaker 1: In fact, um Mark's patent number two seven does not

482
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:46,880
Speaker 1: patent M d M A as a substance, so there

483
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: seemed little or no interest in it, so it was

484
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 1: effectively shelved. It was not tested pharmatical, pharmacologically, and as such,

485
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: nobody knew what it did. What its side effects were.

486
00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: It wasn't until nineteen seven, and that's when murk dr

487
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: Max Oberlin, And we don't know much about him either.

488
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: He was born in and we don't know when he

489
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: died according to the pharmacy paper that were referenced earlier,

490
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: but he resumed study of M d M A and

491
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: observed its quote pure sympathetic effects and noted that it

492
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: should be explored, though again it was shelved due to

493
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:25,120
Speaker 1: the high costs of saffrol methyl meme. So we don't

494
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: have a lot of details. But Overland probably didn't conduct

495
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: experiments with humans, but we just don't know the details

496
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: of what his research methods were. But somehow he knew

497
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: that there was something empathic about it. And this is

498
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 1: where I threw this out on Facebook privately. But I

499
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:43,199
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of potential here because we have

500
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 1: the German chemists creating all these crazy uh and and

501
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: highly influential substances. They're accidentally creating M d M A.

502
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: Imagine if you you had a sort of a cabaret era,

503
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: pre war period piece, and and here's this chemist who

504
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 1: introduces very fictionally um in d M A into the

505
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: cabaret era club scene. Yeah, he's you're right, it's a

506
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 1: German madmen. Yeah. Like he's working in like a kind

507
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: of stodgy chemical company by day, but then at night

508
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: he's he's slipping people. Yeah. So if anybody out there

509
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: is listening and you're trying to develop a show for

510
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,200
Speaker 1: am we got a pitch for you. This is our pitch.

511
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: Pick it up. Well, we'll talk, we'll talk. Well, the

512
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,199
Speaker 1: problem with Coalition and Oberlin is that they didn't just

513
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: make this stuff in their own backyard and take it themselves,

514
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 1: which is what the secondary Since this is that we

515
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: know of holding out hope, there must Yeah, there must

516
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 1: have been something between Oberlin in seven and Alexander Alexander Shulgan,

517
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: who we've talked about already. H But I'll expand upon

518
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:50,160
Speaker 1: as far as we know, um and until AMC fills

519
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: in the hall, it's got to be. Yeah, it just

520
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: seems that m d m A just lingered in obscurity

521
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:57,959
Speaker 1: for decades. What if the reason why we don't know

522
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 1: when Max Oberlin died is because he's still alive and

523
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: the M d m A has been keeping him alive.

524
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: He's over a hundred years old, fueled by ecstasy. No,

525
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: that's totally not possible based on the research that we saw. Alright,

526
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: So Alexander Shulgan, this guy is quoted, like I said

527
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: at the top, as being the godfather of ecstasy. And

528
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: here's why. Shilgan, like I said, basically cooked this stuff

529
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: in his backyard and tested it on himself. And before

530
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: I get to that, I think that we need to

531
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: do a little bit of a setup on who Shilgan was.

532
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,959
Speaker 1: He passed away unfortunately last year, but who he was

533
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:35,679
Speaker 1: and what his methodology was and why he was the

534
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: guy to do this. So Sulgan was born in California.

535
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: He went to Harvard when he was fifteen years old. Okay,

536
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: so he's one of these wonder congeniuses. He drops out

537
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: so he can join the U. S. Navy. Uh. And

538
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: he claimed that while he was in the Navy, he

539
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: memorized the Encyclopedia on Chemistry. Uh, and went back got

540
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: his formal education, finished, got a doctorate and by chemistry

541
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 1: from the University of California. In he goes and works

542
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: for the Dow Chemical Company. So it sounds somewhat similar

543
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: to the Mark situation, right. Uh. He is eventually working

544
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: they're producing pesticides, and he invents this stuff called Zektrin,

545
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: which was advertised as the world's first biodegradable pesticide, and

546
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: it went over really well, and basically Doo was like, alright,

547
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: do whatever you want now, like we're so happy with

548
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: your results on that, go go to it. Wonder we

549
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: wonder what you cook up next. Literally kind of a

550
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: Walter White scenario here, uh, And and he Shelgan says, Okay, well,

551
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: I'm going to devote all of my studies to psychedelic chemistry.

552
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 1: And he starts publishing in Nature and Journal of Organic

553
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: Chemistry talking about all of these drugs that he's inventing

554
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: in Dow's Labs. And when they find out what he's

555
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: up to, their board of directors is like, no, this

556
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: is gonna be bad publicity for us to keep him on.

557
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: This is the fifties. Um. So that so that the

558
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: full uh counterard culture collapses not occurred yet, but clearly

559
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: there the roots are already present. Yeah, And so he

560
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: eventually leaves the company in nineteen sixty six and he says,

561
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: you know what I said at my own home lab,

562
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: and uh, work out if he's gonna freelance out of

563
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: the house and basically he's a consultant or research labs

564
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: and hospitals. Okay, but here's what he basically did. He

565
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: invented hundreds of psychedelics, testing each new compound on himself.

566
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: And the way that he did it because he would

567
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 1: take the minimum amount required to have an effect, and

568
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: then he would gradually increase the dosage. So those those

569
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: quotes from his book peak all that we read at

570
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: the beginning of the show. Though that's a typical process, right,

571
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: is that he would go, Okay, so I need to

572
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: take this many milligrams for to feel any effect, and

573
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: then I will gradually increase the dosage. And I think

574
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: that's a there's a good lesson there for everyone, even

575
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: if you're just dealing with something like like alcohol equally

576
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: consumable product or coffee. Don't just go diving in and

577
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: getting the double triple espress though it starts, and work

578
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,719
Speaker 1: your way up and see see what works. Well. Children's

579
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: a fascinating character because I mean, so he tested all

580
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: of these psychedelics out on himself, and he it was

581
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: like very fastidious about how he kept his his notes

582
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: as journals all this, but then to confirm his data

583
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: what he would do is he would share the substances

584
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: with his wife, Ann, and he would find out what

585
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: Ann's experiences were, and he would record those and then

586
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: if they determined that further study was required, they invited

587
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 1: a quote research group of friends to come over and

588
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: they would do these sessions for like maybe two or

589
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: three days where they would test their reactions to whatever

590
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: he had invented that week, right, and and maybe it

591
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: was M D M A, maybe it was something else.

592
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, there's hundreds. Those must have

593
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: been interesting, um research groups to attend, because I guess

594
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: you probably, I mean, he probably had some idea what

595
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: to expect. But you're just you're you're very much a psychonage.

596
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: You're very much they I think. And Uh, there's a

597
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: documentary about Shulgun I believe is on YouTube and they

598
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: talk about these parties quite a bit, and I believe

599
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: I might I might be wrong here. I wrote about

600
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: Shilgun once before for for How Stuff Works, and will

601
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: link to that as well on the podcast page. But um,

602
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: my understanding was that Shilgn had one rule, which was

603
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: basically that well, first of all, they weren't allowed to

604
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: take any medications. For a couple of days before hands,

605
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be going any kind of complications. Yeah, but

606
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 1: they weren't allowed to have sex with people that they

607
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: weren't already established in a relationship with, So they would

608
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: be there for two to three days and whatever it

609
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: was that they were taking in. And his first name,

610
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: his first name is Alexander, but everybody called him Sasha,

611
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: uh Sasha. Basically their rule was like, no, you can't

612
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: just go off with somebody else. We don't want any

613
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: kind of drama being reintroduced to this thing. But again,

614
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: another great MC show in the making, I think, I

615
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: think so yeah, and one that we definitely have far

616
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: more biographical information to go. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot.

617
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: Yeah uh so Okay. Children created over two hundred unique

618
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: drugs to stimulate the mind doing this, he tested everything,

619
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 1: speeding it up, slowing it down, tapping into empathy. The

620
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: d A actually gave his garden laboratory a license to

621
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 1: produce Schedule one substances so he could be an expert

622
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: in their cases. Right, He was like their go to

623
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 1: guy for stuff they would find out in the field

624
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: and he would he would consult with them. In fact,

625
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 1: I don't have the notes here in front of me.

626
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 1: But he was like best friends with the guy who

627
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: is the head of his local d A chapter. They

628
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: worked very closely to go. So we have a really

629
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: curious individual here, one who is he seems to exist

630
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: right at the crossroads between the counterculture of drug exploration

631
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: and the hard nosed you know, precursor to what would

632
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: ultimately become the War on drugs. Right, Yeah, absolutely, I

633
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: mean he my understanding, his position was basically like, I'm

634
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: just creating this stuff and I'm testing it for educational

635
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: and scientific purposes. What people do with it commercially is

636
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: up to them, and it's not his responsibility if something

637
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 1: goes wrong. Um. So that brings us to m d

638
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: m A because he was criticized highly for not only

639
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: creating resynthesizing m D m A. He didn't create it,

640
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: It was created at Mark, but publishing how to make

641
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 1: it and and uh letting letting other people know, you know,

642
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: basically the recipe. Yeah, I mean, he's just to go

643
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 1: back to the road analogy. He is mapping the chemical Highway,

644
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: and you don't have to go down every road. He's

645
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:34,879
Speaker 1: not saying drive down here. You don't have to go there. Yeah,

646
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: but this is the map so Shilgan and m d

647
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: M A. He first synthesized it in nineteen sixty five,

648
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 1: but he didn't try it. So actually, if you look

649
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: at the numbers there, he was still at DOW at

650
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: the time that he first synthesized it, but he didn't

651
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 1: try it. Then again, I think there was like a

652
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: what what is this for? Right kind of thing? Uh

653
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: And then in the nineteen seventies he heard about it's

654
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: quote special effect from a friend. This makes me wonder

655
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: to what extent there is there there is a history

656
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: something between between it's it's supposed to disappearance and what

657
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: somebody was making it in the background and using it. Yeah. Uh,

658
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: so he resynthesizes it and tests it on himself in

659
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:19,240
Speaker 1: this usual manner that it described in September of nineteen

660
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: seventy six, and that's where we got those journal notes

661
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: that we we we read you earlier from Peak Hall

662
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:27,800
Speaker 1: and along with a guy named David Nichols, he publishes

663
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:31,279
Speaker 1: the first paper on the pharmacological action of M d

664
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:34,240
Speaker 1: M A and human beings. And this is why people

665
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:36,279
Speaker 1: sometimes refer to him either as the father of m

666
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 1: d M A or the godfather of M D m

667
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:42,840
Speaker 1: a UM. PEA Call is his his his most widely

668
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: known book, and it stands for Fennel ethel A means

669
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: I have known and loved And it's sort of part memoir,

670
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:53,800
Speaker 1: part cookbook on how to make these drugs and includes

671
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,799
Speaker 1: instructions on how to synthesize all the things in there there.

672
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:58,720
Speaker 1: I believe there's like a hundred and seventy nine different

673
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:01,320
Speaker 1: substances in it. And then he followed this up with

674
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,399
Speaker 1: a book T Call, which is tripped to means I've

675
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:05,759
Speaker 1: known and loved similar kind of thing, just looking at

676
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: a different based group. UM. But it got to the

677
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: point where you know, these books were published and there

678
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: widely known. I first heard about Shilgun I don't know,

679
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: maybe nineties six or something like that, so I think,

680
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 1: like you know, pecoll was published in the early nineties,

681
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:19,879
Speaker 1: so it had been out for a little while by them,

682
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: but I first heard about it like hanging out with

683
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: some guys at M I T who like, had founded

684
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,359
Speaker 1: on the Internet, and we're talking about how they were

685
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: all like engineers or chemistry for years and trying to

686
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: figure out how they were going to cook this stuff

687
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 1: up because they were fascinated by this guy. Um, it's

688
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 1: like the chemical necronomicon. Yeah, yeah, totally um. And so

689
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: you can understand why, like any time, if he gave

690
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: a word of praise, even the slightest praise to a

691
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:46,760
Speaker 1: drug in these books or any of his other writings,

692
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: it was almost guaranteed that it would gain popularity. So

693
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: this also came with media scrutiny and outrage and that

694
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 1: this guy had created this horrible thing and was destroying

695
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 1: the world. But like I said, he believed his research

696
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,439
Speaker 1: should be openly available. This guy was like, like I said,

697
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 1: like peakle totally available online. He wasn't in it for

698
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 1: the money because of the educational reasons, for the purposes

699
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 1: of people being able to learn from it. And when

700
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 1: you interviews with this guy, especially video interviews that I've

701
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:17,839
Speaker 1: seen online, first of all, he seems like it's such

702
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: a tender, genuine guy. But also beard. Yeah, he's got

703
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:24,400
Speaker 1: a very He looks like what you would expect. He

704
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,239
Speaker 1: kind of wears like Hawaiian short sleeve shirts and and

705
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: has a huge white beard. But he's also just so

706
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: smart and so fascinated with just the world of chemistry

707
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,359
Speaker 1: and and and putting all the parts together in his head.

708
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: You can see the gears going when he's talking about it.

709
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: So he it's easy to want to compare him to

710
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,760
Speaker 1: people like Timothy Leary or Lily but but his focus,

711
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: uh was was was almost exclusively on the chemistry on

712
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: that chemical map, not what can I do with it

713
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,879
Speaker 1: to speak to beings from another dimension or anything of that. Yeah,

714
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 1: I didn't get that impression. And although you know, he

715
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: was certainly continuing to create new stuff and tested on himself.

716
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: I think probably up until he died in two thousand

717
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 1: and fourteen. I think I think it was lung cancer

718
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 1: then that caused him to pass away. But um in

719
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: the whole d A thing flipped and agents rated his

720
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 1: home and lab, probably because the publication of Picole revoked

721
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 1: his license and find him twenty five thousand dollars, So

722
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:24,879
Speaker 1: that kind of relationship sort of went away, although I'm

723
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:27,959
Speaker 1: sure probably behind the scenes there were still guys coming

724
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 1: to him and being like, we don't understand this particular

725
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 1: substances because he's the foremost expert in the fields, like

726
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: the Hannibal Lecter of the d A. You know, like

727
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 1: they're they're like, we don't we don't get these chemical compounds,

728
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: and they they're not supposed to talk to him, but

729
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: they go out and visit him on the right. I

730
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 1: mean in that to sort of go back to our

731
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: detective episode we did a few months back. He's in

732
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: that shamanistic role. He's on the edge. He's between the worlds.

733
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: And who do you go to when you want to

734
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: understand the other world? You go to the shaman. Absolutely.

735
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,919
Speaker 1: In fact, another person who I mentioned on this show

736
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 1: quite a bit, war In l Us, has adapted Shilgan

737
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 1: into some of his writings. Believe there's an Iron Man

738
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:08,879
Speaker 1: comic out there in which iron Man is having sort

739
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: of like a crisis of confidence and he goes and

740
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: visits a Shilgn like figure at his estate and sit

741
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 1: down and talk about, you know, the future of chemistry

742
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 1: and technology together. Interesting. Yeah, all right, you know, I

743
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: think it's time we take a quick break and when

744
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,280
Speaker 1: we when we come back, we're going to get into

745
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 1: um the specifics of what M D M A does

746
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: to the mind of to the body, the pros, the cons, Yeah,

747
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: debunk the myths. Let's get down to the nitty gritty.

748
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So what does M. D m

749
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: A do and how does it do it? Well, We're

750
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: gonna try to not get too lost in the details here,

751
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 1: because you're ultimately talking about chemistry and biochemistry and you

752
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: can really go down the dep end it's certainly above

753
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: my head. And and that was one thing when I

754
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 1: was looking at the research, which was kind of, Okay,

755
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: how do we translate this for our audience into something

756
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 1: that's digestible. And my rule of thumb was sort of like,

757
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: if I'm reading this in my eyes started glossing over

758
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: and I can't figure out what it is, it might

759
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: be best to sort of try to paraphrase that in

760
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: another way, right, you know, Yeah, I mean just to

761
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,720
Speaker 1: read a bit from that German paper that I referenced earlier,

762
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: like a very sort of clinical uh. Description of what

763
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 1: M d m A does is as follows. Quote. D

764
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,720
Speaker 1: m AS effects mainly result from an increased synaptic availability

765
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: of serotonin five HT based on serotonin reuptake inhibition and

766
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: serotonin release from pre synaptic storage. Is The stimulant and

767
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 1: emotional effects are mainly produced by the acute release of

768
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: five HT, while the hallucinogenic effects of M DUMA are

769
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: mainly evoked by direct interactions with post synaptic five ht

770
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 1: to A receptors similar to last masculine, etcetera. Right, so

771
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: this is what you talked about earlier. The m d

772
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 1: m A sort of balances the stimulant effects of methamphetamines

773
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 1: with the hallucinogenic effects of mescaline. Right, to break it

774
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:06,320
Speaker 1: down a little more, Okay, you have you're talking about euphoria,

775
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: blood pressure, um, effects on your you know, your appetite,

776
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: your attention. These are all regulated by a group of

777
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: neurotransmitters in just the normal non ecstasy taking body and brain.

778
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:24,879
Speaker 1: So the biogenic amines and the monoamine neuro transmitters. So

779
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: normally neurons communicate with each other and they fire impulses

780
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: through the brain via the neuro transmitters. You can think

781
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,359
Speaker 1: of this is it's kind of like the bank tellers, right, Oh,

782
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: you need you need to take so much out to

783
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:36,760
Speaker 1: take care of this. All right, let me do the paperwork.

784
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:38,879
Speaker 1: Here you go, here's the cash balances this stuff out

785
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: for you, or at least it's supposed to write, right.

786
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 1: M d M A is more like a Robin Hood

787
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 1: bank robber going into the bank and saying, actually I

788
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: have some different I want what we're going to do.

789
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: So m D M A release increases the levels of

790
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 1: the monoamine neurotransmitters dopamine UH, neuro repineprin, and serotonin in

791
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: the sign. It dumps them into into the synaps in

792
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:07,840
Speaker 1: quantities quality in quantities much larger than those seen with cocaine.

793
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: But it releases much more serotonin and much less dopamine

794
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: UH than amphetamines. So this results in a decrease in

795
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: aggressiveness and increase in body temperature and a relatively low

796
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 1: addiction potential. Yeah, right, which we mentioned earlier. Right, most

797
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:25,719
Speaker 1: people who have used m D M A at the

798
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: most ten as many times, because how many times can

799
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 1: you just robbed the bank? Right? Well? Yeah, And as

800
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: we'll get into, there's after effects that that decrease the

801
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,840
Speaker 1: positive effects and increase the negative effects of taking m DMAGE.

802
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 1: And I feel like a lot of it's very you know,

803
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: it's very zen that idea that experiences in life for

804
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,840
Speaker 1: this pendulum, And and you're gonna have extremes on both side.

805
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: And the further you swing the pendulum over in one direction,

806
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: the further it has the potential to swing back in

807
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:57,720
Speaker 1: the other. So yeah, my friend who I mentioned earlier,

808
00:42:57,719 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 1: who took this stuff in the seventies. His example was,

809
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: like you know, Shaman's when they take hallucinogens, they're clearly

810
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: they weren't making M d M A and labs and

811
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: taking this stuff, but but things similar to it. It's

812
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 1: not like they were taking it every day, right there.

813
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:12,799
Speaker 1: They take it maybe once a year, and there's an

814
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: elaborate ritual and they give themselves the time to come

815
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: down off of it, and they give it reverence, right

816
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:24,800
Speaker 1: uh and and exactly right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, it's swinging.

817
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: Uh sorry, what is it? The past fire thing? And

818
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:31,280
Speaker 1: we'll talk about why dance club culture plays into this. Yeah,

819
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 1: it has a purpose huge yeah, okay, So what are

820
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,760
Speaker 1: there it's immediate effects? Well, first of all, a typical

821
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: street dose I guess is around a hundred and twenty

822
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: five milligrams in a tablet. Yeah, I've also seen it

823
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: as low as a hundred but okay, yeah, which is

824
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:49,879
Speaker 1: around what was taking it at um and most people

825
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: ingested orally, but others have uh taken something called M

826
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: D M A bombs, which I hadn't heard of before

827
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: reading about this, but apparently you take the equivalent of

828
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: like two to three ablets worth. You wrap it up

829
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:04,399
Speaker 1: in paper and swallow that, so you get a much

830
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: higher dosage all at once. Uh. And the other way

831
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: to get quicker results is to either snort it or

832
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: to inject it um. This has quicker results, but then

833
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: it also has worst effects during the calm down. So

834
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 1: what are those effects all? Right? First of all, it

835
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: increases your body temperature. Sometimes it gives you not hypothermia,

836
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 1: hyper thermia, so your body temperature starts going up a lot.

837
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: That's why, like all the stereotypical examples of ravers taking

838
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: M D M A, you see them drinking walker all

839
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: the time. And it's also important to note that the

840
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: hyperthermia is probably going to be a byproduct of environment.

841
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: Are you, Yeah, if you're taking it in a you know,

842
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: in a living room, that's one thing. But are you

843
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 1: are you in a hot room dancing all night? Well,

844
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 1: then that's another situation entirely, and that's what leads to

845
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: a lot of feelings of dehydration with it. Some users

846
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: actually drink way too much water to compensate for this,

847
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: and so they develop some thing called hypone autrema, which

848
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: is where the sodium electrolytes in your blood get diluted,

849
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,240
Speaker 1: and that's not good either. So studies have found actually

850
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 1: that there's an overrepresentation of women in these cases, and

851
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: they think that it's probably because they have a lower

852
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 1: mean body weight, but who knows, um and a lot

853
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:19,800
Speaker 1: a lot of these studies. One of the things that

854
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting was they sometimes they accounted for this,

855
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: but sometimes they couldn't. They said, well, there's different effects

856
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: on people who are part of the rave culture because well,

857
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,800
Speaker 1: they're staying up late at night, they have different circadian rhythms,

858
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: or maybe they're taking other drugs or who knows, right, Like,

859
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: there's a lot of variables that are thrown in there

860
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: and alcohol, are they combining it within it with another

861
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: with some sort of illucingen And then ultimately, yeah, are

862
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 1: you are you jumping around all night in the hot room?

863
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 1: Are you exactly suffering from sweep deprivation as well as

864
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: the come down effects of extacy use. So yeah, it's

865
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:54,760
Speaker 1: a totally different Uh. My understanding from from the research

866
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 1: is that when it's taken it dance clubs, the stimulatory

867
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: effects were much stronger, especial because of all the environmental

868
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: sites and sounds, but also when you consider the environmental

869
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,359
Speaker 1: effects of it being hot and what we're talking about.

870
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 1: There was a study that came out in the last

871
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 1: few years that positive that that loud music actually increases

872
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 1: the effects. So that makes sense, uh, and and would

873
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: make sense along these lines to It increases your heart rate,

874
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: it heightens your blood pressure, you have faster breathing. It

875
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:29,479
Speaker 1: also produces jaw clenching and tooth grinding, which we learned

876
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 1: that there's terms for these. I didn't know this. Apparently,

877
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: jaw clenching is trismas and tooth grinding is bruxi is um,

878
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 1: which is stuff to blow your mind. Word of the weight.

879
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 1: It's very very British sounding. But but this is why

880
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: you you see the whole pacifiers because not you know,

881
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 1: you're going out to a rag. You don't have time

882
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: to get fitted for a mouth guard. What are you

883
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 1: gonna do? You get a pacifier and then you know

884
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:53,840
Speaker 1: it has lights and do dads on and then you

885
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,919
Speaker 1: just fit into the scene. Right, So that's the sort

886
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 1: of you know, physiological after effects are immediate effects rather uh.

887
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 1: But you know, like we said, it's increasing levels of chemicals,

888
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 1: so it increases your cortisol levels. In fact, eleven of

889
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:10,279
Speaker 1: twelve studies have reported a significant increase of cortisol and

890
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 1: cortisol just to you know, give you a quick one

891
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:15,760
Speaker 1: on it. It's important for the homeostatic control of our bodies,

892
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: for just our feeling of general well being. Right, So

893
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: if you have low cortisol levels, you're probably not feeling

894
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: particularly good about yourself or or physically feeling well. Uh.

895
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: It also, as as we mentioned earlier, reduces the serotonin

896
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: transporter levels across the cerebral cortex. Now, what this does

897
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 1: is it reverses that normal process of serotonin reuptake. So

898
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:40,759
Speaker 1: an acute dose can release up to eighty percent of

899
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: the available serotonin that's inside your synaptic cleft. So it's

900
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 1: just basically saying like, hey, just dump it all out,

901
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: just robbed the bank, take all the all the money

902
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 1: and run. Yeah. And it also affects dopamine, UH, nour

903
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: adrenaline and other narrow transmitter systems. So like you know

904
00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 1: that this is where the mood effects come from. That

905
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: we all know about their plex and they're variable though

906
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:05,239
Speaker 1: they're not always euphoric. In fact, they can also intensify

907
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:09,320
Speaker 1: negative emotional states. And in some instances they increase anxiety,

908
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:13,279
Speaker 1: over stimulation, panic, or the loss of personal control. Yeah.

909
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,120
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll get into some of its therapeutic uses

910
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:17,799
Speaker 1: in the next episode, but that's where you certainly see

911
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: some some negative manifestations occurring. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um. And

912
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: the other thing to pay attention to is that both

913
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: positive and negative moods can appear in the same individual, right,

914
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,440
Speaker 1: so one person can also can be both euphoric and

915
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: depressed at the same time on m d M A uh.

916
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: And some users attribute this to the importance of having

917
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:44,399
Speaker 1: positive expectancy when you take the drug. So this kind

918
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: of idea, right that like you just got to be

919
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 1: in the right zone, man, Like you gotta you gotta

920
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 1: go into it expecting happy things. Well, it's the very

921
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: statement you see from from from raver culture. You see

922
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: in shamanistic use of more ancient substances, and you see

923
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 1: it in the medical usage of these these these substances

924
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 1: because they're powerful, potent, uh, drugs that interact with your brain,

925
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 1: that interact with yourself. Um. Of course you want to

926
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 1: prime yourself profitly. Yeah, if your brains a car engine,

927
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 1: like instead of putting oil into it, this is like

928
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: putting I don't know jet fuel into it, right, you know,

929
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 1: so who knows what these effects are gonna be. It's

930
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,720
Speaker 1: gonna it's gonna be across the board though. Uh. It also,

931
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:28,319
Speaker 1: this is really fascinating and we're going to talk about

932
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:30,040
Speaker 1: this more in depth as well in the next episode.

933
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 1: But it causes apoptosis, which is programmed cell death. It

934
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: especially is good at killing cells in our livers and

935
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 1: our retinats, which is fascinating as well. Uh. Basically it

936
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:47,839
Speaker 1: can lead to fatal acute liver failure in some limited cases. Yeah.

937
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 1: So it's it's easy to imagine like a rave melting

938
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:53,880
Speaker 1: in a club because it's it's not quite so renounced

939
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: and it's not like all your cells are going to

940
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 1: degrade all at once. Yeah. But but the so you know,

941
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: we'll get into this later. There's potential medical benefits there.

942
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 1: So you could potentially use this for cancer therapy if

943
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 1: you're able to direct it. Uh, this program sell death

944
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 1: at cancer cells. Okay. Uh. There are other acute fatalities

945
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: that are known of with m d m A, and

946
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 1: they're from all kinds of things. Cardiac arrest, brain seizure,

947
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 1: destruction of skeletal muscular tissue and even the failure of

948
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:25,880
Speaker 1: blood clotting. But my understanding from the literature is that

949
00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 1: these are rare cases that are what you have to

950
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: consider here is you're taking a unique chemical and you're

951
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 1: and in some cases, like we talked about before, you

952
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 1: don't know how pure this chemical is, and you're inserting

953
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: it into a unique biological machine that has all kinds

954
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,719
Speaker 1: of responses to chemicals. Right, So who knows, maybe there's

955
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 1: an allergy that that happens that leads to something, or

956
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 1: maybe you have a weak heart right and the heart

957
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: rate response uh that increases for most people ends up

958
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 1: giving you cardiac arrest. So it's it's depending on each

959
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 1: individual in our sort of fingerprint of biochemistry. Yeah, indeed,

960
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:09,359
Speaker 1: so one takes this substance and regardless of the circumstance,

961
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:12,319
Speaker 1: the effects we're off. And sometimes it's described as more

962
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:14,400
Speaker 1: of a just a complete crash, right, where it's just

963
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: weir right. Other times it's more gradual. Certainly, um the

964
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 1: quote that we read from Shulgin earlier described in a

965
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 1: very easy glide back into a normal life. But it

966
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just a sharp drop off again that pendulum

967
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 1: has to swing back so for up to two weeks

968
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 1: after the use of m d M, a number of

969
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 1: side effects are are often reported. Uh. Physical side effects

970
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 1: can include lockjaw, loss of appetite, and insomnia. And on

971
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: the psychological inside, effects can include anxiety, paranoia, your ability, restlessness,

972
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 1: difficulty focusing, a loss of interest in normally fulfilling activities. Uh,

973
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:56,920
Speaker 1: you might end up having to watch a lot of

974
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:01,400
Speaker 1: Miyazaki movies on the couch. You know. It's it's the

975
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: pendulum is gonna swing back the other way. Bank has

976
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:06,279
Speaker 1: been robbed. All these levels have to be built back

977
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 1: up again. Yeah, your brain now only has like of

978
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: the serotonin levels it was supposed to have to be

979
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:16,040
Speaker 1: able to fulfill your everyday needs. Yeah, so during this

980
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 1: time period especially, you're not going to be able to

981
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 1: take it again and experience all of its empathic qualities.

982
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 1: If you were to take it again the next weekend,

983
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: you're probably just going to benefit from the stimulant properties,

984
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:31,120
Speaker 1: right And uh so this is where we get into

985
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: the long term effect type thing. So there's a chronic

986
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: tolerance that children actually first noticed in Peak Hall in

987
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: his entry for m d M A uh, and he's

988
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: very precise. Basically he gives the exact dosages in the

989
00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 1: times of day of consumption and how that there's these

990
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:51,720
Speaker 1: different effects basically with them, and how the tolerance builds

991
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:54,240
Speaker 1: up in the human body so that there's fewer gains

992
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: but more problems over time, And there's several studies that

993
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: backed this up. Basically, this leads to most users quitting

994
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:04,920
Speaker 1: on their own. Um most, like we've said repeatedly already

995
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:08,080
Speaker 1: in this episode, most users report that they've only had

996
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 1: a lifetime use of ten occasions, and this is probably why,

997
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 1: because after a while it just doesn't do for you

998
00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:16,400
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to do. In fact, I believe was

999
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 1: it children or somebody else who referred to it as

1000
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 1: the loss of magic. I'm not sure where the term

1001
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:23,359
Speaker 1: more originated, but it's used on arrowood dot org, which

1002
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 1: is always a great source for information about about the

1003
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:31,759
Speaker 1: beliefs that has the entire pea call antique. So yeah,

1004
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's there's a loss of magic. Why are

1005
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 1: you gonna keep doing it if there's less magic and

1006
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:39,359
Speaker 1: you still have to deal with the rammifications of the use.

1007
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 1: So this is your sort of basic long term effect,

1008
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 1: is the chronic tolerance building up right, but there's a

1009
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:47,759
Speaker 1: lot of long term I guess what we would call

1010
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,800
Speaker 1: long term harm effects. Uh. First of all, you know,

1011
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: we talked about the purity. I want to make sure

1012
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:55,800
Speaker 1: like that we get back to this. The purity level

1013
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: of m d m A is much higher than most

1014
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: street level drugs. Uh. It was only really in the

1015
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: mid nineties that they started to be purity control issues.

1016
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:05,880
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know that you call them purity

1017
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 1: control issues when it's street level rather than like in

1018
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: a scientific lab. But that's not necessarily as much of

1019
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:16,280
Speaker 1: an issue in term of the long term harm cases.

1020
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 1: But the serotonin thing can be a significant issue. Is

1021
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:24,880
Speaker 1: it leads to something called serotonin or gic neurotoxicity. And

1022
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:27,400
Speaker 1: they've tested this in animals, and what it sounds like

1023
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: to me is that this it depletes your serotonin levels

1024
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 1: so much that it leads to dysfunction in the serotonin

1025
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:38,320
Speaker 1: parts of your brain. It leads to a pronounced reduction

1026
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 1: in markers for serotonin across higher brain regions. And every

1027
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 1: study of heavy users of m d m A has

1028
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 1: found that they have a significant reduction in their higher

1029
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:52,320
Speaker 1: brain regions of this stuff, you know, the serotonin making

1030
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: neuroimaging shows us as well too, so when they actually

1031
00:54:56,160 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 1: scan these people's brains, they can see this, um, there's okay,

1032
00:55:00,719 --> 00:55:05,400
Speaker 1: So that's the serotonin long term problem. There's also deficits

1033
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:08,680
Speaker 1: in retrospective memory, which is your memory of things that

1034
00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 1: happened in the past, but also of prospective memory, which

1035
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:15,759
Speaker 1: is your memory for the future, so you remembering to

1036
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 1: remember something that wrote. Uh. They've also found lots of

1037
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:22,960
Speaker 1: varied results on this research because, like I said earlier,

1038
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:25,600
Speaker 1: there's all these other factors at work, right, Yeah, says basically,

1039
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: you're messing with the cocktail of the brain, the cocktail

1040
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:30,239
Speaker 1: of yourself, and that's going to vary from person a

1041
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:32,880
Speaker 1: person who's gonna depend on usage history, etcetera. Yeah, Like

1042
00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:35,799
Speaker 1: like we said earlier with with the people who are

1043
00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:38,359
Speaker 1: really into the dance scene, they may stay up later

1044
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 1: at night and therefore they have different circadian rhythms. So

1045
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: if you're trying to analyze their retrospective memory or their

1046
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 1: sleep deficits or something like that, you're gonna get different

1047
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:48,920
Speaker 1: results and it might not necessarily be the empty man.

1048
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 1: And I think this is definitely important to keep in

1049
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:54,040
Speaker 1: mind for anyone out there who is you know, considering

1050
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:57,759
Speaker 1: trying it is that it's gonna vary. So somebody saying, hey,

1051
00:55:57,840 --> 00:55:59,640
Speaker 1: this is the thing to do, they don't have your

1052
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 1: same at chemistry, so they can't only only you can

1053
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:07,000
Speaker 1: say for certain yeah, yeah, absolutely. So on top of

1054
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:09,879
Speaker 1: the memory effects, there's also known to be some cognitive

1055
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 1: effects as well. It seems to impair even people who

1056
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:16,759
Speaker 1: are abstinate users, who aren't using it anymore. It can

1057
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: impair your executive processing, your logical reasoning, problem solving, and

1058
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: the emotional intelligence in your brain. Uh. However, basic cognitive

1059
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:29,480
Speaker 1: skills like reaction time, or your attention levels or your vigilance,

1060
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: those are not affected. So this is what they know

1061
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: in terms of that. Sleep has also been slightly studied.

1062
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:39,360
Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, there's some deficits in sleep architecture

1063
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:41,760
Speaker 1: and sleep apnea, but there isn't a ton of research

1064
00:56:41,840 --> 00:56:44,640
Speaker 1: and there needs to be more explored. There can also

1065
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:48,960
Speaker 1: lead to psycho motor impairments in children of women who

1066
00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:51,719
Speaker 1: take it while they're pregnant, so there are known to

1067
00:56:51,800 --> 00:56:54,920
Speaker 1: be effects on children of of you know, m d

1068
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: m A users. And then there's one small thing. You know,

1069
00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:00,880
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of research done. Schilgan mentioned this

1070
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:04,239
Speaker 1: in his journal report about the complex vision has He

1071
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:07,400
Speaker 1: said his vision got better and there's there's studies about

1072
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: that and that, Uh, there's evidence for that as well.

1073
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 1: But also, you know, like I said earlier, there's also

1074
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:17,360
Speaker 1: evidence that it attacks the retina cells too, So there

1075
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 1: needs to be more research done in both those areas.

1076
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 1: All right, So in terms of overdose and just the

1077
00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 1: key dangers, Uh, do you want to drive home again

1078
00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: that that environment plays into a lot of it. According

1079
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: to psychiatrist Ingrid Pacy, she's a lead investigator UH in

1080
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 1: m d M, a assisted therapy for treatment resistant post

1081
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 1: traumatic stress disorder at the University of British Columbia. She

1082
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:41,160
Speaker 1: says that the m duma related deaths to hear about

1083
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:43,920
Speaker 1: are are all about environment. Typical dosage is taken inn

1084
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 1: a normal setting are perfectly safe. It's when you're taken

1085
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 1: in a hot environment, dance all night, you don't hydrate,

1086
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 1: you don't sweep, That's when things get potentially dangerous. You

1087
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 1: didn't get into that hyperthermia area um which you know,

1088
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:55,960
Speaker 1: if which is totally a product of what you do

1089
00:57:56,040 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 1: while you're on the substance substance, but as with anything

1090
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:01,960
Speaker 1: of course, even water. As we already mentioned, you can

1091
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: consume a dangerous amount of M D M A. Uh.

1092
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:07,640
Speaker 1: Specifics are are sketchy based on the material I was

1093
00:58:07,680 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 1: looking at, because again it's going to vary depending on

1094
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: who you are and which your body is saying. But

1095
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 1: the average ecstasy pill is UH ten two D and

1096
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 1: fifty milligrams. That those are the yea the mbum a

1097
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 1: bombs I think, or maybe like two or three times yeah, yeah,

1098
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: And and just for anyone who's a little shaky on

1099
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:28,800
Speaker 1: their metrics, there's a there are a thousand milligrams in

1100
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: a gram generally speaking, And again this is just a ballpark.

1101
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:36,600
Speaker 1: Don't take this as as any kind of a measure

1102
00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: that you should apply to any kind of dosages or anything.

1103
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:42,880
Speaker 1: But if you were to take one or one point

1104
00:58:42,960 --> 00:58:47,760
Speaker 1: five grams, you would definitely be in overdose territory. It's

1105
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:50,280
Speaker 1: like taking ten tablets at once, yeah, or or so

1106
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:52,960
Speaker 1: or it's a situation where it's danger consumption. So if

1107
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:55,440
Speaker 1: you're at a place where there's like unlimited ecstasy, when

1108
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 1: you're drinking all this water and then you keep taking

1109
00:58:58,120 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 1: ecstasy trying to keep this feeling going, that's how you

1110
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 1: could creep up on this, uh, this overdose territory rather easily.

1111
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:09,400
Speaker 1: And if you are to overdose, the typical symptoms of

1112
00:59:09,480 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 1: m d M A overdose include high bloodplot pressure, faintness,

1113
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:16,720
Speaker 1: panic attacks, loss of consciousness, and seizures. So we talked

1114
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:21,000
Speaker 1: about Shulgin and him designing this stuff, and then you

1115
00:59:21,040 --> 00:59:24,680
Speaker 1: know it eventually seeping into popular consciousness and being used

1116
00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 1: really heavily in the commercial street market, but in the

1117
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:30,880
Speaker 1: United States, at least where we're based out of it's

1118
00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:33,840
Speaker 1: popularity in the mid eighties led to it being placed

1119
00:59:33,920 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 1: on the most restrictive category of the Federally Controlled Substances Act,

1120
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:42,840
Speaker 1: so it's real illegal here, uh, And this removed it

1121
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:46,960
Speaker 1: from clinical experimentation as well as human research. Shilgun was

1122
00:59:47,040 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: kind of bummed out about this, as you would imagine.

1123
00:59:49,320 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 1: He thought that it's going to make it so that

1124
00:59:51,720 --> 00:59:55,240
Speaker 1: studies that like like what he was doing would have

1125
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:58,240
Speaker 1: to be conducted overseas from now on. And in a way,

1126
00:59:58,280 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 1: he's kind of right. A lot of the research we

1127
00:59:59,800 --> 01:00:03,280
Speaker 1: read was remember overseas, I want to the five key

1128
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:09,000
Speaker 1: nations involved in maps are are are outside the United States. Yeah,

1129
01:00:09,080 --> 01:00:13,360
Speaker 1: so you see this. Uh you see this attitude shift

1130
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:15,640
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties. Yeah, it becomes it becomes an

1131
01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:19,200
Speaker 1: illegal substance. Um. And there are a number of factors here,

1132
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 1: the political, the cultural, the war on drugs generally just

1133
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 1: sort of the post the post sixties um almost like

1134
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:31,120
Speaker 1: cultural revulsion against all things related to psychedelics, and it

1135
01:00:31,240 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 1: becomes just a part of the subculture and the counterculture

1136
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:38,160
Speaker 1: movement um. And even today, as we'll discussing in the

1137
01:00:38,240 --> 01:00:41,800
Speaker 1: next episode, we've seen a you know, huge uptick recently

1138
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:46,520
Speaker 1: in the availability of of various substances of particularly psychedelics

1139
01:00:47,080 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 1: for study under clinical settings, in in clinical settings, for

1140
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:55,600
Speaker 1: a host of of possibilities, for a host of potential uses.

1141
01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:59,919
Speaker 1: But still the cultural trauma of the nineties sixties still

1142
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 1: permeates even the even the field, even even though the

1143
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 1: clinical opinion of these substances has shifted again more towards

1144
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:08,720
Speaker 1: the positive. Yeah. I mean, like, I think about the

1145
01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: cultural effect of that nine O one, nine O two

1146
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:13,919
Speaker 1: and o episode just sitting in the back of somebody's head.

1147
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:17,240
Speaker 1: It's still back there, and and they go, wait a minute,

1148
01:01:17,280 --> 01:01:21,360
Speaker 1: I can experiment with this stuff to maybe solve care cancer.

1149
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:25,400
Speaker 1: I don't know, remember what happened to Brendan. Yeah, like

1150
01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:29,720
Speaker 1: there's a there's an excellent ideas CBC Ideas of radio

1151
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:32,040
Speaker 1: show episode that came out recently. They did a three

1152
01:01:32,080 --> 01:01:35,200
Speaker 1: part series called high Culture. The deals with just overall

1153
01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 1: the the re emergence of psychedelics into clinical trials and

1154
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: and and and clinical explorations. And they were talking again

1155
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:48,680
Speaker 1: to psychiatrist Ingrid Pascy, and she was talking about all

1156
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 1: the different security measures they had to legally take to

1157
01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: keep ecstasy in the lab and involved like bullet proof

1158
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:58,800
Speaker 1: poof glass and regular investigations. I remember reading about this. Yeah,

1159
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 1: they had to have like special enforced doors and all

1160
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 1: this stuff and and uh and it's incredibly expensive. We'll

1161
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,000
Speaker 1: talk about that next episode as well. That's the cost

1162
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:11,880
Speaker 1: of medical grade government m D is enormous. All right,

1163
01:02:11,920 --> 01:02:14,360
Speaker 1: So there you have it again. Pick up with us

1164
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:16,680
Speaker 1: in the next episode and we will get into these

1165
01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:20,920
Speaker 1: therapeutic possibilities for m D. M A, what what is

1166
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:22,600
Speaker 1: the res what did the research say in the past,

1167
01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: what's the research saying now, and how can this undeniably

1168
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 1: powerful substance potentially be utilized to HEALSS. So, just to

1169
01:02:33,200 --> 01:02:35,280
Speaker 1: remind you one more time. If you want to get

1170
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:37,760
Speaker 1: in touch with us and see what we're talking about

1171
01:02:37,960 --> 01:02:39,960
Speaker 1: on stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, or what

1172
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:42,240
Speaker 1: video we're shooting this week, or what's going on in

1173
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:44,760
Speaker 1: the podcast right now or coming up in the future.

1174
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:47,080
Speaker 1: Don't forget to check us out on social media. We

1175
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:50,280
Speaker 1: are everywhere. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on Tumblr,

1176
01:02:50,440 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 1: and we are on Periscope on Fridays at noon Eastern

1177
01:02:53,640 --> 01:02:56,760
Speaker 1: Standard time, all of those platforms, you can find us

1178
01:02:56,960 --> 01:03:00,320
Speaker 1: at the handle Blow the Mind. And if you want

1179
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us directly, you want to

1180
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:03,480
Speaker 1: send us an email, you want to talk about your

1181
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:07,200
Speaker 1: own experiences with M D m A, your opinions on

1182
01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:09,960
Speaker 1: M D m A, your thoughts on television shows that

1183
01:03:10,040 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 1: had patriot ecstasy. We'd love to hear from you. And hey,

1184
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:16,080
Speaker 1: if it's something you don't want us to put back

1185
01:03:16,160 --> 01:03:19,280
Speaker 1: out there into the end of the ether, just yes, uh, yeah,

1186
01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:21,480
Speaker 1: we're fine. You want to always be careful with something

1187
01:03:21,560 --> 01:03:23,960
Speaker 1: that you send us privately, and I you know, I

1188
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:27,000
Speaker 1: would also love to hear from people just maybe there's

1189
01:03:27,000 --> 01:03:30,200
Speaker 1: something about the chemistry here that you know Either I'm

1190
01:03:30,240 --> 01:03:33,479
Speaker 1: sure we pronounced something wrong, but I'm but I'm also

1191
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:36,080
Speaker 1: sure that there's there's more insights into the chemistry that

1192
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 1: we maybe didn't glean from the research, so let us know.

1193
01:03:39,440 --> 01:03:41,520
Speaker 1: In the place to do that is blow the mind

1194
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:53,000
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1195
01:03:53,200 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works

1196
01:03:55,680 --> 01:04:14,320
Speaker 1: dot com. The memory three three four point support f