Math Tinder presents 'Fucking Poets: A Day for Research Chemicals'

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

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

__it's not even my story to tell;

__but yeah: i was there when it happened, taking note and

__it was wicked for sure.

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



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

What is a phenethylamine?

A compound containing β-Phenylethylamine [C8H11N] or a substitution for β-Phenylethylamine.

Know any phenethylamines?

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

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

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

What is a tryptamine?

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

Know any?

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

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

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