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I don't really know where to put this, so I chose the "other drugs" forum... maybe it should have been in the chem department but I'm not really talking any specific synths or preceedures here so I chose "other drugs" - as in non-scheduled analogues of recreational drugs that are popular in the black market that could very well piss in the snow bank that is the DEA; and the "general" department seemed too lackadaisical for such a topic. If it's in the wrong place I'm sure it will be moved; we don't pay our mods for nothing, right? Hahaha.
Anywho, I was just talking to a very close friend of mine about Alexander Shulgin... a personal favorite topic of mine (I seriously have a hard-on for that man - I can't start talking about him without lapsing a few hours, atleast, and putting my SO to sleep). So we were talking, and she did end up falling to sleep about 45 minutes before I ended, which was fine by me cause I was on a roll and entertaining myself.
I was talking about how revolutionary Shulgin's work was. The man started his own publishing company (Transform Press) when other's wouldn't take the risk of printing his masterpiece and not only furthered the psychedelic movement further than any other man but produced the synthesis in publication form for all to see. Completely letting the genie out of the bottle. He created so many analouges that it fills the mind with an alphabet soup of so many mind altering chemicals that it is hard to fathom that all of it came from one man, on one plot of country land. The man is the grandfather of MDMA and responsible for such works as DOM and countless others. He was/is truely a pioneer and one to be respected. Hoffman, other than his work after, on Psilocybin isolation and the like, really came onto his discovery of LSD by accident; Shulgin knew what he was doing from the start and had a purpose. Leary was just a fool.
I find one flaw in the symphony though: although his work was a grand loss to the war on drugs and furthered clandestine chemistry more than any other author, it was all on Phenethylamines and Tryptamines... these psychedelic drugs hold little strong hold on the black market. There just simply isn't the demand for them that there is for other, more recreational, drugs. I believe that Shulgin's stance was purely selfish, and purhaps mine is too, but I think that he didn't care much for halting the crime against consciousness, Democracy, and (why not) humanity that is the unjust war on drugs so much as he cared about the psychedelics and mind expansion. He believed, and I agree with him fully, that such agents could be used for expansion of one's mind, self, and possibly even spirit... that modern psychology could be not only bettered but completely twisted inside out to where the "patient" isn't giving reports on internal activities to an outside source but using the drugs to make one aware of what's going on inside and more able to relate it to other's, as well as themselves, in which making them realize the problems in their lives and giving them the chance to act THEMSELVES without the aid of someone ostracizing them and calling them boxed up, psychological bullshit terms, like "psychotic" or "catatonic"... rubbish. Shulgin knew better and he seeked to prove it, and he did, but in so doing he granted a gigantic blow to the powers that be and the war of taxes and free thought. He was a forefather and didn't even realize it... just knew that there was work to be done and did it. That is respectable but I think a simplistic idea can elevate it to all new, unrealized, levels and maybe even thwart the current prohibition on the freedom to consume whatever one whats without worrying that he is going to be put in prison or fucked with the rest of their lives. Shit, might even mean that one could produce whatever substance he wanted, however mind altering. It might just be a significant rock in the eye of the giant that is currently controlling what limited freedoms we have and the first step onto a truely free society... if such a thing is possible (I think not, but a utopia sounds nice - so as close to there as we can get is fine by me).
Think of it this way, if Shulgin had did his research on a different class of drugs... say the Opaite agonist or the Cocylaxylamines (Cocaine analouges) or even the ever-more boring production of Methamphetamine productions aimed at clandestine synthesis (although I think he's more of an analouge man myself; paving new ground, ya know)... shit, maybe even novel Canabinoid synths might prove fruitful. Really, anything that has more value on the market in an "abuse" or recreational standpoint than the psychedelics, which can only be taken once a week due to tolerance issues, and which hold the "bad trip" persona that scares so many away (alot of people just are not willing to look into what they really are without being a tad bit frightened - it's why I think psychedelic sales skyrocket during the fall and Halloween season... all in good fun like a scary movie or a nightmare right?). But if he did his research on recreational drugs that not only held a value to the person that is going to be consuming them, but also to the chemist who can make a great deal of money making a chemical that falls outside scheduling and the analogue act (something that the government would be hard pressed to prosecute him over without proving that he was indeed selling such chemical to be used internally as a, gasp, "recreational drug") than people that normally wouldn't be swayed by such a market would be persuaded to take part and the numbers grow even more against the beast. For every clandestine chemist I'll bet there are 100-200, atleast, more that are trying to stop him; completely clogs up the system when you got a few thousand "chem nerds" out there making it happen. And why not when all it takes is a bit of knowledge and the $30 it takes to buy the book containing your blueprint? Not like you'll ever be brought to justice if you play your cards right and don't fuck it up by being in possession of or producing schedualed drugs, ya know.
If one were to do this, to do the research and publish his results for the general public, I really think that it has the chance to throw modern prohibition on it's side for good. Think back to the time of Al Capone and the booze runners; it ain't hard to cook and distill liqueur and it was a booming market due to the movement to abolish spirits... everyone with a pair of balls and half a brain was helping the cause with their still. Hahaha, and not even 7-10 years later people realized that crime had actually gone down due to the lift of the prohibition and that more people WHERE NOT GETTING DRUNK, but about the same percentage of serious offenders. I would really love to see a couple legal shooting galleries and maybe an Opium den or two on my next trip acrossed country - and if the war on drugs was abolished like the Alcohol prohibition was because it was impossible to maintain I believe it to be an inevitability. Man is a hedonistic creature after all, and why not... life is hard, we deserve it.
See, not only would society fall into line after the fact but it would be damn near impossible for "the man" to control all the necessary chemicals needed to pull off such synths and outlaw all possible alterations of a recreational chemical that would produce positive effects... not without slowing down the economy and scientific research to a hault. They might as well close down the mint, just aint gonna happen. I think they would have to admit they are wrong again, if only for the sake of saving the land from a depression, possibly even an outbreak or famine, and take the slap on the ass by the public and let us once again start freely putting into our bodies whatever we so choose as free citizens. They would have to outlaw so many common place chemicals that any business that is chemically oriented would be affected and ultimately slowed down, if only a bit due to all the paperwork and authorization involved in obtaining their basic needs for production. That means vaccinations and new medicinal products too, as well as a hell of alot that most people don't even associate with chemicals. I've said it before and I'll say it again, everything is chemical... God thinks in terms of chemicals and everything, name one thing, from one's reality to a blade of grass, that isn't. Fuck with the chemicals and you fuck with everything, even old uncle sam. After enough work is done, enough progress made, there simply won't be any ground for the government to stand on in keeping drugs illegal. To do so would be to forfeit the economy and as much as I think politicians like to control... I think fat, old, wrinkly, white dudes with an agenda like cash even more. And I'd like to see them run the country efficiently in the depths of a major depression. Much more effective and less harmful than traditional means of "sticking it to the man" and making a profit on illegal trades.
I dunno, maybe I'm just drunk (I'm quite sure I am) but it sounds like the best way to go about screwing the system into working for everyone and getting more, possibly better, more enjoyable, drugs on the market. Perhaps I'm thinking with the wrong head, and maybe it's gonna take alot longer then my years allow me to see, but I'd bet all my chips that if "it" where to happen that'd be how it'd go down. Gonna take alot of determination and more than likely a swarm of chemists/authors to pull it off though. Just so much twine to weave into the net to catch the beast... the fucker is so big and powerful it'd never work without it. I don't even believe Shulgin could do it himself, I don't think anyone could; but I believe that it's doable enough that if a half-assedly small group of intelligent, dilligent individuals got together with a plan it was concievable that they could pull it off. If not, they'd still be helping out society with a small step in my opinion; and more drugs... who doesn't get off on that?
Anyways, I don't really know what I'm getting at. Doubt anyone's read this far anyways... I wouldn't. I am heavily winded tonight and the bottle has me thinking of revolution. Kinda ironic I guess. But the end to the modern prohibition is what Democracy is all about if you think about it. I think that the founding fathers would agree... which gives me another acsuse to get high. It's fun to learn 'cause knowelgde is power, right? Hahaha.
Furhering the Shulgin bitch-slap on the drug war
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