Alexander Shulgin looks like a venerable sage: bulging blue eyes, tousled silver-white hair, the stature of a basketball player, warm contact with others. During his recent stay in Barcelona, where he participated in the III Conference on Entheogens organized by the Institut de Prospectiva Antropològica, he was the star and the most requested speaker among the diverse participants. The conference addressed the therapeutic applications of entheogens (psychoactive substances) and did so at a time when the debate on the legalization of drugs has been reopened with force. In early June, more than 630 philosophers, writers and politicians from 36 countries, including eight Nobel laureates, sent a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, requesting the decriminalization of these products. The signatories say in the document: “We believe that the war on drugs currently being waged in the world may be causing more damage than its abuse itself.”
Shulgin’s approaches go further since, in addition to proposing the legalization of drugs, he considers that psychedelic substances have therapeutic values and are a powerful source of self-knowledge for human beings. Almost 50 years of research support his controversial arguments, which he extensively detailed to VERY.
–How and when did your interest in psychedelics begin?
-Soon after the Second World War. I served in the Navy and completed my Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Berkeley. So I came into contact with psychedelics out of sheer scientific interest, not out of a spirit of rebellion. During the 1960s I did postdoctoral studies in psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of San Francisco and was hired by Dow Chemical, where I developed a profitable insecticide. In 1965 I left the multinational, started my own laboratory and became an independent scientific consultant. I combined research on new drugs with public health classes at Berkeley and San Francisco General Hospital. More than 30 years have passed!
–In the 80s he became famous for reinventing the substance MDMA, popularly known as “ecstasy” and which had already been synthesized in 1910 by a laboratory, which ruled out any therapeutic application …
-I rescued this substance at the suggestion of a friend. I tried it and wrote a lot about it in medical journals. I found that it had remarkable therapeutic benefits. At the time it represented the emergence of a new family of agents that allow the individual to express and experience affective content repressed by cultural barriers. MDMA became very popular with Californian underground culture and with nightclub clientele. The sellers, in a marketing action, renamed it ecstasy. In 1985, the US government declared this substance illegal despite the fact that many scientists argued about its properties to bring out repressed thoughts and memories.
–Ecstasy is a psychedelic substance. What does that mean?
-Psychedelics are non-addictive compounds that temporarily alter a person’s state of consciousness. I usually compare them to television. This can be instructive and, if the channels are selected wisely, it can provide us with relevant information. It is true that for many people television is one more way to entertain themselves, they do not seek or find anything profound in the experience of watching it. At another level, something similar happens with psychedelic drugs: they can be used for fun on Saturday night or to discover the potential they have to help us investigate our inner universe.
–And the risks …?
-Every drug, including television, has its risks. There are no exceptions. The central point is that all drugs, legal or illegal, provide a certain reward. And they can certainly be abused. Each of us should be able to balance reward and risk and make a decision. The benefits of good drug use are many. They cover from the cure of diseases, the alleviation of physical or emotional pain or relaxation. In the case of psychedelics, they allow inner investigation and the expansion of the mental and emotional horizons of the human being. The dangers are also varied: physical pain, psychological disorders, dependency, violation of the law and social marginalization. I defend that any adult person has the possibility of experimenting with a certain drug, whether legal or prohibited by law, once they have assessed the benefits and risks of their personal decision.
–But we are far from the level of social maturity that you propose.
-Of course, it is essential that each individual is very well informed. My philosophy can be summed up in three words: find out, then decide.
–Would the legalization of certain drugs increase information in society?
– Certainly, but legalization must be accompanied by education. Drugs are neither good nor bad by definition. In the universe of drugs, as in real life, things are not black or white, the truth always takes on gray tones. In this sense, promoting information transparency and educating the population in the proper use of drugs would help individual decision-making. However, huge interests arise around drugs: from big criminals, from pharmaceutical companies, from thousands of civil servants who live off the budgets that the States dedicate to the fight against drugs … The question is: who benefits if there are illegal drugs?
–Tell me about your personal relationship with these legal and illegal substances: Do you smoke and drink?
-I drink a moderate amount of alcohol, generally wine, and the medical check-ups that I perform periodically do not indicate any harm for it. Instead, I don’t smoke tobacco. I used to but I quit. The decision was not so much for the risks to my health as for the fact that I had become really dependent. It was too high a price. These decisions are individual and based mostly on what I know about drugs and myself.
–What do you think of heroin?
-In my case, when I tried it, I felt a kind of sleepy peace, away from worries and stress. But I also experienced a total lack of motivation, alertness, and any urgency to get things done. I am against heroin because, under its influence, nothing seems to be important.
–What about cocaine?
-It is a drug that awakens aggressiveness, a stimulant that gives a feeling of power, that you are on top of the world. But it is an illusory power that disappears when the effects of cocaine wear off, without the individual having learned anything. It causes a very false state, without learning, which leads the individual to a temporary escape from himself.
–And what can you tell me about the so-called psychedelics?
-The modest risks of psychedelic drugs are outweighed by their learning potential. For this reason I have dedicated my research to this area of pharmacology. The teachings that psychedelics provide are a potential, they are not a certainty. I can learn but I am not forced to; I can discover ways to improve my quality of life, but only individual effort will really bring about the desired changes.
–What kind of lessons do these drugs provide?
-I am convinced that there is a great wealth of information within us, lots of intuitive knowledge accumulated in the genetic material of each of the cells. A kind of library that contains innumerable reference books but of which we do not know the entrance door. And without a password there is no way to choose the wisdom that it treasures. Psychedelic drugs would open the door to this inner world.
This search for knowledge has been part of human life from the earliest moments of consciousness. The knowledge of one’s own mortality, which differentiates us from other animals, gives human beings the right, the license, to explore the nature of their soul and spirit, to discover everything that we are capable of about our psyche. Each of us, at one time or another in life, feels strange in the journey of existence and we need answers to the questions that arise from the soul. Good use of psychedelics can help you on this journey.
–Do you have relationships with the scientific establishment , with the medical class?
-First of all I am a scientist and I believe in the scientific method. I maintain constant communication and dialogue with people who see things differently. Take the case of the brain, for example. Scientists get caught up in studying the brain and do not accept the idea of consciousness. The brain is a part of the story. We do not know the breadth and breadth of the mind. Most of the medical establishment has a philosophy that I do not share. They are intended to restore normalcy if something that is considered abnormal happens to you. If you break your leg, you have to put it back together; if you have an infection, you have to disinfect. It’s okay. But what happens when a person is depressed or thinks about suicide? So the goal of restoring normalcy is not worth it. You have to turn to psychiatry and use techniques that many medical professionals refer to with disdain and skepticism.
–Finally, professor, what have you learned through your experiences with psychedelia?
-That when you open the door of yourself, when you travel inside yourself, you discover many things. And that you can change your life for the better. I have also discovered that humor is essential to living.
Lluís Reales
This interview was published in November 1998, in number 210 of VERY Interesting.
