
Altered States: Self-Experiments in Chemistry (2012) - Thevet
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/27/altered-states-3
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philipkglass
Anecdotally, many if not most passionate chemists I've known started with at
least one of two often-illicit "gateway" interests in adolescence or early
adulthood:

\- The chemistry of pyrotechnics and explosives

\- The chemistry of mind-altering substances

I had both of these bugs in my late teens and early twenties. For mind-
altering substances I wasn't _personally_ interested in get-rich-quick or get-
high-quick, but drug prohibition offended me on an axiomatic level. I spent a
lot of time in the library looking for ideas that would circumvent government
precursor control for various drugs, and shared my findings with other like-
minded people on the late, great Hive: [https://the-
hive.archive.erowid.org/forum/forums.pl](https://the-
hive.archive.erowid.org/forum/forums.pl)

I never actually synthesized any controlled substances, but it was a great
thrill finding ways to walk up to the line. (Eventually I gave this up and I
suggest that others not follow in my footsteps, unless you have _really_
strong incentives. Just collecting literature and synthesizing theoretical
precursors to scheduled drugs is a great way to end up in legal trouble in the
US, even if you're carefully avoiding making the drugs themselves.)

In terms of mindset, government control of drugs and their precursors is
somewhat analogous to DRM for molecules instead of data, with amateur
psychonauts playing the role of circumvention software authors. I actually met
a few clandestine chemists who had been involved with the Amiga demo scene
before they started investigating drugs. I lost contact with the clandestine
chemistry scene, even as an observer, about 6 years ago. Like DRM cracking it
also unfortunately attracted people who were interested in transforming the
discoveries of passionate amateurs into pure profit.

I wonder sometimes if ever-more-draconian government reactions to unauthorized
synthesis of explosives and drugs are going to constrict the pipeline
delivering passionate chemists, as new generations are born who never knew
what you could try before the War on Drugs or War on Terror. But it probably
won't come up for a while. When I got out of chemistry and into software it
was because the field was dramatically _over_ -supplied relative to available
research jobs.

------
pmoriarty
Brilliantly and entertainingly written, as was usual for Oliver Saks. But it's
very disappointing to see how aimless and uninformed most of his drug use was,
and how shallow his analysis of it was as well.

There is a very rich and ancient history of drug use for sacred, ritual, and
what could be anachronistically termed therapeutic drug use, and Saks seems to
have been either uninformed or not interested in any of that. He seemed to
have just used drugs for kicks mostly (or to fall asleep). I find that rather
sad.

The closest Saks gets to constructive use of drugs is towards the end of the
article, when he says _" in the hope of whipping up these intellectual and
emotional excitements even further, I turned to amphetamines."_

It is interesting that Saks was rewarded in this last experiment with the
inspiration for the start of his remarkable writing career.

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PerryCox
I thought this was an amazing read. It was particularly interesting to see how
long it took him to realize that he actually may have a drug problem.

~~~
rubyfan
Funny, it took me only a few seconds of reading. I wondered to myself why he
needs the escape.

~~~
naasking
The need for escape only really came up later in the story; it was a gradual
transition.

The impression of the first uses of drugs was about mind expansion, about the
potential of psychoactive drugs to explore neurology.

~~~
rubyfan
Yeah, we tell ourselves many things to rationalize our behavior.

~~~
naasking
Well that's not very charitable. Motivations can change you know.

