Today's New York Times profiles psychedelic pharmacologist Alexander Shulgin:
"At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only two psychedelic compounds known to Western science: cannabis and mescaline. A little over 50 years later — with LSD, psilocybin, psilocin, TMA, several compounds based on DMT and various other isomers — the number was up to almost 20. By 2000, there were well over 200. So you see, the growth is exponential." When I asked him whether that meant that by 2050 we'll be up to 2,000, he smiled and said, "The way it's building up now, we may have well over that number."
The point is clear enough: the continuing explosion in options for chemical mind-manifestation is as natural as the passage of time. But what Shulgin's narrative leaves out is the fact that most of this supposedly inexorable diversification took place in a lab in his backyard.
Link (free reg. required) Thanks for the reminder, Nick Wilson!
