Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin (June 17, 1925 – June 2, 2014) was an American biochemist who synthesized and tested over 200 psychedelic and related chemical compounds. Among the most notable psychedelic and related drugs that Shulgin developed include 2C-B, DOM (STP), and Ariadne (4C-D; BL-3912; Dimoxamine). In addition, he is known for discovering and describing the unique effects of the entactogen MDMA (ecstasy), which led to its use in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and to its widespread use as a recreational drug, for instance in the rave scene.
Shulgin studied chemistry at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1955. He developed the best-selling biodegradable pesticide mexacarbate (Zectran) while working at Dow Chemical Company in the early 1960s. Shulgin became interested in psychedelic chemistry after having his first psychedelic experience in 1960 and from then on began developing new psychedelic compounds in his lab at his home in Lafayette, California. His approach was to synthesize the compounds, test them on himself and a small group of trusted others, and document his findings. He formally published on psychedelics in the scientific literature for decades, before publishing his books PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) in 1991 and TiHKAL: The Continuation (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved) in 1997. These books documented his and others' work with hundreds of phenethylamines, tryptamines, and lysergamides, including their chemical syntheses, properties and effects, and discussion. They were coauthored by Shulgin and by his wife Ann Shulgin, a pioneering psychedelic therapist, whom he met in 1978 and married in 1981. Shulgin was an academic and taught at universities such as the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco State University.
Shulgin had a close and friendly relationship with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for many decades and held a DEA license to work with Schedule I controlled substances. Following the publication of PiHKAL however, Shulgin's lab was raided by the DEA in 1993. He was stripped of his license and fined due to a violation of its terms. According to a DEA representative, "It is our opinion that those books are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs." There have also been overdoses and deaths due to compounds that Shulgin developed, which he has expressed frustration and sadness about, but also emphasized personal freedom and that all drugs have risks. During his life, Shulgin advocated for use of psychedelics and for legalization of all drugs. He has historically been a polarizing figure, seen variously as a "hero of the counterculture", "curiosity", and "menace".
Shulgin has been described as the "greatest psychedelic chemist of all time". He has also been dubbed the "godfather of ecstasy" and as the "godfather of psychedelics". Several documentaries have been made about Shulgin and his work and life. Transform Press, the publisher of PiHKAL and TiHKAL, and the Alexander Shulgin Research Institute (ASRI) were founded by Shulgin and/or by his family and close colleagues. In addition, Shulgin's home and lab, known as the Shulgin Farm, have been memorialized as a center for psychedelic education and community. Shulgin died in 2014 at the age of 88 and was followed by his wife Ann Shulgin in 2022. As of the 2020s, many psychedelics and entactogens, including some associated with Shulgin like MDMA, are under investigation for potential medical use to treat mental health conditions.
Shulgin was born on June 17, 1925, in Berkeley, California, to Theodore Stevens Shulgin (1893–1978) and Henrietta D. (Aten) Shulgin (1894–1960). His father was born in Chelyabinsk, Russia and was a refugee of the Russian Revolution; his mother was born in Illinois. Theodore and Henrietta were public school teachers in Alameda County, California.
Shulgin studied organic chemistry at Harvard University as a scholarship student, and was enrolled there at the age of 16. He dropped out to join the U.S. Navy, during his second year at Harvard. In 1944, a military nurse gave Shulgin a glass of orange juice prior to a surgery for a thumb infection, while serving on USS Pope during World War II; he drank the juice and, assuming that crystals at the bottom of the glass were a sedative, "fell unconscious". Upon waking he learned that the crystals were undissolved sugar, and that doctors had administered anesthesia after he was already unconscious—an experience Drake Bennett of The New York Times Magazine referred to as "revelatory", and a "tantalizing hint of the mind's odd strength", as "his collapse was caused entirely by the placebo effect".
After serving in the armed forces, Shulgin returned to California, and earned his PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Through the late 1950s, Shulgin completed post-doctoral work in the fields of psychiatry and pharmacology at University of California, San Francisco. After working at Bio-Rad Laboratories as a research director for a brief period, he began work at Dow Chemical Company.
Shulgin first heard of mescaline in the mid-1940s and read about it over the years, including the works of early researchers like Kurt Beringer and Alexandre Rouhier and the later works of Aldous Huxley among others. A psychologist friend of Shulgin's named Terry Major offered to let him try mescaline and he eagerly accepted. Shulgin's first experience with the drug, at a dose of 350 or 400 mg of the sulfate salt, was on April 2, 1960. Speaking of the experience, Shulgin said "I learned there was a great deal inside me". In addition, he said that the experience "unquestionably confirmed the entire direction of my life". Shulgin described experiencing color and visual changes, insights, recall of childhood memories, and experiencing the world as amazing like when he was a child again. He later reported personal revelations that "had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid ... I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability." With the experience, Shulgin decided to study psychedelic drugs and their chemistry and began publishing in this area in early 1961.
Shulgin's professional activities continued to lean in the direction of psychopharmacology, furthered by his personal experiences with psychedelics. But during this period he was unable to do much independent research. His opportunity for further research came in 1961 after his development of mexacarbate (brand name Zectran), the first biodegradable pesticide and a highly profitable product. In his book PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story, Shulgin limits his pesticide days at Dow Chemical to one sentence of the almost 1,000 pages. Dow Chemical Company, in return for mexacarbate's valuable patent, gave Shulgin great freedom. During this time, he created and patented drugs when Dow asked, and published findings on other drugs in journals such as Nature and the Journal of Organic Chemistry.
Shulgin discovered the psychedelic drug DOM, which has around 100 times the potency of mescaline, while working at Dow Chemical Company in 1963. This led to a research program on DOM and its analogue DOET at the company in the mid-1960s, including clinical studies of DOET for potential medical use at sub-hallucinogenic doses as a "psychic energizer". They tasked neuroscientist Solomon H. Snyder at Johns Hopkins University with conducting the studies. Soon after LSD was banned in California in October 1966, LSD chemist Owsley Stanley began looking for a legal replacement for it. Shulgin provided Stanley with information about DOM's synthesis on index cards and a 50 g sample of the drug. Stanley then began distributing DOM to the public in very-high-dose tablets under the nickname STP in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco starting in April 1967. This resulted in a small public health crisis due to unintentional overdoses, the drug's potential for very long durations, and its greater adverse effects compared to LSD. It was soon uncovered and published in the news media that DOM had originated at Dow Chemical Company. As a result, the company cancelled its research program into DOET. In addition, at some point, Dow Chemical Company requested that Shulgin no longer use their name as an affiliation on his publications.