History, 281-292

Introduction 10 the MDA

"Cluster," 281 Nutmeg and Mace, 283 Calamus, or "Sweet Flag," 286 Alles Discovers MDA's Psychoactivity, 287 Synthesis and Testing of Related Compounds, 289

Chemistry, 292-295

Physical Effects, 295-297

Nutmeg, 295

The MDA-like and STP-like Subclusters, 296

Mental Effects, 297-307

Nutmeg, 297

STP, 298

Zinberg's Evaluation of MDA, 299

MDA and MMDA Compared, 302

Naranjo's Psychiatric Distinctions, 304

Forms and Preparations, 307

CHAPTER FIVE

Nutmeg and MDA

3-4-Methylenedioxy-amphetamine . . . enhances intellectual and emotional thinking, together with an increase in the level of fluency and attention, at dose levels less than those required for the appearance of imagery and perceptual distortion.

—Roger Brimblctombe and Roper Pinder

HISTORY

Introduction to the MDA "Cluster"

Previous chapters describe the four groups of psychedelic substances that have had the greatest influence on humans to date (for speculations regarding the history and possible influence of Fly Agaric, see Chapter Nine), Of the five remaining groups of substances generally regarded as psychedelic, •the one attracting the most interest in the U.S. currently appears to be the MDA cluster.

MDA-like compounds almost always come from the volatile oils found .in a small number of plants: nutmeg, mace, saffron, calamus, crocus, parsley, dill and sassafras. More than a thousand synthesized compounds fall into this group. Only a few have been tried by humans.

MDA-like compounds—such as the TMAs, DOB, DOET, DOM, MMDA, PBR, TMPEA, DMPEA, DMA, PMA and MEDA—have molecular structures that resemble mescaline, dopamine and amphetamine. Moreover, -the effects are often experienced as being like an interplay between mescaline and amphetamine—one or the other tendency predominating according to the structure of the particular compound. Thus this cluster often has been referred to as "psychedelic amphetamines." (A chemist would probably designate them as "alpha-methyl phenethylamines," "indolealkylamines" or "one-ring substituted amphetamines.")

An important feature common to members of the MDA cluster is that substitutions on the molecular ring can be made fairly readily; the process is expensive and requires sophisticated chemistry. Still, the chemistry is much Simpler than for the four psychedelic groups already discussed, which is one reason why a tremendous number of these MDA-like substances have been Synthesized. Many people feel that the number and variety of MDA analogues will enable researchers to make systematic comparisons of mental characteristics and chemical structures, thus providing an important key for understanding more about the nature of the human mind.

281

282 Nutmeg and MDA

The superiority of (he synthetics over the natural MDA-like sources is pronounced. "Aminization" (chemical conversion to amine form) of plant oils heightens and clarifies mental effects and all but eliminates physical side effects often accompanying use of the botanicals. Users of the synthetics generally report increased relaxation, empathy and mental fluency, and many prefer this experience for being without the "distractions" of the psychedelic visuals that are characteristic of LSD and mescaline.

Nutmeg and its Synthetic Analogues 283

One can think of mescaline and LSD as one pole in the psychedelic field—evoking ego-death and rebirth, visions and much else that can appear with jolting unexpectedness. Most of the tested MDA-like compounds are gathered around the opposite pole—where shocks are rare and the emphasis is on ideas and enchanced rapport with people.

The MDA cluster is presented here as the first of five psychedelic clusters that are more exotic—at least in the sense of being used by fewer people than LSD, mescaline, marijuana and psilocybian mushrooms. It should be emphasized that now we begin to depart from consensus on what's truly "psychedelic." Effects from members of the MDA-cluster can easily be likened, and thereby denigrated in the minds of many, to those of cocaine or amphetamine. Although the MDA-like compounds are increasingly popular, their subdued effects couple them with the subtlety of marijuana for some.

Nutmeg and Mace

Nutmeg, which in the U.S. is mainly used as a garnish during Christmas festivities, is the dried kernel of Myristicafragrans, a tree native to the Spice Islands, near New Guinea. Now cultivated in many places, the tree grows to about fifty feet high and bears seeds for up to sixty years. Its fruit looks much like a peach and contains a brownish-purple, shiny kernel encased within a bright orange-red or red covering. The covering, or aril, is used for production of mace; the seed, dried in the sun for about two months and turned over each day, becomes nutmeg. Both the kernel and its covering contain psycho-active components within their oils.

Most of the natural substances that contain compounds similar to MDA have a history of use for their medicinal properties and their psycho-activity. The Ayurveda of ancient India refers to nutmeg and mace as made shaunda, generally translated as "narcotic fruit." An 1883 Materia Medica from Bombay records that "the Hindus of West India take Myristica as an intoxicant." Nutmeg has been used for centuries as a snuff in rural eastern Indonesia; in India, the same practice appears, but often the ground seed is first mixed with betel and other kinds of snuff. Restrictions on hashish in Egypt have brought about periods when nutmeg was used as a substitute.

Nutmeg appears in the Hindu Pharmacopoeia as a treatment for fever, asthma and heart disease. Since the seventh century A.D., Arab physicians have used it for digestive disorders, kidney disease and lymphatic ailments. Yemeni men are said to consume nutmeg to increase and maintain their sexual vigor.

Nutmeg and mace weren't known to the Greeks or Romans. They were not introduced to the West until 1512, when the Portuguese reached the Banda, or Nutmeg, Islands. The earliest record of nutmeg's mental effects comes from 1576, in the description of a "pregnant English lady who, having eaten ten or twelve nutmegs, became deliriously inebriated" (she was lucky not to have died).

284 Nutmeg and MDA

The photos on these pages come from the Squibb Handbook of 1896; Squibb's captions have been retained and illustrate variations appearing in the Myristica fragrant species.

In the seventeenth century, nutmeg became an important article in the spice trade, which the Dutch monopolized for a long while with their naval superiority, "So precious were nutmegs," writes the botanist William Em-boden in Narcotic Plants,

that carved wooden replicas were sold to the ignorant via a black market. Slaves on the ships bringing nutmeg to Europe were castigated for consuming part of the cargo. They knew that a few of the large kernels of nutmeg seed

Reputation as a Useful, Precious Drug 285

would relieve their weariness and bring euphoric sensations of an otherworldly nature accompanied by pleasant visions. Nausea and dizziness followed as the price for this respite from reality. The more practical mind of the European saw this seed as potential medicine and did not hesitate to administer it in the event of severe illness. On that day in February 1685 when the feeble King Charles II was felled by a clot or haemorrhage, one of the numerous unsuccessful attempts to revive him included a decoction of nutmeg. His death a few days later did nothing to detract from the reputation of nutmeg as a useful drug. Nutmegs encased in silver were worn at night as an inducement to sleep, aphrodisiacal properties were ascribed to them, and they became a standard element in love potions. In London the rumour spread that a few of these nuts would act as an abortifacient.

286 Nutmeg and MDA

Use of this commonly available substance as an inebrient has continued into this century. "Confirmed reports of its use by students, prisoners, sailors, alcoholics, marijuana-smokers and others deprived of their preferred drugs," write Schultes and Hofmann in The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens, "are many and clear. Especially frequent is the taking of nutmeg in prisons, notwithstanding the usual denials of prison officials."

Calamus, or "Sweet Flag"

Another source of oils from which MDA-like compounds have been synthesized is a marsh plant growing in temperate zones of Asia, Europe and North America that's known botanically as Acorus calamus arid popularly as sweet flag, sweet sedge, rat root, flag root, sweet myrtle, beewort or sweet calomel- This is an iris-like perennial growing five to six feet high that often borders streams and ponds where cat-tails are found. Its leaves have unusual crimped edges, and a horizontal creeping root may extend up to five feet long. The oils in this rhizome contain two psychoactive substances, asarone and β-asarone, which are the natural precursors to TMA-2, a compound that has ten times the potency of mescaline. (Asarone also appears in Caucus carota, a wild carrot from Central Asia.)

For at least 2,000 years, Acorus calamus has been used in India and China as a medicine. In Ayurvedic practice, the plant is called racha and recommended as a remedy for bronchitis, asthma and fevers. In China, where it's known as shih-ch'ang pu, it is used to relieve constipation and swelling. According to Exodus 30: 22-25, this was one of the constituents of a "holy annointing oil" that the Lord commanded Moses to make and rub on his body when he approached the Tabernacle.

This root was known to many early American settlers and to Walt Whitman, who wrote forty-five poems under the title "Calamus" in Leaves of Grass. (Invoking calamus in the thirteenth poem, Whitman realizes that he "must change the strain—these are not to be/ pensive leaves, but leaves of joy ... .")

In the British Isles during the Depression of the 1930s, calamus was often chewed by people unable to buy tobacco. The root tastes much like ginger and, in small quantities of up to two inches, is stimulating and euphoric.

Calamus has also been used by many North American Indian tribes for the relief of fatigue. In larger quantities, the root causes one to "walk a foot above the ground." Even more of the root has been used and is still used in conjunction with puberty initiatory rites. In The Hallucinogens, Hoffer and Osmond recount the experiences of "an informant well acquainted with the habits of northern Canadian Indians." He used rat root collected in northern Alberta by the Cree:

He reported that nearly all the Indians over age 40 used rat root regularly but the younger Indians were unfamiliar with it and its use was discouraged by physicians who practiced there. Rat root users seemed to be healthier, and

A "Double-Conscious" Testing of MDA 287

were not subject to alcoholism. The Indians used rat root (a) as an antifatigue medicine (they chewed about 1 inch of the dried root which had a diameter equal to a pencil); (b) as an analgesic for relieving toothache, headache, etc; (c) for relief of asthma; (d) for oral hygiene, and (e) to relieve hangover.

Our informant had over the years tested these medicinal qualities and generally confirmed them It was particularly effective for alleviating fatigue. On one occasion, he walked 12 miles in the northern woods to fight a forest fire. He was out of condition and was exhausted at the end of the march. He chewed and swallowed 2 inches of rat root. Within 10 minutes the fatigue vanished and on the return march he seemed to be walking 1 foot above the ground and felt wonderful. The effect was very unlike amphetamine. On his return home he was very exhausted but after a night's sleep was normal.

The informant and his wife, a trained psychiatric nurse, were both sophisticated subjects with hallucinogens. They had taken LSD several times in well-controlled experiments at one of our research laboratories. They had both taken 10 inches of rat root 5 times and both agreed it produced an experience very similar to LSD.

Alles Discovers MDA's Psychoactivity

MDA, the archetype and simplest member of this cluster, was first synthesized in 1910 by G. Mannish and W. Jacobson, who described the process in a German journal. It wasn't until 1939 that animal tests were performed, when the team of Gunn, Gurd and Sachs became interested in the substance while conducting adrenaline studies. Two years later, another team—Loman, Myerson and Myerson—thought this compound might alleviate Parkinsonism but discarded the idea when the drug produced muscular rigidity in the single patient tested. At about this time, MDA was rejected as a possible weight reduction agent by the Smith, Klein & French Co. because pronounced though not hallucinogenic effects interfered after a few days with the patients' ordinary routines.

Gordon Alles, the UCLA researcher who discovered amphetamine in 1927, was interested in MDA (3,4-methylenedioxyphenylisopropylamine) and its cousin 3,4-methylenedioxyphenylethylamine because of the structural closeness of these two molecules to ephedrine, the standard drug for testing central nervous system stimulation during the 1930s and 1940s. He decided that he would conduct what he called a "double-conscious" test of these substances—meaning that he would synthesize, measure and take them himself in order to compare their effects with what he knew about how ephedrine affected him. "I was quite well calibrated," he remarked later, "with 50 mg. doses of ephedrine and with similar doses of amphetamine."

After tests with dogs, which indicated that these two compounds were one third to one half as active in their peripheral effects as mescaline and amphetamine, Alles swallowed 36 mg. of MDA. During the following two hours, he noticed neither physical nor mental sensations. He then took an additional 90 mg.

2$# Nutmeg and MDA

Within a few minutes, he "realized chat a notable subjective response was going to result." The muscles of his neck became markedly tensed, and he was closing his jaws tightly and grinding his back teeth. His gums became white and contracted. He perspired quite a bit but noted a slowed respiration rate. His pupils were "markedly dilated .... I had never seen dilation of the pupils in animals or man to such an extent."

About forty-five minutes after the second dose, smoke rings filled the air, moving in slow motion about him. In a closed room on the sixth floor of a university building, there "was no possible source of smoke rings." Yet,

an abundance of curling smoke rings was readily observed in the environment whenever a relaxed approach in observation was used. Visually, these had complete reality; and it seemed quite unnecessary to test their properties because it was surely known and fully appreciated that the source of the visual phenomena could not be external to the body. When I concentrated my attention on the details of the curling gray forms by trying to note how they would be affected bypassing a finger through their apparent field, they melted away. Then when I relaxed again, the smoke rings were there.

Talking about these smoke rings later, Alles commented, "I was as certain they were really there as I am now sure that my head is on top of my body," Further into the experience, he also noticed that

Vision at a considerable distance was remarkable in clarity of detail. 1 had never looked out of the window a great deal before but I found that at a distance of three and four blocks away, I could make out very minute details of things-

Later. Alles said he was sure that the details were correct and that he wasn't able to make them out during normal consciousness "to anywhere near as great an extent." These visual effects only introduced what lay ahead. Looking at his "almost entirely black eyes," he had been fearful momentarily but thereafter had "a general feeling of well being," accompanied by a switch in his perception of the location of his consciousness:

When I was very relaxed, my thinking became introspectively speculative. Awareness of the body and of its functionings became subject to a detached spatial consideration, and the reality of the place of detached observation for a time semed clearly transposed out of the body and to a place above and to the right rearward. I was compelled to turn my head several times and look into that upper corner of the room in wonder at what part of me could be up there and observing the subjective situation and behavior as if from that point. 1 observed this phenomenon from where 1 was seated.

There was also "remarkably clear and apparent" differentiation in the perception of sounds:

Seeing the smoke rings that weren't there gave me the impression that perhaps I was also hearing things that weren't there. When I heard footsteps, I looked out into the corridor and found no one there. I repeated this a number of times. Somehow I felt this was not a hallucinatory phenomenon, and that I was hearing actual walking. Then I finally realized that I was hearing footsteps

Army Experimentation 289

not primarily in either my right or left ear, and that the sound must be coming through the window. (I was on the sixth floor of the Medical Office Building at that time). I looked out and saw people walking along the sidewalk. That was not sufficient correlation, so I sat down until I heard definite footsteps Then I looked out and saw that a person was passing. After doing this three or four times I realized that there was a one-to-one correspondence between my hearing footsteps and the passing of a person on the street below.

Alles later added that until then he "had never even read an account of hallucinatory experiences" and that "if I had not persisted in looking for the source of the footsteps, I would have remained under the impression that I was having auditory hallucinations."

Another aspect of this experience was tactile:

I found that now, too, I had a qualitatively different sensation in my fingertips. Then as I tried stronger stimulation of the finger ends, I experienced a peculiar phenomenon that I had never noted before; nor have I noted it since, under any conditions. If you watch as you touch a tabletop with your finger, you will notice that the time when you hit it, as determined visually, and the time when you feel it are in essential coincidence. However, under this drug, I found that I first hit the table, and then felt it; the feeling was a very definitely delayed phenomenon. I experimented with this for a half hour or more----

Synthesis and Testing of Related Compounds

It was through Alles' work that MDA and its many relatives eventually came to public awareness. He took MDA several times, determining that minimal effects began with a dose of about 80 mg. Asked later about taking a higher dose again, his comment was: "I would not at all hesitate to do so for experimental purposes, if people could tell me just what they wanted to observe at the particular time. Just a simple repetition of the hallucinatory experience, I think, adds nothing to our knowledge."

In 1957, Alles attended a conference in Princeton, New Jersey, that was sponsored by the Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation, and there he described his MDA experience. In 1959, the proceedings of the conference were published in Neuropharmacology: Transactions of the 4th Conference (edited by Harold Abramson). Five or six years later, MDA began showing up in the counterculture, and in 1970 it was "scheduled" as part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse legislation.

The U.S. Army experimented at its Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland with quite a number of psychoactive substances in the 1950s. Although their results remain mostly undisclosed, Army scientists were using MDA {coded EA-1299) and some MDA-like compounds. Synthesis of MDMA, active in doses of the 75-100 mg. range and shorter and milder in its effects than MDA, was not reported in the scientific literature until I960. It has since been established that MDMA was ope of the "Experimental Agents" tested at Edgewood Chemical Warfare Service, where it was labeled EA-1475.

290 Nutmeg and MDA

The next important MDA-like compounds to come along were the TMAs (there are six). TMA-2, the most interesting, was first synthesized in 1933, but its psychoactive effects weren't recognized until 19*52, when the chemist Alexander Shulgin aminized it from asarone derived from the oils present in calamus. That same year Shulgin aminized myristicin, present in the aromatic oils of mace and nutmeg, and came up with MMDA. After more than 75 mg. have been ingested, this compound produces MDA-like effects that usually last under five hours, differing from MDA's effects in that there is often dream-like imagery when the eyes are closed.

In 1964, Shulgin synthesized DOM (2,5-dimethoxy-4-methyI-amphet-amine) and determined that with a dose of 3 mg. the effects lasted eighteen hours or more; with a dose above 5 mg., the results are highly hallucinogenic and could persist up to three days. Two years after his report, a "new drug" with long-lasting effects was introduced to the counterculture under the name STP. Although it wasn't clear for some time, DOM and STP turned out to be the same. Apparently STP was synthesized independently by underground chemists experimenting with MDA derivatives.

STP was said to be an acronym for "Serenity, Tranquillity and Peace," although for many it proved to be a foundation-shaking experience. Among the first to try STP was Richard Alpert, who took it in an apartment building on 57th Street in Manhattan and promptly tried to walk out the window. He was so scared by his response that he said the drug should not be released under any circumstances, that it was too intense. Later, considering that

TMAs, MMDA, STP and PMA 291

New York City "was not perhaps the optimum" in experimental environments, he tried it again near Taos, New Mexico after fasting for five days. Alpert wanted to give STP "a fair shake." He has since described this experience as "an extraordinary, extraordinary trip. I was really impressed. 1 still thought it was maybe too strong an agent for most people—it might have been too fierce for their use. But it was certainly a profound psychedelic experience . . . ."

Despite such cautionary advice from the people who first tested it, in January 1967 some 5,000 tablets in 10 mg. dosage—more than three times Shulgin's recommendation for DOM—were distributed for free at the first "Human Be-in," in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Jeremy Bigwood recalls that

by nightfall there were several thousand tripping hippies, along with a scattering of panic reactions to the intensely psychedelic STP experience. After a sleepless night there were still a couple of thousand tripping hippies—many of whom were no longer enjoying the voyage. Hundreds of people experienced hallucinatory episodes lasting three days, many ending up in the emergency rooms of various Bay Area hospitals wondering if they would ever come down.

STP continued to be available in some locales for another two years, even though the producers later agreed that their tablets presented much too strong a dosage. Questions were also almost immediately raised about the purity and actual content of these pills. Hospitals treating overwhelmed users reported that Thorazine (chlorpromazine) seemed to intensify and prolong STP's effects. Studies carried out the next year showed that Thorazine had a slight dampening influence on the DOM experience. Thus, some people felt that the STP pills must have contained other substances, which somehow were activated by Thorazine.

Another sticky situation arose in the early 1970s when it became clear that there is one physically dangerous member of this cluster: PMA (4-methoxyamphetamine). This compound, distributed mainly between 1972 and 1973, was often passed off as MDA. An effective dose of PMA can cause a dangerous rise in blood pressure- Use of this substance resulted in several deaths—although for some time it wasn't clear which drug had been ingested. Some people felt that MDA was involved, but it seems now that PMA was responsible. PMA is a dangerous MDA-like compound that appears to have been totally withdrawn from circulation.

Bigwood, writing in Head magazine (December 1977), pointed out that the alphabet-soup designations of the MDA cluster are a significant source of confusion. With so many compounds in this cluster, initials for a specific substance may be correctly passed from manufacturer to distributor, but are often jumbled after the compound has passed through several hands. The delay in identifying PMA as dangerous demonstrates the seriousness of this problem.

292 Nutmeg and MDA

In 1974, Shulgin synthesized DOB, which is very much like DOM except that it's milder and much more manageable. Then followed his synthesis of DOET, another drug possessing moderated STP-like effects- These compounds have been tried out by a few people but are generally not as available as MDA.

In the 1980s, several related compounds have been distributed. They appear to have been used so far without problems.

CHEMISTRY

The oils from nutmeg, dill, parsley seed, calamus,crocus, saffron, vanilla beans, sassafras and other plants contain generous amounts of the precursors to the semi-synthetic MDA-like compounds. Recently dried nutmeg is about 15 percent extractable oil.

Most users feel mental effects from ground nutmeg with a 20gm. dose, which has been assayed at 210 mg. myristicin (potential MMDA), 70 mg. elemicin (potential TMA), 39 nig. safrole (potential MDA), plus smaller amounts of other aromatic ethers and a number of terpene hydrocarbons (biological irritants).

Conversion of the non-amine oils in the presence of ammonia into the amine forms (TMA, MDA, etc.) has been demonstrated in the laboratory, giving rise to speculation that a similar process occurs in the body to create mental effects. 'Although the addition of ammonia has been shown to occur in vitro with tissue homogenates," Shulgin has commented, "there is at present no evidence that any of these centrally active bases can be formed in vivo''

The chemistry of related synthetics is extensive, because atoms and radicals on the ring and side chain are susceptible to replacement with relatively little laboratory manipulation. The best review of the effects of the synthetics known to have psychoactivity appears in Vol. 11 (Stimulants} of the Handbook of Psychopharmacology (Plenum Press, 1978), in which Shulgin discusses the chemistry and corresponding effects of forty-nine MDA-like compounds, dividing them into the following categories: eleven that are methoxylated phenylisopropylamines, with varying positions for and varying numbers of methoxyl groups; eleven that are methylenedioxy phenylisopropylamines, with or without methoxyl groups in addition; five that are phenylisopropylamines with alkoxy substituents in addition to, or instead of, methoxyl groups; twelve chat are phenylisopropylamines with alkyl groups on the aromatic ring, with or without methoxyl groups in addition; and ten that are phenylisopropylamines with a halo group or a sulfur on the aromatic ring, with merhoxyl groups in addition.

Most readers will find two other summaries more accessible: Shulgin's article on "The Phenethylamines Related to Mescaline" in the January-June 1979 issue of the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs and a more generalized treatment in Vol. III, Chapter Sixty of Burger's Medicinal Chemistry (4th ed, John Wiley & Sons, 1981),

Shulgin's interest in the relationship between structure and activity is also held by Roger Brimblecombe (of the research laboratories of Smith, Kline & French) and his colleague Roger Finder (Australian Drug Information Services). As early as the mid- 1970s, Brinblecombe and Finder saw that substituted phenylethylamines would eventually reduce the status of mescaline, once the most potent psychedelic known but pre-eminent only because of its early isolation and identification. In their Hallucinogenic Agents (1975) they wrote that mescaline "can now be regarded as a naturally occurring example with relatively low potential of a much wider group of hallucinogens."

The writings of Shulgin, the Brimblecombe-Pinder team and many-others are filled with speculations about how an alpha-methyl group adds to potency, how a tryptamine ring and amphetamine tail perhaps allows passage through the blood-brain barrier, how various chemical alterations keep monoamine oxidase from cutting the molecule's tail, thus increasing activity and duration. There's material here for fascinating rumination—what with the extreme variations in strength, in timing and in the experiential tendencies manifested by each compound.

One complication not often mentioned is that many of these compounds appear as optical isomers and in different forms as freebases or salts. The MDA molecule, for instance, presents itself in two mirror images that rotate plane-polarized light in opposite directions. Although they rotate light to

Speculations on Structure/Activity Relationships 295

the same degree, they have different strengths. The doses required to produce the same effect upon the central nervous system from the levorotary isomer, the dextrorotary isomer and the racemate (an optically neutral mixture of the two isomers) are estimated by Shulgin at 70, 225 and 125 mg. respectively. Of these three forms, the levo-isomer has the greatest effect in humans. The same is true of DOET, where the levo-isomer is roughly twice as strong as its mirror image.

In the discussion of mental effects below, most attention will be given to MDA and MMDA Here are sketches of these two:

PHYSICAL EFFECTS

Nutmeg

In a High Times debate concerning synthetic versus organic Psychedelics, Bruce Eisner argued that for most users synthetic mescaline sulfate is preferable to peyote and LSD is preferable to morning glories or ergot, because the "plant forms contain many other alkaloids besides the psycho-active ones, some of which make a person sick, and in the case of ergot, can lead to death." The same argument applies to the differences between nutmeg and MDA.

A number of accounts of nutmeg inebriation appear in The Ethno-pharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drags, and particularly full discussions are given by an ex-convict in Hoffer and Osmond's The Hallucinogens and by another ex-convict in Medical Botany by Walter Lewis and Memory P.F. EIvin-Lewis, Nearly all such records agree that inebriation with nutmeg is accompanied by unpleasant somatic side-effects. The Church of the Tree of Life's First Book of Sacraments summarizes the physical effects:

The usual prison dose is a matchbook of ground nutmeg—about 20grams. This amount can cause some very severe psychological and physiological effects. These effects may vary somewhat with the individual, the dose and the potency of the material. Some people enjoy it, but most see it as a rather grueling experience. Many find it difficult to swallow the required dose. Some suffer nausea during the first 45 minutes. After that silly feelings and giggling often occur. This is soon followed by dryness of the mouth and throat, flushing

29b Nutmeg and MDA

of the skin and reddening eyes. Occasionally a person will feel agitated and hyperactive, but more often he will feel heavy, intoxicated and unable to do anything but lie down. Motor functions may be confounded and speech incoherent. He may become overly conscious of his heart beat and become concerned about the seeming gaps between beats. Later he may enter a stuporous euphoric state in which he experiences profound peace of mind and dreamy visions. If he is able to move about he will usually feel like everything is in slow motion ....

A person under the spell of nutmeg is likely to find himself unable actually to sleep, but also incapable of being really awake. Sleepless stupor is the most apt description of nutmeg narcosis. This condition may last for 12 hours followed by 24 hours of drowsiness during which he may sleep a lot.

The after-effects are usually quite unpleasant: aching of the bones and muscles, soreness and aching of the eyes, running nose, tiredness, depression and possible headaches. One of the best things that can be said about nutmeg intoxication is that it is too unpleasant to be addicting ....

The MDA-like and STP-like Subclusters

MDA, MMDA and the other semi-synthetics are prepared by aminiza-tion of various natural oils, which seems to eliminate nearly all the unpleasant physical effects of the experience for most people.

Almost all users exhibit dilated pupils. Perhaps 10 percent of users feel transitory nausea, jaw-tightening, sweating or jitteriness, and most register some rise in blood pressure. Claudio Naranjo suggests that "Since individual incompatibility is consistent and bound to dose level," it is possible to identify those susceptible to physical problems

through progressively increased test doses (i.e., 10 mg., 20 mg., 40 mg., 100 mg.). This should be done without exception throughout the time preceding any first therapeutic MDA session. Typical toxic symptoms are skin reactions. profuse sweating, and confusion; I have observed these in about 10 per cent of the subjects at dosages of 150-200 mg.

"Another outstanding quality about this drug complex," says Jeremy Bigwood,

in contrast to everything else psychedelic is its "rush" effect. Things with 3,4-dioxy groups, like MDA, all have that rush—whether or not they are substituted in other positions. That rush seems to be a unique handle to that series. None of the others have that feeling—which is why some people have compared it to cocaine. Injected, it's very similar to cocaine or amphetamine. Even orally, it's similar.

These compounds seem to produce some of the paradoxical reactions often observed with amphetamine and thus should be handled with caution. A short pamphlet from Stash, a psychedelic information service, warns against use of MDA by "Persons with heart disease, severe high blood pressure, hyperthyroidism or diabetes mellitus." MDA was described by Alles as being a third as potent as amphetamine in vaso-constrictive effects. The

Physical Side-Effects 297

Spring Grove researchers of Turek, Soskin and Kurland studied ten subjects given 70 mg. of the levo-isomer orally and observed a drop in blood pressure "followed by a rise during the second and third hours after administration, returning to the pre-drug pressure at the fifth hour." MDA also induces sleeplessness in some people, although not as often or severely as equivalent amounts of amphetamine.

Many users feel tired and sluggish the following day, which led Weil to suggest that one should be in good physical shape with adequate energy reserves before trying such compounds- "For unknown reasons," he adds, "MDA seems to be especially hard on women and will activate any latent infections or problems on the female genito-urinary tract. Women should take lower doses than men (less than 100 milligrams), and should avoid the drug altogether if their pelvic organs are ailing." Stash comments that so far there haven't been any studies of possible birth defects and counsels that "it is wise for a woman to avoid all drug use if she suspects she is pregnant."

Most of the MDA-like compounds are fairly short-acting, but a few have long duration and thus form a significant subcluster, comprising DOET, DOB and the more volatile DOM, a compound that produces considerably different effects at different dosages. Brimblecombe and Finder describe DOM/STP's physical symptomology:

The highly active, 2,5-dimethoxy-4-me thy [amphetamine (DOM, STP> was first identified in an illicit sample of drugs, and was claimed by its users to produce effects lasting greater than 72 hours with potentiation by the usual hallucinogen antagonists like chlorpromazine. Subsequent scientific evaluations (Snyder, Faillace, and Hollister, 1967; Hoilister, MacNicol, and Gillespie, 1%9) showed these claims to be false, the effects of DOM lasting less than 24 hours and being attenuated by chlorpromazine. The drug is a potent hallucinogen, however, doses of 3-5 mg. producing mental changes with marked hallucinations 1 hour after oral administration, peaking after J-5 hours, and lasting for 7-8 hours. Only mild euphoria was noted the next day and in only a small proportion of subjects. The typical hallucinogenic triad of symptomatology was evident: physiological effects like nausea, sweating, paraesthesia, tremors, and increased systolic blood-pressure; sensory changes such as blurred vision, multiple imagery, vibration of objects, distorted shapes, visual hallucinations, enhancement of detail, slowed passage of time, and increased contrasts; and psychic phenomena like loss of thought control, elation, difficulty in expression of self, floods of thought, blankness of mind, and ease of distraction.

It should be noted that doses above 5 mg. (as seen at the 1967 "Human Be-in") produce effects of greater intensity and duration

MENTAL EFFECTS

Nutmeg

Although it's a psychedelic of last resort, plenty of people have tried nutmeg- Malcolm X recalled from his prison experience that it "had the kick of three or four reefers"; other reports range from great exultation to delirium.

298 Nutmeg and MDA

The third syndrome is quire typical, as in this anonymous nutmeg account from Drugs From A to Z:

... it's a kind of drunkenness, I suppose, in a way you would call it a hallucinatory experience, but mostly it's just being wacked out of your head, son of. It's really not a specially pleasant high. There are certainly wild distortions of perception and the brain functions, sort of in spurts and spasms. .

And you will get sick as well as high, more or less simultaneously. And you will not feel right the next day either. It is not exactly a hangover, but you will not feel quite right. Maybe we took too much ["at least a teaspoon") when we took it. But it is pretty violent. Sort of disrupting mental processes ....

In a few cases, the individual experience with nutmeg has proved significant. For example, Richard Meltzer took what many might consider an overly large dosage while at Yale. At the high point in the resulting experience, he sat in a coffee shop listening to the juke box and perceived the music as all sounding identical. Meltzer dropped out of Yale, used his tuition money to buy a good stereo and records, and eventually went on to become a vanguard influence in rock music.

STP

Although it is a rare commodity nowadays, STP had a major impact on the psychedelic movement in 1967. Ralph Metzner presents an STP experience in The Ecstatic Adventure, that of Ken Green. Metzner described it as a trip "in which a young American yogi shoots himself out of the body with STP, hurtles through incarnations, is attacked by a malevolent spirit and rescued by the power of mantra and guru," At the height of the furor over STP came this early-1967 report by Don McNeil, writing for The Village Voice and citing some of STP's characteristics:

All veterans concur on the overwhelming power of STP. They speak of a maelstrom of relentless energy. "A feeling," said Alpert, "that it's going to do it to you whether you like it or not." The energy seems to manifest itself psychically. "You feel like your body is a conductor for tens of thousands of volts," said a user. "I was desperate for a ground." People tripping on STP physically tremble with the energy sensation. It is a stretching, quivering, shaking experience. Many have emerged from STP with a sudden concern for physical health. "We have need to be strong," said one. "We need protein. The macrobiotic diet is bad news."

The relentless rush of energy is of ten a frightening experience. "Acid is like being let out of a cage," explained one user. "STP is like being shot out of a gun. There's no slowing down or backing up. You feel like your brakes have given out . . . ."

A key to survival in the STP experience seems to be an ability to surrender to the energy flow of the drug. Resisting the rush or holding back can lead, many report, to an incredibly frustrating uptight experience.

STP seems to lack the disc dentation of acid. Although the auditory and visual hallucinations are vivid, a girl explained, "Everything looks like it does

STP's Characteristics 299

when you're straight. It's like being on the other side of a glass wall." There also seems to be less identity confusion than under LSD. "You know who you are," she said. Many have found that they could easily function—make telephone calls, find cabs—shortly after the peak of the STP experience. These things can be difficult to do after an intense LSD experience.

Another recurring report about STP is a sensation of timelessness. Alpert calls it "a totally NOW orientation." Past and future seem to dissolve in an electric present. As time was lost, Alpert recalled, "I felt that 1 had lost something human. I felt that I had lost my humanity."

But the most enticing, and clearly the most disturbing, aspect of STP is that, unlike LSD, it seems to have a cumulative effect. It is a long trip to begin with. The direct effects last about 14 hours, and a stoned aftermath may continue until asleep.

The next morning, many STP initiates have discovered that they still felt high, or at least "different." It is a mild feeling, but a persistent one. Generally rated a "good" feeling, it seems to last ....

Zinberg's Evaluation of MDA

Few studies have been published about MDA's effects. I.S. Turek, R.A. Soskin and Albert Kurland report on one in Vol. 6, No. 1 of the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, in which they describe the subjective effects of 70 mg. of the MDA levo-isomer taken orally by ten subjects, nine of whom had experienced LSD in a similarly controlled setting. Their findings concur with other available reports; they emphasize that, compared to LSD, this compound produces fewer "intuitive experiences involving a sense of ego loss" and "less transcendence of time or space" but more verbal communication.

Changes in perception of the external environment and changes in body awareness-—especially "loss of control"—were "either minimal or nonexistent." The team found only a moderate alteration in time perception. Using the Limon-Langs Questionnaire (Modified), they concluded that "seeing new or changed meaning" was a major MDA effect. They said that at least half of their subjects felt that

the meaning of life was now clearer as a result of the experience and they were able to discern new connections between certain events or experiences that they had not been aware of before___MDA facilitates a state of mind characterized by increased introspectiveness, heightened self-awareness and greater intuitiveness and was associated with emotional states that were described as those of relaxation, acceptance, calmness and serenity. More intense emotional reactions were reported by a few of the subjects. However, they did not feel overwhelmed by, or unable to maintain perspective about, their condition ___In some the drug appeared to induce a state of greater openness in

which the individual's responsiveness to music was enhanced and the capacity for rapport and empathy increased. For many of the subjects, the experience took on the overtones of deep personal and philosophical-religious meaning.

Most reports agree that MDA evokes little visual imagery, even though Alles saw smoke rings when he first discovered this Psychedelics

300 Nut-meg and MDA

effects. Like Albert Hofmann, Alles was apparently one of those very sensitive to psychoactivity. Had he not been, a vastly different history may have resulted for this compound cluster

Alles made an extensive report based almost solely on his first MDA trip, justifying its relevance as a "double-conscious" study. He didn't believe that a large population of users had to be observed to achieve valid results. Norman Zinberg claimed that he made an end-run around this problem as well, after he studied MDA's effects upon experienced trippers (two to fifteen sessions for each of his subjects). All had used marijuana and all drank— "but expressed the classic preference of marijuana users for beer or wine; only one moderate, the rest light imbibers." Zinberg's MDA observations, which appeared in the January-March 1976 issue of the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, present perhaps the finest description yet of the subtle states induced by the archetype of the MDA cluster.

Associated with the Harvard Medical School, Zinberg was interested in "the phenomenology of consciousness change." He chose MDA for use in his study for three reasons: (1) this compound's effects were reportedly not as extreme as those of LSD, (2) it could be obtained in pure form and distributed in known quantities,_and (3) users remained capable of expressing their feelings about relationships while the experience was going on. "That suited me well," Zinberg said about this last factor, "because my greatest area of understanding is just there, and not in color/form/perception possibly affected by the drug. This effect also made it likely that users would be interested in talking while tripping."

Zinberg noted that the participants joked in all the sessions that they might have been given a placebo. After the first half-hour to an hour, when MDA's effects became perceptible,

one person after another would say, "Oh!," and in answer 10 my questions would describe seeing the sudden clarity of the sky and a feeling of ease and benevolence. Along with this initial "vast tranquilizer" effect came some nausea. Three subjects retched briefly and several described some muscle tightening, especially around the jaw, which also passed after a few minutes .... None of my subjects had ever had a bad trip. During my observations, there were no periods of panic or hallucination in my terms. Several subjects said that when they closed their eyes or stared at a particular object, delightful visual panoramas occurred which they called hallucinations. These were always reported as pleasant and, seemed to me, to be an exploitation of the subject's capacity to fix on an image and play tricks with their unwavering concentration rather than a hallucination.

For Zinberg, the ability of the users to concentrate their attention in specific areas was a striking quality of the experience:

Ordinarily people apparently attend to a large volume of stimuli and devote considerable effort to integrating these stimuli into a gestalt. This constant effort at integration shifts focus when the person concentrates on one or

Capacity to Focus and Respond 301

another stimulus. A steady concentration always occurs within an awareness of the whole. The drug allows one to focus on a reduced field of attention so that a particular item stands out.... As nearly as 1 could learn, no real perceptual changes occur. Rather what happens is a de-automatization of repetitive, usual modes of responding. Subjects reported on color, sound and form, when asked, with complete accuracy, invariably, however, pointing out details that seemed more pertinent now than before. This seemed especially true for colors and the blending and mixing of colors. At times, when they were asked to focus on them, forms and shapes received the same total attention and sense of discovery as did color. In contrast to the impatience with which the subjects waited the hour for the drug to take effect, they now felt almost unaware of time's passage. It was hard to get an answer to the question, "How long have we been here?" When they did answer, they usually thought it to have been longer than it was. This slowing of time continued through the eight to twelve hours of the drug's effects.

The capacity to focus on specific items seems to explain much of what the subjects experience. They could concentrate on inner processes as well as outer perceptions. It was not that particular fantasies were any different, i.e., more primitive, or connected to basic motivation, but that one fantasy or idea was noticed in great detail. It could be thoroughly explored so that the connected affects and ideation which would ordinarily be swept past in the rush of stimuli could receive attention. The introspection thus achieved seemed fresh. Subjects could find things unpleasant such as sand, flies,cold or even the noise of a companion, but no one reported angry or aggressive feelings during the drugged period. However, there was considerable internal interest in previous aggression and meanness that appeared in fantasies or reveries about persona! interactions.

Zinberg noted that "people did speak openly of caring for each other," and he had the impression that the experience provided an occasion and an inclination

to say things usually barred from conversation. Despite much talk about origins and memories, no early memories were reported that seemed to have been especially recovered at this time. One person told me how he felt when he met his present girlfriend and how, out of a mixture of anxiety, annoyance and liking, he had picked out the traits and responses that he now loved. A young woman talked about the last time she had seen her mother and of how, out of a mixture of disappointment and longing, she had behaved distantly and now recognized that she did the same thing with her boyfriend She pointed out how his mouth tightened and his eyebrows came together in an unusual way when she behaved that way, but he never said he was hurt. He responded by saying that he knew she had been thinking of that interaction and that he really knew she loved him and wished he could break through his withdrawal at times like that and tell her what he had been feeling.

This son of dialogue was typical The insights did not seem so earth-shaking, although they were spelled out in convincing detail. But it was the repeated insistence on empathic awareness of what the other was thinking that most fascinated me.

502 Nutmeg and MDA

Zinberg tried to check out these empathic sensations by speaking separately to individuals having such experiences:

Not only was such a subject able to describe what others felt, e.g., "A is thinking of sex with B," or "I think C is lost in childhood memories or relationship fantasies with D," but they were also able to say something about the cues that led to these conclusions—the way someone's body was now dripping with sand, the way the lines formed around a person's mouth, or the way somebody looked over there and then looked away. These cues were ones that I had not noticed until they pointed them out to me. However, the intermediate steps of how the cues led to the final, empathic awareness could not be articulated. I would then drift over to the person we had been talking about and asked what s/he had been thinking. 80% of the time my original respondent was correct down to quite fine details. It was remarkable, and it gave me some sense of why some psychedelic users of my acquaintance had become so interested in ESP. I asked particularly if this empathy was based on unusual closeness to a particular individual and usually was told, "No." In fact, it seemed to operate as effectively with people who were not close friends. Certainly it was not bound by sexual interest. While couples who were going together might show particular interest in each other, each could respond to others across sexual lines.

As to questions about sexual aspects of the experience, Zinberg found his subjects' answers "surprisingly uniform":

Sexual relationships were possible especially as the drug waned, but during the height of the high, people described a greater interest in a general, diffused sensualism than in specific sexuality, such as intercourse or masturbation. (Although two subjects told me that when they had taken the drug alone, and only then, did they become sexually preoccupied and masturbate frequently.) This sensualism showed itself in a wish to touch others or to feel the sand, grass, water, flowers or the like. Again, the desire to touch or pleasure in touching was specifically pan-sexual and often not connected to everyday closeness. Although one of the drug's most potent and consistent effects is the inhibition of the desire to eat, late in the day a single grape or a bit of certain foods or liquids was described as a sensual experience.

Zinberg concluded that a study of the people he had observed

would show a continuity of basic personality structure both before,during and after drug use. That there is a continuity to the essential personality does not mean, however, that some personality change may not be of great importance in that person's life and extended psychological development. Of all people, psychoanalysts should not make light of the importance of small shifts in personality orientation. Remember Freud's oft-quoted comment that 'For psychoanalysis to change neurotic suffering to ordinary human misery is no small event."

MDA and MMDA Compared

In the October-December 1976 issue of the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, Andrew Weil and Alexander Shulgin described first MDA and then

Empathy and the Loss of Allergies 303

MMDA. Together their reports provide a perspective on the differences between these two closely related compounds.

After more than five years' experience with MDA, Weil had fascinating things to say about this "Love Drug":

.. . effects become apparent in 20 to 60 minutes and persist for about twelve hours — Some experience initial nausea. Some feel a warm glow spreading through their bodies. Most people become aware of a sense of physical and

mental well-being that intensifies gradually and steadily___effects on human

beings are much more interesting than simple stimulation___Unlike most

stimulants, MDA does not increase motor activity. In fact, it suppresses it in a remarkable way, so (hat people can remain comfortable and content in one position for long periods. This effect is most dramatic in persons who are heavily dependent on coffee and cigarettes___The combined effects of relaxation and centering greatly facilitate certain kinds of physical activities such as yoga, martial arts, and any disciplines requiring balance and maintenance of posture. For example, I can maintain a headstand longer when I take MDA

than normally___I have also tried things like rock climbing and swimming

after taking MDA and again find that my body works in a more coordinated,

smoother fashion and that I can do things with it that 1 usually cannot___It

may become possible to walk barefoot over sharp stones, for instance, and experience no discomfort or injury ....

Participants may feel very loving toward one another, but the feelings are not explicitly sexual because MDA tends to decrease the desire for orgasm. For many people the experience of enjoying physical contact and feeling love with others in the absence of a specific hunger for sex is unique and welcome....

Habitual users of tobacco feel no need to smoke. Chain smokers of marijuana do not need their weed. Nail biters leave their fingers alone. Compulsive

talkers become quiet. Compulsive eaters do not think about food___There

are no hallucinations, illusions, or distortions, simply a great aura of peace and calm and well-being ....

Out of hundreds of experiences with it that I have observed I have seen only two anxiety reactions. The medical potential of the drug is great and quite unexplored. I have noted repeatedly that persons under the influence of MDA, when feeling high, centered, and free of desire, are in a state of complete anergy—that is, they manifest no allergic responses, even to life-long allergens. Asthma disappears; hay-fever disappears; cat allergies go away; there are even no responses to mosquito bites. This effect is temporary and appears to be the physical analog in the body of the mental experience of complete relaxation and lack of anxiety. It might be reproducible without the drug if we could learn to spend more time in that state ....

Shulgin then characterized the closely-allied MMDA:

The threshold dosage of MMDA in humans is 75 mg (as the hydrochloride salt) and the average effective dose is 150 mg., orally. The first physical symptoms (mydriasis, minor dizziness, fleeting nausea) are apparent at 30-60 minutes. The psychological effete are first noted about 1'/; hours following ingestion and are of relatively short duration with peaking in another hour;

jU4 Nutmeg and MDA

these are largely dissipated in yet another two hours. During this period of intoxication, there is a minimum of sensory distortion, but rather a pervasive mood-intensification. In the absence of external stimulation, an accentuation of feelings (both anxiety and euphoria), the spontaneous visualization of images (with eyes closed), a generalized drowsiness and relaxation, and a consistent over-estimation of elapsed time are experienced. The imagery is dream-like in that the subject matter cannot be chosen and it can be voluntarily dispelled by opening the eyes. Eyes-open phenomena, such as color enhancement and distortion of faces and objects, are extremely rare ....

The metabolic fate and the kinetics of blood and tissue levels of MMDA. in either experimental animals or in humans, are as yet unstudied----In comparison to most psychedelic drugs, MMDA must be considered to be very mild and produces a state which can be easily manipulated by either the subject or the observer. The duration of action is short, and is followed by physical relaxation which usually leads to an easy and restful sleep ....

Naranjo's Psychiatric Distinctions

Differences between MDA and MMDA were further amplified in Claudio Naranjo's The Healing Journey, a description of what he observed as one of the earliest to gain access to these semi-synthetics. After using both MDA and MMDA in his practice of psychotherapy, Naranjo concluded that the two operate quite distinctly. He came to consider MDA an "analytical drug," useful primarily for going back into a patient's past. MMDA, on the other hand, was more effective in evoking the feeling of "the eternal now."

Here is a quick summation of Nararrjo's findings in regard to MDA:

In a first study designed to describe its effects in normal individuals, not one of eight subjects reported hallucinations, visual distortions, color enhancement or mental imagery, while all of them evidenced other pronounced reactions: enhancement of feelings, increased communication, and heightened reflectiveness, which led to a concern with their own problems or those of society or mankind. Further experiments with MDA in neurotic patients in the context of psychotherapy have confirmed such effects, but here physical symptoms were of frequent occurrence, and visual phenomena were described by most individuals at some point of their experience. Yet the most characteristic feature of the experience of these subjects was one which we will here call age regression ....

In the MDA-elicited state the patient simultaneously regresses and retains awareness of the present self. Yet ... the person more than conceptually remembers the past, as he may vividly recapture visual or other sensory impressions inaccessible to him in the normal state, and he usually reacts with feelings that are in proportion to the event. This is the same process termed "returning" in Dianetics, and which can range all the way from hypermnesia to repetition of a past experience in which not only the old feelings are again felt but physical pain or pleasure and other sensations, as the case may be . .

This may occasionally be brought about under the effect of other hallucinogens or without any drug, particularly when sought after through therapeutic maneuvers. Ibogaine, in particular, lends itself well to an exploration of events in a patient's life history for the richness of feeling with which these

Profile of MMDA 305

can be evoked. Yet with MDA regression occurs so frequently and spontaneously that this can be considered a typical effect of this substance, and a primal source of its therapeutic value .... In this, the healing process differed from what is observed in most instances of harmaline, MMDA, or even ibogaine therapy ....

306 Nutmeg and MDA

Moving on to MMDA, here is how Naranjo distinguished this substance:

MMDA stands with MDA in a category distinct from that of LSD-25 and mescaline as well as from that of harmaline and ibogaine. In contrast to the transpersonal and unfamiliar domain of experience characterizing the action of these two groups of drugs, these feeling-enhancing i sop ropy la mines lead into a domain that is both personal and familiar, differing only in its intensity from that of every day ....

In the peak experience that MMDA may elicit, it is possible to speak of both individuality and dissolution, but these are blended into a quite new totality-Dissolution is here expressed in the openness to experience, a willingness to hold no preference; individuality, on the other hand, is implied in the absence of depersonalization phenomena, and in the fact that the subject is concerned with the everyday world of persons, objects, and relationships.

The MMDA peak experience is typically one in which the moment that is being lived becomes intensely gratifying in all its circumstantial reality, yet the dominant feeling is not one of euphoria but of calm and serenity. It could be described as a youthful indifference, or, as one subject has put it, "an impersonal sort of compassion"; for love is embedded, as it were, in calm ....

The perception of things and people is not altered or even enhanced, usually, but negative reactions that permeate our everyday lives beyond our conscious knowledge are held in abeyance and replaced by unconditional acceptance.

Age Regression/Peak Experience 307

This is much like Nietzsche's amor fati, love of fate, love of one's particular circumstances. The immediate reality seems to be welcomed in such MMDA -induced states without pain or attachment; joy does not seem to depend on the given situation, but on existence itself, and in such a state of mind everything is equally lovable ....

FORMS AND PREPARATIONS

Over the last decade and a half, there has been much misrepresentation in the black market regarding MDA-like compounds. Recently,providers of these substances seem to have been doing their chemistry homework; the products nowadays aren't bogus very often.

Generally these compounds are distributed as a powder, as clear whitish crystals, or in tablet form. Often the powder or crystals are swallowed in a clear gelatin capsule. The color of the powders varies from white to a brownish hue, the latter color frequently indicating by-products of incomplete synthesis. "Little is known of the effects of ingesting such impurities,"comments Jeremy Bigwood. Recalling the dangers posed by PMA, Bigwood suggests sending a sample of any MDA-like compound in question to PharmChem, following the procedure described at the end of Chapter One.