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Drug Testing
Are you concerned at the wide variety of
chemical cocktails now being sold on the street as 'Ecstasy'?
Sasha Not only the quality of a drug that's used but even
it's identity is something that I feel is one of the most needed
public health contributions. That someone who had a drug could
submit a part of it to test - it could be a colour test, it could
be a very crude test, but it would serve to exclude a drug being
there if it did not pass the test. In Amsterdam you can
go and have an analysis made of a drug you're about to take. It
should be available to everyone and anyone, but in this country
(America) there is no legal way of doing it.
There was a group down the peninsular below San Francisco called
Pharmcem that would have 'Analysis Anonymous'. You sent in a tablet
and a ten dollar bill and gave a five digit number and then in
a week you gave the five digit number by phone and they'd say
"Oh yes, that was MDA, about 75 milligrams." Then because
of pressure from the government that this was giving a quality
control aspect to drug dealers, they blocked any quantitative
measure. Then about two or three years later they blocked any
qualitative measure because that also gives quality control -
in essence you are providing information to the drug market. Of
course you're providing information to the drug market - it's
there!
Ann It gave the wrong message.
Sasha If I were ever to get into enough of a pathological
place that I would choose to run for election in politics, one
of my platforms would be never use the phrase "It sends the
wrong message," because many sad directions have been taken
in public policy because of the fear that it might indicate the
approval of that type of behaviour. "Do not teach about the
use of condoms because it sends the wrong message" - that
sex is OK for young people. "We don't want to send that message".
And yet young people are going to go sex, sex, sex, anyway. I
think for public health purposes, some balance should be found,
and the same is true of the use of drugs.
Ann The unspoken message of this is "If you go against
the authorities you deserve to be very sick or die." That's
actually what's being said. "You deserve what happens to
you." And that I find very disturbing.
The Recipes
Sasha I put the recipes in a chemical vocabulary, the terminology
is taken straight from the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry where
I have published many of these in the first place, in the classic
scientific passive voice, the necessary merit badge of authority.
But many of these things have already been published in the literature
- they're scattered, but many have already been published. Some
of them are new materials or new procedures that I have worked
out and they have not been published but I want them in the public
domain.
The time will come, not this year I think, maybe in a few years,
maybe in a while when all this area will be known and recognised
as being of value both in research and in clinical work, and at
that time all these recipes must be available. I still have my
laboratory and what I do there is completely legal. I do not develop
new psychedelic drugs because it is illegal, now in this country
to develop psychedelic drugs. But I can develop new chemical processes,
I can work on new materials that might have some medical use -
like right now I have a patent pending on a family of anti-depressants.
It might not go anywhere, but one never knows.
Bad Medicine
Sasha There have been a number of very difficult experiences,
there have been a number of very frightening ones. Part of the
learning process can be very frightening. Sometimes you can have
materials that have properties, this has happened with three or
four compounds, that are basically negative - they are physically
disturbing - I feel signs of toxicity that I do not care for,
elements of pain here, or body function that is not correct, and
they are put into a category of "these materials are not
correct". What I did to create that molecule was not correct
and I will try to find some other way of changing the molecule.
Have you ever worried that your own brain
chemistry might be altered
by these experiments, over time?
Sasha I'm a 'one time through the river walker'. I can't
really tell you that! (Laughter)
Ann I keep watch!
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