Basel symposium report (part 2): "Ask the Shulgins"

Ask the Shulgins

- this was the name of a questioning hour, where the visitors of the Basel symposium could ask Ann and Sasha all kinds of questions.

I had received some questions from you before the symposium, now here are the answers (I must add, that I haven´t written everything down word by word, but I try to give you the essence of the answers):

1. When is “Psychedelic Index” due out:

We hope to finish the book in June or July 2006, so it will most probably be published in late fall 2006. It´ll have 1,500-2,000 pages and will also contain a lot of substances, of which no effects are known so far. Ideas for medical use will also be included.

(Sasha also told us about his new project “Far out chemistry”. The name comes from a reaction he often has, when reading chemical publications: “This is far out!” He dreams of setting up a table with a pile of books at a chemical or psychedelic congress with a banner: “Take a book. Open it at a random page and read the entry. If you don´t say “Far out” at once, put the book back and walk away!”)

2. Have you ever considered writing a book “SiHKAL” about salvinorines? With a chemical structure even more complex than LSD the chances of getting better and longer lasting drugs than Salvinorin A – just by swapping bits around – must be quite high.

In fact, I already researched Salvia divinorum in the 60s. I ate a huge amount of it, but unfortunately nobody had told me, that it isn´t active orally, but only sublingual. So I swallowed everything and was disappointed when nothing happened. I tried to find the active ingredients, but I was looking for alkaloids only, so I cancelled further research, when I didn´t find anything interesting. 10 years later, I talked to Albert Hofmann about that project and was surprised to find out, that he did exactly the same things I did (including the same mistakes) at the same time.

I certainly think, that salvinorins would be worth further research, but I simply don´t have the time to do it.

3. Is it true that (a) there are specific 5HT2A agonists that cause no psychedelic effects whatsoever, and if so, (b) what does this say about the likely role of other neurotransmitters, secondary messengers and/or proteins, such as p11 etc? (c) Might p11 present a new target for novel psychedelics?

(I had to repeat this question 3 times, before Ann and Sasha completely understood it – and still got a wrong answer. But later I got the chance to ask Sasha again eye to eye…)

(a) Yes, but past research had shown, that we sometimes just haven´t dosed high enough. Some chemicals request a very high dose to be consumed to show any effect, so we can never be completely sure, if an agonist to any receptor is psychoactive or not.

(b) We have also found, that e.g. some serotonine receptor agonists have no psychoactive effect themselves, but might catalyse reactions at other receptors e.g. noradrenaline receptors. So these compounds need the presence of other messengers to be active – at least in a psychedelic way (they still might cause other effects at their “own” receptor). At the moment we understand so little of these complex systems, that everything seems possible; and that´s why I like neurochemistry so much: it always surprises you, when you least suspect it.

(c) Maybe…

4. Does the desire to alter conciousness change with aging?

No!!!

5. Is there a possibility to extend the action of 5Meo-DMT?

5Meo-DMT is one of the few substances, that the body doesn´t build up tolerance to in any way (or at least, nobody seems to have taken it often and long enough to get a tolerance so far). So the result of smoking the material will always have the same quality. But the elimination in the body is very straight and nobody has found a way to stop/slow this down yet. But there are reports of people, who can trip up to 3 hours on a single dose – no one has ever found out why…

6. Which are your favourite drugs?

Sasha: I never take a chemical more than 2 times, because I want to keep my body clean for new substances. So my favorite substance is always the one, I´m currently working on.
Ann: Mine is always the next one to be discovered, because I´m always curious, what it might bring me…


After 2 hours, Ann and Sasha did more than 30 more minutes of signing (we finally were asked to leave the room, because the next speakers were waiting) and posed for photos with their fans. I had the pleasure to have a little talk to Sasha (he was very interested in my 5Meo-DALT experiences) and a longer talk to Ann about the very interesting chances of Methylone as a new tool in psychotherapy (and we swapped addresses to keep in contact about that idea).

Photos:
1. "Ask the Shulgins"
2. Me and Sasha (for reasons of personal safety, I had to anonymize the photo a little)

 

Thank you very much for this Flow.

I B

 

Thats fucking awsome!!!

 

thanks for the report flow

 

thanks for asking my questions.

Also did everyone get the chance to converse with some of the speakers in the same way you did? If so i think the speakers deserve a lot of respect for taking the time to address each attendee interested in a discussion, much more down to earth than some more "mainstream celebrities"

 

Besides the large forums and lectures, there were also discussion circles in the foyer, where most of the speakers were available for the interested visitors.
And of course it was possible to get in contact with the speakers after their lectures. Most of the speakers showed a lot of patience and generally no question was silly enough to be asked and you always got an answer (sometimes very long answers...).

 

Man you don't even know what I would give to talk to the shulgins. I would literally shit 5 bricks. I know they are just "normal" people, but they are really helping with the psycedelic movement.

 

Yeah, youre a lucky man Flow!!!

 

You can be lucky too, just go to a symposium where the Shulgins are announced to speak. They´re always friendly and spend a lot of time to talk to their fans on those occasions.