The history of the 2C drug class

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/15/8962743/all-smiles-the-history-of-the-2c-designer-drug-class

by chermanowicz • 11 years ago

36 12 11 years ago

tl:dr "Right now, the information void makes for polarized rhetoric"

vonklaus2• 11 years ago

Due to drug prohibition millions of people are running self-supervised experiments on themselves with a limited ability to verify the chemical compounds they are ingesting. You can buy Mecke and Marquis reagents[0] to test for things but RCs(research chemicals) like the 2C class indicated in the article are difficult to test for. MDMA has been around a long time but often is mixed with amphetamines, ephedrine, MDA or other chemicals that are cheaper or easier to obtain. So now we do not have the information nor the data to make a case about these drugs either way.

Due to friction in black and grey markets it is not only difficult to verify substances, but the reputation of suppliers as they obviously aren't doing CR on yelp. This is exactly what happened with "Bath Salts". At first, they were legal and reputable dealers sold them to club kids used to using meth and other amphetamines. The drugs were newer and untested, but "somewhat" safe after being out in the world. As negative press and deaths were reported the substance was banned. Less reputable dealers continued to create drugs with slightly different chemical makeups and batch tested accross the population. These drugs were more dangerous and in some cases only tried by a handful of people before release.

Shulgin notes this in the article saying that amateur chemists thirsty for profits are either releasing untested chemicals into the market, or making mistakes in synthesizing known psychoactive substances.

We can't get data on these drugs so we don't know much about them. The 2c class has some promising RCs it would be nice if there was a way to record the data from the thousands of people doing these trials on themselves. Shulgin has a license, probably one of only a few ever given by the DEA, to produce, synthesize and test RCs and Psychoactive substances. It would make sense that the gov't could issue such a license to people for the trial of these chemicals for scientific purposes. Until then, only a few people will ever have real data about these drugs and it will be unable to be verified or shared due to the stigma and legal repercussions for coming forward.

sad.

[0]https://dancesafe.org/shop/

pantalaimon2• 11 years ago

it would be nice if there was a way to record the data from the thousands of people doing these trials on themselves.

The closest thing we have to this is erowid [0] but I agree it's just a collection of anecdotal data.

[0] https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/2cb/

fsiefken• 11 years ago

I remember reading about the late Bob Wallace (Microsoft) and his experiments with psychedelics (perhaps microdosing) to aid in programming - I thought 2C-B was among those. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ABob_Wallace

Unfortunately I couldn't find track down a collection of his usenet posts. Does anyone know of a working archive?

EDIT: found one '96 post in what's left of the deja news archive (imported in the less usable google groups), you can't search by e-mail adres unfortunately: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.drugs.psychedelics/KvaQA...

About Google Groups vs usenet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Criticism

pantalaimon2• 11 years ago

Nice find, he's spot on. The group entity experience can be quite fascinating, but I'd attribute that more to the mushrooms, although 2C-B experiences are rather limited. But I can confirm it's arousing effects, quite a difference to the platonic/innocent nature of MDMA.

delecti• 11 years ago

The group entity experience can be quite fascinating, but I'd attribute that more to the mushrooms

I had a strong group experience while on solely 2C-B, so I'm totally willing to attribute it to that.

irremediable2• 11 years ago

Good coverage of the cultural history, but it's dubiously light on the chemistry. It's definitely worth talking about the -NBOMe series, but you shouldn't just mention them as being dangerous in the same paragraph where you're discussing general 2C- safety.

vonklaus2• 11 years ago

Why? Could you expand a bit?

azurelogic• 11 years ago

If you search Wikipedia or Erowid for the chemical structures of 2Cs and NBOMes, you'll find that while the NBOMes contain the core 2C skeleton, they have an additional aromatic ring on the amine part of the phenethylamine core. That is enough to significantly change their absorption profile, tendency to cross the blood brain barrier, and affinity for the target binding site. So while they are related, it's not "siblings" like the 2Cs are to each other. It's more like "cousins".

yaongi• 11 years ago

Small structural changes can result in large changes in effect and toxicity. Moving to a new series like NBoMe which may share some properties, from halogenated phenylethylamines can mean very different effects.

Likewise sulfur compounds like the 2C-T series may be very different.

The fact that they all start with 2C, indicating a phenylethylamine, is not enough of a discriminator for their action.

irremediable2• 11 years ago

Well asked. The two commenters below give better answers than I would write. Basically, because they're quite different chemicals.

S_A_P• 11 years ago

I've tried 2c-b twice in my life. The first time I took it with mdma and had an amazing time. The second time I took it I broke out in hives, swelled up and was miserable for about 12 hours. That was 17 years ago and the last time I took any drug of that nature. I think things like this are why drugs should not be illegal. Getting a known quantity of a known entity is always safer than black market pills stuffed and cut with who knows what.

The history of the 2C drug class

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