_______________________________ _Û Bulletin 105 -- WHAT IS STP? Û____ When: 6/14/92 at 11:58 am Left by: castalia (Level 49) well, until quite recently I would have been unable to answer that question to my satisfaction, but I am now in the fortunate position to do so: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STP, aka DOM, aka 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine CHEMICAL CLASS: Phenethylamine (same as MDMA, MDA, 2-CB etc...), meaning it is a much closer relative to MDMA (XTC) than LSD-25, a common misconception. SYNTHESIS: full synthesis instruction and formula available on request (I'm not gonna type the whole thing in....) DOSAGE: 3-10 mg DURATION: 14-20 hrs QUALITATIVE COMMENTS: - 1 mg: There is almost certainly no effect. Physically there is a slight dryness in the mouth, and my eyes are noticeably dilated. There is an eerie feeling overall. - 2.3 mg: Mood elevation at 2-3 hrs. after that emotional effects become more pronounced, enhancement of color also... very little perceptual distortion... emotional content and and empathy for other closer to mescaline than amphetamine... unable to sleep at 10 hrs... - 3 mg: ...I found that I was able to separate components of complex things.... sharpness of observation is enhanced... a line of thought or a bit of personal history ties the thinker to the objects that had been thought of... the future is the result of your own involvement w/ everything about you. - 4 mg: ... there was shuddering, and a tight jaw, and I was not particularly motivated to talk... Im feeling a little sick at the 3-hr point... at the 4th hour it went totally outside me. I saw the clouds toward the west. THE CLOUDS!! no visual experience has ever been like this. the menaing of color has just changed completely.... it is a beautiful experience... of all past joys, LSD, mescaline, cannabis, peyote, this ranks number one.... - 5 mg: there was an intensifaction of light, color and odors. it was all very pleasant and beautifuyl, except that I had an overwhelimingly negative feeling. .... I alternated about 50-50 between joy and discomfort. as the evening drew on I became withdrawn and pensive. it seemed clear that I had made all the wrong decisions - choice of partner, place to live, isolation, no meaningul activity..... the experience continued unabated thru the night with much tension and discomfort. unable to sleep. I hallucinated quite freely during the night, but could stop them at will. while I never felt threatened, I felt I knew what it was like to look across the brink to insanity. - 8 mg: the very quiet development picks up speed between the first and second hour. there is a rich curly-imaged-eyes-closed show that interlocks closely w/ music... there is a continuous thirst and little urine. napping seems ok at 16 hrs, but real sleep must wait until the 20 hr point. - 10 mg: ....it is true that DOM has the glory and the doom sealed up in it. all that is needed to unseal it, is to surround it with a warm, living human for a few hours. for that human for those hours all the dark things are made clear. - 12 mg: the first awareness was at 30 min... and the development was extremely rapid, something more like LSD. the body tremor feels like poisoning, there is no escaping the feeling of being debilitated, but there is no nausea. the transition and trauma ended near the 2nd hour, the music, eroticism and fantasy was exceptional.... there were some residual effects still noted the next day...this may be a bit much for me. ------------------- TO BE CONTINUED.... ------------------- -Castalia ___________________________________________ _Û Bulletin 106 -- Voyages into inner space Û____ When: 6/14/92 at 9:19 pm Left by: The Zen Goblin (Validated User) This is quite interesting Castalia, I've never even heard of STP. One question I have is how many times did you try each dosage level? ______________________________________ _Û Bulletin 107 -- WHAT IS STP? PART 2 Û____ When: 6/15/92 at 10:24 am Left by: castalia (Level 49) Well, here's the conclusion to the STP info, which should help shed some light on the compound's strange history and why it has spawned so many strange rumors in terms of its long-term duration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EXTENSIONS AND COMMENTARY: This compound was scattered widely and plentifully in the heyday of the Haight-Ashbury in S.F. in mid-1967. It was distributed under the name STP, which was said to stand for Serenity, Tranquility and Peace. It was also claimed to represend Super Terrific Psychedelic, or Stop The Police. The police called it: Too Stupid to Puke. Acutally, the name was taken from the initials of a motor additive completely unrelated chemically. Incredibly, and sadly, one of the avowed experts in the area of "sensuous drugs", actually stated that STP, the motor additive, was really one and the same as STP, the highly dangerous psychedelic. The motor oil additive, he wrote in a book of his, had properties somewhat related to that of LSD, mescaline and the amphetamines. How fortunate that the love children of the time didnt do much reading, for they might have gotten into yet deeper pharmacological trouble with drug raids on the local gas stations. Two complications became apparent during this first appearnce and they led to serious difficulties. ONe, there was no equation made between STP and DOM. no one knew what this drug was that had been distributed in a cavalier way throughout S.F. There could be no educated guess as to the best treatment of overdose emergencies. Secondly, the initial tablets apparently contained 20 mgs of DOM per tablet, later it was dropped to 10 mg. Either of those is now known to be a thoroughly whopping dose. The over dose situation was aggravated by the slow onset of DOM, since the full impact of the drug is not appreaciated until at least 2 hrs have elapsed. But many of the recipients of the free handouts of DOM were familiar w/ LSD, which can show its onset after 15-20 min, or even sooner w/ large doses and there is already a deep and compelling intoxication felt at the half-hour point. They, quite reasonbly, expected this familiar activity pattern w/ STP and assumed, when there was little, if any activity noted at the half-hour point, that the potency was less than expected. They took one or even two additional doses. Thus, some of the overdose victims of the period may well have taken 30 mgs or more of DOM. The slow onset of action, coupled with the remarkably long duration, caught many innocent users unprepared. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ok, and that's that for STP/DOM. I hope this info will help clear up some misconceptions about STP, which abound in plenty. you can see from the above account, tho, how STP may have acquired a reputation of being a trip that can last days, considering how the initial wave of users apparently o.d. by the dozens. and as to the question, how often have I tried each of the dosages I described in the first post, the answer is: not at all. in fact, Ive never even SEEN DOM. the paragraph above, as well as the first post are excerpts from: PIHKAL (short for: Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved) - A Chemical Love Story - by Anne and Alexander Shulgin, which came out late last year. Alexander Shulgin, as you may know, former chairman of the UC Berkeley Dept. of Chemistry is also the father of MDMA (XTC), by far the most famous Phenethylamine around. He is also 110% committed to psychedelic research and its continuation, regardless of govt and laws. Im not alone among the psychedelic crowd with having a deep respect and admiration for the man, especially since he is not only a wonderful human being with a lot of warmth and a great sense of humnor, but he also KNOWS more about this class of drugs (phenethylamines) than anyone else on the planet. as you can see, from the above excerpts, he still actively experiments w/ these compounds. PIHKAL, not only contains the above description of DOM (which I abbreviated by about 1/3 in the transcription), but for about 250+ ADDITIONAL PHENETHYLAMINES, each listed alphabetically, w/ general info, synthesis instructions, formula, duration, dosages, effects at different dosages and an extended commentary. I was familiar with about 10 of the 250 or so compounds listed in the book, all of which are psychedelic/psychoactive and most of which are as fascinating to read about as DOM. after reading the book, a 1000-page volume, I have come to the conclusion that it is a research report on the effects of designer phenethylamines as initially tested in a group of about 13 subjects. yes, Shulgin and his wife, Anne, who live near Berkeley, seem to have a sort of Secret Society going, where these people periodically get together and test a new drug designed by Shulgin, following a well-designed procedural protocol, that allows them to deal extremely well w/ the negative consequences of such pioneering experimentation, and enables them to communicate the results of their tests to others. PIHKAL is the book that resulted from these experimentations. it is a de facto research report on the effects of designer drugs on human beings - data and information that under less repressive conditions would certainly be published in mainstream academic journals. Shulgin is a first-rate scientist of the old school (meaning he believes in self-experimenatoina and ALWAYS is the first one to test any new compound on himself) and the people he has selected to be part of his testing group are no flakes. If youve ever heard of Gracie & Zarkov, or read any of their exploits, I strongly suspect that they are part of Shulgin's group. In any case, even the knowledge that such a group exists, makes me drool. I mean where do I sign up? if all this made you interested in the book, I should tell you that the drug experimenation reports only take up about half of the book. the first part is a semi-ficitonalized autobiography of Shulgin and his lifelong involvement w/ psychoactive/psychedelic drugs and his continuous quest for further knowledge into how these compound interact w/ the human brain and mind. _________________________________ _Û Bulletin 108 -- More on PIHKAL Û____ When: 6/15/92 at 10:39 am Left by: castalia (Level 49) the Shulgin's are self-publishing PIHKAL, which means you get the 1000-page volume for $18.95. that's the good news. the bad news is, it's not easily available in bookstores. the only place Ive even seen it at was the Anarchist Bookstore on the Haight in S.F. it might have found its way by now into BookSoup or the Bodhi Tree (both in W. Hollywood), but if you want to save yourself some trouble of running around looking for it or ordering it direct from Tranform Press, you can get it thru The Albert Hofmann Foundation book catalog. you can order a copy by sending $18.95, plus 8.25% CA tax, plus $5 for 1st class shipping/handling or $3 for 4th class to: The Albert Hofmann Foundation 219 S. La Cienega #615 Beverly Hills, CA 90211 you can also write to that address for a catalog, or to expedite the process, you can leave me an address in email and I can send you a catalog. (to ORDER the book, tho, you need to write and send a check to the above address). and no this is not an ad/plug for the AHF per se (nobody makes a lot of money off that book, obviously), it's just that I think that that book is indispensable to anyone seriously interested in psychedelic exploration. it has sort of set a new standard in the field of 'underground' drug information book, by applying all the standards and rules on reporting research data that would be applied to an academic journal publication, thus making this book one of - if not the most - reliable and informative source on psychedelic phenethylamines that I am aware of. -Castalia