Quote:

---

Alexander "Sasha" Theodore Shulgin  (born June 17, 1925 in Berkeley, California) is a Russian-American pharmacologist, chemist and drug developer.

Shulgin is credited with the popularization of MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially for psychopharmaceutical use and the treatment of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In subsequent years, Shulgin discovered, synthesized, and bioassayed over 230 psychoactive compounds. In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL on the topic of psychoactive drugs. Shulgin discovered many noteworthy phenethylamines including the 2C* family of which 2C-T-2, 2C-T-7, 2C-E, 2C-I, and 2C-B are most well known. Additionally, Shulgin performed seminal work into the descriptive synthesis of compounds based on the organic compound tryptamine.

Life and career

Shulgin was born in Berkeley, California to Theodore Stevens Shulgin (1893–1978)[2] and Henrietta D. Shulgin (1888–1960).  Both Theodore and Henrietta, originally from Russia, were public school teachers in Alameda County.

Shulgin began studying organic chemistry as a Harvard University scholarship student. In 1943, at the age of 19, he dropped out of school, and joined the U.S. Navy, where he eventually became interested in pharmacology.  After serving in the Navy (veteran of World War II), he returned to Berkeley, California, and in 1954 earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Through the late 1950s, Shulgin completed post-doctoral work in the fields of psychiatry and pharmacology at University of California, San Francisco. After working at Bio-Rad Laboratories as a research director for a brief period, he began work at Dow Chemical Company as a senior research chemist.

It was at this time that he had a series of psychedelic experiences that helped to shape his further goals and research, beginning with an experience with mescaline.

    I first explored mescaline in the late '50s, Three-hundred-fifty to 400 milligrams. I learned there was a great deal inside me.

    – Alexander Shulgin, LA Times, 1995

He would later write that everything he saw and thought "had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid ... I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability."

Shulgin's professional activities continued to lean in the direction of psychopharmacology, furthered by his personal experiences with psychedelics. But during this period he was unable to do much independent research. His opportunity for further research came with his development of Zectran, the first biodegradable pesticide, a highly profitable product. Dow Chemical Company, in return for Zectran's valuable patent, gave Shulgin great freedom. During this time, he created and patented drugs when Dow asked, and published findings on other drugs in journals such as Nature and the Journal of Organic Chemistry. Eventually, Dow Chemical requested that he no longer use their name on his publications.

In 1965, Shulgin left Dow to pursue his own interests, and became a private consultant, also frequently teaching classes in the local universities and at the San Francisco General Hospital. Through his friend Bob Sager, head of the U.S. DEA's Western Laboratories, Shulgin formed a relationship with the DEA and began holding pharmacology seminars for the agents, supplying the DEA with samples of various compounds, and occasionally serving as an expert witness in court. He also authored a definitive law enforcement reference book on controlled substances and received several awards from the DEA.

In recent years, Shulgin has worked on a series of N-allylated tryptamines including 5-MeO-DALT and 5-MeO-MALT.[8] On April 8, 2008, at the age of 82, he underwent surgery to replace a defective aortic valve.  On November 16, 2010, Dr. Shulgin suffered a stroke. He is expected to fully recover.  In December of 2010 he suffered another stroke, followed by skin-grafting surgery to save his left foot from an amputation.

Independent research

In order to carry out consulting work with the DEA, Shulgin obtained a DEA Schedule I license for an analytical laboratory, which allowed him to possess and synthesize any otherwise illicit drug. Shulgin set up a chemical synthesis laboratory in a small building behind his house, which gave him a great deal of career autonomy. Shulgin used this freedom to synthesize and test the effects of psychoactive drugs.

In 1967, Shulgin was introduced to MDMA (ecstasy) by Merrie Kleinman, a graduate student in the medicinal chemistry group he advised at San Francisco State University. MDMA had been synthesized in 1912 by Merck and patented in 1912 as a intermediate of another synthesis in order to block competitors, but was never explored in its own right. Shulgin went on to develop a new synthesis method, and in 1976, introduced the chemical to Leo Zeff, a psychologist from Oakland, California. Zeff used the substance in his practice in small doses as an aid to talk therapy. Zeff introduced the substance to hundreds of psychologists around the nation, including Ann Shulgin, whom Alexander Shulgin met in 1979, and married in 1981.

After judicious self-experiments, Shulgin enlisted a small group of friends with whom he regularly tested his creations, starting in 1960. They developed a systematic way of ranking the effects of the various drugs, known as the Shulgin Rating Scale, with a vocabulary to describe the visual, auditory and physical sensations. He personally tested hundreds of drugs, mainly analogues of various phenethylamines (family containing MDMA and mescaline), and tryptamines (family containing DMT and psilocybin). There are a seemingly infinite number of slight chemical variations, all of which produce variations in effect—some pleasant and some unpleasant, depending on the person, substance, and situation—all of which are meticulously recorded in Shulgin's lab notebooks. Shulgin published many of these objective and subjective reports in his books and papers.

In 1994, two years after the publication of PiHKAL, the DEA raided his lab. The agency requested that Shulgin turn over his license for violating the license's terms, and he was fined $25,000 for possession of anonymous samples sent to him for quality testing. In the 15 years preceding the publication of PiHKAL, two announced and scheduled reviews failed to find any irregularities.  Richard Meyer, spokesman for DEA's San Francisco Field Division, has stated that, "It is our opinion that those books are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs. Agents tell me that in clandestine labs that they have raided, they have found copies of those books."

(wikipedia)

---

Quote:

---

Richard Hilary Kemp was born June 17, 1943 in Bedford, England.

The date is from the book "Operation Julie" by Dick Lee and Colin Pratt, published in 1978. Dick Lee was the lead investigator who busted Bott and Kemp.

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Operation Julie was a UK police investigation into the production of LSD by two drug rings during the mid-1970s. The operation, involving 11 police forces over a two-and-a-half year period, resulted in the break-up of one of the largest LSD manufacturing operations in the world. It culminated in 1976 in 6 million 'tabs' of LSD (worth a then £100 million) being seized, 120 people arrested in the UK and France and over £800,000 discovered in Swiss bank accounts.

Background

The principal suspects were Dr. Richard Hilary Kemp, a chemist and graduate of the University of St Andrews. and his partner Christine Bott. They lived at Penlleinau, two miles from Tregaron and both were influenced by the teachings of Timothy Leary and the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.

Distribution of the LSD was the responsibility Alston Frederick Hughes (known as Smiles) and Paul Healy (know as Buzz) who lived in Llanddewi Brefi. Dyfed-Powys Police became suspicious about the low price of LSD in their region as well as the amount of LSD being seized compared to the rest of the UK and got in touch with Detective Inspector Dick Lee of the Thames Valley Drug Squad.

Dick Lee asked Dyfed-Powys Police to raid Alston Hughes house in Llanddewi Brefi. However, Lee was late for the raid and phoned the local police to pass on a message to the local police. His call was taken by the wife of the local policeman who after being told of the urgency of the call, promptly went to Alston Hughes house to ask if her husband was there. This was before the raid and Hughes took advantage of this to remove any drugs in his home.

In April 1975 Kemp’s red Range Rover was involved in a fatal accident with a car near Machynlleth, a passenger in the other car being killed. Kemp was known to DI Lee as a possible suspect in the drug’s trade and when police searched his car they found six pieces of paper which after being reconstructed spelt hydrazine hydrate - a key ingredient in the manufacture of LSD. This crucial lead gave police their first vital clue into the drug ring operating in west Wales.

Operation Julie

The discovery in Kemp’s car prompted the establishment of Britain's first combined drug busting operation lead by Dick Lee.  On February 17, 1976 a meeting at Brecon involved a number of chief constables and senior drug squad officers formed a multiforce operation. This was the beginning of Operation Julie.

In April 1976, a selection of 28 undercover drug squad officers from 10 police forces were chosen and sent to Devizes in Wiltshire where they were trained to go undercover as hippies in Wales. In May 1976, the undercover police moved into a farmhouse in Bronwydd overlooking Kemp's cottage.  Initially locals took them for birdwatchers but as the undercover operation progressed from weeks into months, female officers were added. The first name of one of these surveillance officers, Police Sergeant Julie Taylor, was used as the operation’s code name.

Surveillance of Kemp noted his regular 50-mile commutes between his home in Tregaron and Plas Llysyn, an old mansion owned by an American friend Paul Joseph Arnaboldi, in Carno near Llanidloes. The mansion was watched by police from an old caravan and people arriving were monitored. Lee instructed police to break-in to the mansion. In the cellar police took water samples which chemically matched LSD samples the police had.

Kemp and Bott’s home was now put under 24 hour surveillance and listening devices installed. As a direct result of this a drug/cash handover was overheard that was to take place at the Ram Inn in Cwmann between Alston Hughes and a Russell Spenceley. The meeting saw a package of 50 thousand microdots exchanged.

London Connection

In October, 1976 a police team based at RAF Hendon monitored a house (first from a van, then from a house overlooking the property) in Seymour Road, Hampton Wick. This was an LSD lab run by Henry Barclay Todd and Andrew Munro, an inorganic chemist. Glass utensils used in this lab had been secretly marked by police at the factory that produced them in Yorkshire.

Raids, arrests and trial

On March 26, 1977, after 13 months of surveillance, Operation Julie officers swooped on 87 homes in England and Wales. The gang leaders were caught and a total of 120 suspects were arrested. At Kemp's home a package containing £11,000 was found as well LSD crystals and tableting equipment. At Carno, lab equipment was dug out of a well. A further raid in the Dordogne region in France located documents that detailed and proved the LSD business had been immense. Various details of French and Swiss accounts were found as well as share certificates.

On December 1, 1977, officers researched Kemp's cottage and dug up a large plastic box that contained 1.3kg of LSD crystal - enough to create 13 million doses.

In 1978, 17 defendants appeared at Bristol Crown Court. It took a month for the prosecution to deliver the incriminating evidence. Kemp pleaded guilty and received 13 years in jail, as did Todd. Bott got 9 year and Hughes 8 years. Paul Healy was found not to have been involved in the LSD distribution but was sentenced to 12 months for possession of cannabis. In total the 17 defendants received a combined 170 years in jail.

After seizure it was estimated the cost of LSD tabs rose from a £1 to £5, and that Operation Julie had removed 90% of LSD from British market. It is thought that LSD produced by the two labs had been exported to over 100 countries. In total 13 million tabs worth a then 100 million pounds were discovered and destroyed.

Cultural references

A three-part television drama was made in 1985 closely following the events of the case. It was directed by Bob Mahoney.

The Song "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" by The Clash, from their second Album Give 'em Enough Rope, takes its name from Operation Julie.

In December 2010, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys bought the film rights to the book.


(wikipedia)

---

---

• 1966:  Time Magazine publishes article titled "Essay: LSD"
  

Quote:

---

Essay: LSD
Friday, June 17, 1966


Three letters, on a drawing of three cubes, appeared not long ago on a fence at the University of Wisconsin with the slogan: YOUR CAMPUS TRAVEL AGENT—ONE TRIP IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. Just about everyone at Wisconsin knew what kind of "trip" that was: the voyage into "inner space," the flight into or out of the self, provided by LSD.


Read the rest of the article here

---

• 1967:  Day 2 of Monterey Pop Festival
  

Quote:

---

Saturday, June 17. Afternoon

Canned Heat

  1. Rollin' And Tumblin'
  2. Dust My Broom
  3. Bullfrog Blues

Note: Canned Heat set list is incomplete.

Big Brother and the Holding Company

  1. Down On Me
  2. Combination Of The Two
  3. Harry
  4. Roadblock
  5. Ball And Chain

Country Joe and the Fish

  1. Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
  2. Fixin' To Die Rag
  3. The Bomb Song
  4. Section 43

Al Kooper

  1. I Can't Keep From Cryin'
  2. Wake Me Shake Me

The Butterfield Blues Band

  1. Look Over Yonders Wall
  2. Mystery Train
  3. Born In Chicago
  4. Double Trouble
  5. Mary Ann
  6. Droppin' Out
  7. One More Heartache
  8. Driftin' Blues

Note: The Butterfield Blues Band set list is incomplete.

Quicksilver Messenger Service

  1. Dino's Song (All I Ever Wanted To Do)
  2. If You Live
  3. Acapulco Gold And Silver
  4. Too Long
  5. Who Do You Love

Lineup: Jim Murray, Gary Duncan, John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Greg Elmore.

Steve Miller Band

  1. Living In The USA
  2. Mercury Blues

Note: Steve Miller Band set list is complete.

The Electric Flag

  1. Groovin' Is Easy
  2. Over-lovn' You
  3. Nighttime Is The Right Time
  4. Wine

Saturday, June 17. Evening

Moby Grape

  1. Indifference
  2. Mr. Blues
  3. Sitting By The Window
  4. Omaha
  5. Fall On You

Hugh Masekela

  1. Here, There And Everywhere
  2. Society's Child
  3. Healing Song

Note: Hugh Masekela set list is incomplete.

The Byrds

  1. Renaissance Fair
  2. Have You Seen Her Face
  3. Hey Joe
  4. He Was A Friend Of Mine
  5. Lady Friend
  6. Chimes Of Freedom
  7. So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N' Roll Star

Laura Nyro

  1. Wedding Bell Blues
  2. Poverty Train
  3. Eli's Coming

Note: Laura Nyro set list is incomplete.

Jefferson Airplane

  1. Somebody To Love
  2. Other Side Of This Life
  3. White Rabbit
  4. High Flying Bird
  5. Today
  6. She Has Funny Cars
  7. Young Girl Sunday Blues
  8. Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil

Lineup: Paul Kantner (vocals, guitars), Marty Balin (vocals), Jack Casady (Bass), Jorma Kaukonen (guitars, vocals), Spencer Dryden (percussion), Grace Slick (vocals)

Booker T. & the M.G.s

  1. Booker Loo
  2. Hip Hug Her
  3. Philly Dog
  4. Green Onions

Note: Booker T. & the M.G.s set list is incomplete.

Otis Redding

  1. Shake
  2. Respect
  3. I've Been Loving You Too Long
  4. Satisfaction
  5. Try A Little Tenderness

(wikipedia)

---

• 1972:  Ron "Pigpen" McKernan plays his last show with The Grateful Dead
  

Quote:

---

In 1970, McKernan began experiencing symptoms of congenital biliary cirrhosis. After an August 1971 hospitalization, doctors requested that he stop touring indefinitely; pianist Keith Godchaux was subsequently hired and remained a permanent member of the band until 1979. Ever restless, the ailing McKernan rejoined the band in December 1971 to supplement Godchaux on harmonica, percussion, and organ. After their Europe '72 tour, his health had degenerated to the point where he could no longer continue on the road. He made his final concert appearance on June 17, 1972 at the Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles, California.


(wikipedia)

---