Dex, må jeg smide billedet på andre fora der huser kaktifiler?

JUST AFTER sunset on a cool California evening last fall, Alexander Shulgin prepared to test the effects of the cactus Pachycereus pringlei on himself, his wife, and 10 other subjects. The group, which included two chemists and an anthropologist, gathered in the living room of a redwood house deep in the woods to help Shulgin with his research into psychedelic cacti. A few months earlier, the anthropologist had told Shulgin that this particular variety was worth looking into — a cave painting in Mexico suggested it might have psychoactive properties. Through chromatography, Shulgin determined that P. pringlei probably was a mild psychedelic, but "the establishment of its human pharmacology requires that it be consumed by man." So Shulgin dissolved the extract of the cactus into fruit juice, then poured a 4-ounce cup for each person. But his experiment went awry. "At about the two-hour point, my visual experiences became totally swamped by an overwhelming fear of moving," recalls Shulgin, the 77-year-old chemist who introduced ecstasy to the world. His wife, Ann, had an even more severe reaction. Out on the deck, she remembers, "I could see the full moon shining down on me with what felt like chilling contempt, and I thought, What an awful, stupid way to die." With her pulse racing, she went inside to check on her husband, who was upstairs in one of the bedrooms, lying still in the dark. "He said he was OK as long as he didn't move." Early the next morning, Shulgin assembled his test group, still in pajamas, to assess the effects of the cactus extract. All 12 of them had taken the same compound, but half had become violently ill, while the other six had the kind of pleasant but unremarkable experience Shulgin expected. The results, he decided, were inconclusive.