Two Personal Experiences with 2-CB What you are now reading is a report on our personal experiences with the chemical 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine, or more simply 2-CB, together with this brief introduction, gathered from the scientific literature and personally from psychedelic experimenters. 2-CB (also referred to in the literature as MFT and alpha-desMe DOB, and among some users as bromo-mescaline) was first described by Alexander T. Shulgin (the world expert on structure-activity relationships) and Michael F. Carter in their paper "Centrally Active Phenethylamines" [Psychopharmacology Communications, 1(1), 93-98, 1975]. Shulgin and Carter forwarded 2-CB as a potential agent for use in psychotherapy and psychological research. Unlike some of the other psychoactive drugs, 2-CB is not a hallucinogen and does not interfere with communication skills. Here is a diagram of mescaline next to 2-CB: CH O OCH 3 \____ ____/ 3 // \\ // \\ // \\ // \\ CH O-// \\-CH CH NH Br-// \\-CH CH NH 3 \ / 2 2 2 \ / 2 2 2 \ ____ / \ ____ / \____/ \____/ CH O/ CH O/ 3 3 Mescaline 2-CB --------- ---- 2-CB is the two-carbon homolog of 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyamphetamine (PBR or 4-BR). PBR is an isopropylamine compound and 2-CB is a phenethylamine. From the subjects of the study, it was determined that the threshold oral dose was 4 mg, the effective dose was 8 to 10 mg., and the duration of action was 6 to 8 hours. We now quote from Shulgin and Carter's "Results and Discussion" section: "Rather than showing signs of stimulation, the subject becomes passive and relaxed and is aware of an integration of sensory perception with emotional state (although not experiencing the lassitude characteristic of psilocybin), there are no effects that can be called hallucinogenic. At these dose levels there is a considerable euphoria with an increased body awareness and increased receptiveness of visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile sensation. The integration of sensory and emotional states induces in most subjects a feeling of security and an ability to cope with incidents and experiences that might have led, with drugs such as LSD, to a state of anxiety and possible panic. [...] At the end of the experience [...] the subject appears to be alert, relaxed, and content." Surprisingly little has been written about 2-CB since, however, there is a rich oral tradition amongst the members of the underground culture. Psychedelic experimenters classify 2-CB as a phenethylamine and an entactogen. Contraindications include psychoactive drug use within 4-5 days and concurrent use of MAO inhibitors. We personally don't know the basis for these warnings -- we guess that recent use of psychedelics will produce a tolerance to 2-CB, and that there is a potential health hazard in combining MAO inhibitors with 2-CB. MDMA can be taken immediately before 2-CB without diluting it's effects. (MDMA enthusiasts: a 1000 mg. of calcium and/or magnesium orotate an hour or so beforehand should take care of jaw-clenching and eye-tracking side-effects usually associated with MDMA.) The recommended oral dose of 2-CB is 15 to 25 mg (approximately twenty times the potency of mescaline). The recommended nasal dose is 10 mg., but this tends to have two side effects: (1) a burning feeling in the nose, which may be eased with a little water, and (2) a rapid psychedelic onset. A typical oral dose is 20 mg. with one hour to onset, four hours to plateau, and six hours to baseline. Like with other psychedelics, the effects may be diminished if your body is digesting food. Effects include: an increased sense of touch, mild ego dissolution, mild visual effects, insights into personal makeup, with lucidity and communication skills retained. Side-effects are an altered sense of time and space perception. One needs only to find and read the next two papers on 2-CB to see what is happening in the U.S. with respect to scientific research. There is a paper called "4-Bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine: Identification of a New Street Drug" by Ragan, Hite, Samuels, and Garey [Journal of Analytical Toxicology, Vol. 9, 91-93, 1985] which mis-characterizes 2-CB based on information obtained by the police. This paper offers nothing to help us here, but provides the identification information to put you away for a long time should the police find you with this therapeutic substance. The next paper is called "A Preliminary Investigation of the Psychoactive Agent 4-Bromo-2,5-Dimethoxyphenethylamine: A Potential Drug of Abuse" by Glennon, Titeler, and Lyon [Pharmacology, Biochemistry & Behavior, Vol. 30, 597-601, 1988] and is representative of the way the DEA and realities of funding affect scientific papers. This is your basic rat experiment paper, but they conclude with the sentence, "The present results are not, however, inconsistent with the possibility that alpha-desMe DOB [2-CB] may be psychoactive agent with abuse potential", and of course everything after the colon in the title is unsupported as well. The paper also perpetuates the errors of the previous 1985 paper. The conclusion that 2-CB is abusable derives from their results on receptor binding, and on the fact that rats trained to discriminate STP (DOM) from saline will generalize this learning to 2-CB (when they don't just forget about lever pressing entirely.) -------- Epilogue: Only hours before posting this, we found a paper today called "2-CB: A Novel Psychotropic Substance" by Jovita Laboratories, Inc. in Volume Two of "Psychedelic Monographs and Essays" (Summer 1987). Two things they point out are that as of their writing (Autumn, 1986) 2-CB was not illegal, but we now know that it was specifically placed in Schedule I by the DEA since then. They also point out that the full dose for an average adult is recognized to be 15-20 mg. They conclude with: "However, 2CB is one of the very few compounds that can be synthesized with astonishing simplicity." /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ / \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \ ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| \ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ / \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ Hello, my name is Jose and this is my 2-CB trip report. I've never had a psychedelic drug, so this was my first. Perhaps some brief background information is in order. I tried marijuana many, many moons ago when I was a freshman in college and nearly blacked-out, and of course I've had many experiences with low-grade alcohol intoxication. A little over a year ago I decided to experiment with marijuana and found it to be quite pleasant, but smoking even through a water pipe does not thrill me. I've experimented quite a bit with non-drug induced methods of change, but will not go into them here. I was given the opportunity to try hashish not too long ago, by my friend David, and absolutely loved the effects on my consciousness. I have wanted to try psilocybin-containing mushrooms for some time now -- maybe some time this year in the right setting. Before embarking into the unknown with 2-CB, I had a full physical and psychiatric evaluation, just to be safe. Given the `okay' from the docs and armed with some book knowledge ("The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience" by Masters and Houston, "In the Magic Land of Peyote" by Fernando Benitez, "The Psychedelic Experience" by Leary, Metzner, and Alpert, "The Teachings of don Juan" by Carlos Castaneda, plus some others), I was waiting for the `right time'. When I met up with an urban shaman named Fuegio, I knew it was the `right time' and my soft plans of taking it this summer went to the wind. I took him to a good Indian restaurant the day before, and we ate our last meal before fasting. I knew that Fuegio might be including some others in our party, but for the most part, we didn't talk about it. It was now the day of no return and Fuegio and I talked about where we might go. We prepared our day packs, and Fuegio made some impromptu telephone calls, and then I made one call -- it would only be Fuegio, myself, and my friend David. We snatched David from his house and then went on a roadtrip to a place I had suggested in the mountains. After we got there, Fuegio told me to pour the tiny amount (20 mg.) of 2-CB out just under my tongue and to hold it there. Fuegio had done the same and we all talked about what David should do, since he was still digesting food from lunch. He would wait, perhaps sniffing the 2-CB. The 2-CB tasted slightly metallic as it mixed with my saliva, and I drank some water to wash it down; it tasted sort of like a zipper I used to suck on when I was in 2nd grade. We followed a trail up into the mountains and we all began to perspire under the midday sun. As we walked, the only thing that I could feel was the sense that I was somehow taller, just a little but more than usual. From looking down at my feet and the trail, I'd say three inches taller, to be exact. I noticed my stomach grumble a little, but I thought this was more from not eating than from the 2-CB. As we walked, we saw wonderful plants and insects all over the place, and many lizards out sunning themselves. We talked about consensus reality as we headed further into the mountains. I was wondering when I would really start to feel it. We stopped for some water and Feugio told me to close my eyes. I did, and although it was bright out, I could see delicate recursive-like patterns that were red in color. It was happening! With a little more concentration and a few more seconds with my eyes closed, the patterns or structures were much clearer -- they were undulating very slightly and looked sort of like dense root growth, but highly geometric. When I opened my eyes I felt a little bit more centered and slightly euphoric. In addition to being even taller, I was also lighter. We kept hiking and talked about the current drug hysteria and fascism in this country. Feugio, who had been treating us to witty but true comments along our hike, remarked that there was not a drug problem in the U.S., that there were plenty of drugs! Feugio called to the crows when they'd come by. David sat down to take his 2-CB, but Fuegio stopped him, since we were still not in a good out-of-the-way place, and if he took it nasally, the psychedelic onset would be very fast (approximately 10 minutes), and he would not want to move. We talked and hiked further. David went for the under-the-tongue method. I was definitely feeling quite good -- relaxed, content, definitely more centered and `in-touch' with myself. Holding my hands out before me and turning them held a peculiar fascination. With my fingers separated and hands symmetrically in front of me, I could feel the structures that were more pronounced with my eyes closed. Smelling plants and flowers was much more enriching than usual. Warmth and a feeling of lightness filled my body. I could also feel a definite smile plastered across my face. We came upon a subterranean bee colony, which the bees were entering through a small hole in the baked mud and rock. We went up to it and bees swarmed all around us. The sounds were wonderful. We also saw a large hawk make an impressive dive way off in the distance. Fuegio made particular note of this. Eventually we found a spot next to a cliff and sat down in the dried grass. I was definitely there, and when I closed my eyes the patterns were much more vivid than before and much more striking. There were definite feelings of being in communion with everything around us. I described how I felt to David and Feugio as feeling like a mesh cloth had been draped over and through me, sort of bell shaped, and that it petered out into the ground a few feet from me. So this is the psychedelic experience? I started to say that it was very subtle and not at all like I envisioned it to be -- very intense and the like -- but before I could finish explaining, I contradicted myself and said that it was. Still a moment later, I flipped again, thinking that 2-CB was much more like a vitamin than my impression of LSD (having never taken it myself) -- this was a very subtle change in consciousness, not totally unfamiliar. Fuegio mentioned a `looping' phenomenon and I was definitely feeling that. He said something like -- if you have a problem, you'll either work through it or it will pass, but if it passes you'll find yourself coming back to later, even long after the the drug experience. I definitely worked my way through some things! And it was intensely wonderful to be having conversations when feeling this way. That's the one thing that I didn't like about marijuana, that it messed so much with my ability to communicate verbally to others. Fuegio, David, and I talked a lot about all sorts of things and, indeed, there was no ordinary sense of time. I talked about my rather limited drug experiences and Fuegio was pleasantly shocked to discover that this was my first psychedelic. After talking more, but just after that, I felt a great bond with Fuegio as we both discovered that we shared something remarkable in common. (I'm sorry I can't explicate here, but rest assured that it was truly remarkable!) We also talked about growing up and our pasts, and it was nice to watch David's face when he discovered that Fuegio was much, much older than he thought. Fuegio and I enjoyed a little hash to synergize our visual perceptions. (David was still on his way up.) Eventually we decided to walk back down the trail, but just after we started, we were treated to something truly extraordinary. Right in front of our faces, a small blur headed across the trail (towards our right) followed by a large blur in hot pursuit. Fuegio called out `red fox' in amazement, which was chasing a small bunny rabbit, but in a split second they both crossed the trail again (to the left) we all knew that it was a great bobcat! And then they were gone. Fuegio was delighted -- that we had been in the presence of such a good omen. /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ | /\ / \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \ ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| \ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ / \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ | \/ I'm David. This was also my first experience with 2-CB. The air was chill, perfect for a hike. On the short walk up to the trail, we found a couple standing near the branches of a small tree with orange fruits hanging from it. They gave us a few of what the tree had given them. Jose and Fuegio wanted to wait, and keep their stomaches empty, but I gave in and bit the soft sweet tart flesh. Delicious, I ran to the tree and got a few for my pocket. We continued up to the trail, and then began our ascent. We occasionally passed other hikers coming down. The air was a little hazy; you could see distant slopes, but not clearly. My friends had dosed at the car, but I waited, thinking I would sniff mine. I wanted to get to ridge first. The rocks were peculiar. Fuegio said puddingstone, and the name seemed to fit. Small smooth rocks of fist size and smaller embedded in a soft sandstone. Flora, fauna, and conversation occupied us while we climbed. It was warmer, and we were working. I noticed a yawn from Fuegio, and recognized it from my experiences with mushrooms. He was showing early signs. When we were near the top, we took a small break and I took out my capsule of 2-CB. I decided, instead of sniffing it, to place it under my tongue. It tasted bad, but I expected worse. I didn't drink my bottle of water until much later. I wanted as much to absorb through my mouth as possible for a quicker onset. We continued our trip up, and I could tell my companions were feeling different. We discussed hallucinations, and what constituted one. Fuegio contended that all we see is some kind of personal construction or hallucination. This led to a long thread about the subjective nature of reality, consensus reality, and language. Later I had personal thoughts about the mechanical nature of the soul, which kept returning prompted by small things, like a butterfly or lizard. . . . Most of my psychedelic experience has been with mushrooms (I grew them for 5 years before a move killed the culture). For quickest onset, and least gastric distress, I usually made tea from my mushrooms. With mushrooms I would yawn, my eyes tear, stomach tighten, and I would feel I needed to pee, during the early part of the trip. Also with mushrooms, I usually needed to take a much larger dose than usual to have full effect (with remarkable exceptions.) 20 mg of 2-CB sublingualy (two hours after a large meal) gave me no more "body" effects than a slightly tight stomach. The mental effect was very smooth. No anxiety or difficulty speaking (although sometimes the limitations of language showed themselves). Whether it was my refractory nature, my full stomach, or just the vagaries of psychedelics, I felt a larger dose was called for. When I've underdosed on mushrooms, though, I have a kind of antsy feeling, like I'm floating without my feet on the ground, but failed to reach escape velocity. There was none of this discomfort with 2-CB. I felt very comfortable with Jose and Fuegio. There was usually some conversation, with one or another of us drifting into reverie. I visited the tree again as we left, and left a coin as a small token of my thanks. I will plant the seed of the orange fruit. I quite enjoyed the frame of mind I reached with 2-CB, and will seek it again. David /s