Alexander Sasha Shulgin was a Harvard-educated biochemist who synthesized and personally tested more than 200 psychoactive compounds. A strange 1944 placebo experience with sugar-laced orange juice hinted at his lifelong fascination with the mind.

This episode follows his path from Dow Chemical, where he invented a blockbuster pesticide, to a backyard laboratory, a federal research license, and the publication that ended his career.

• Inventing the pesticide sold as Zectran, which funded his research freedom
• Discovering DOM and the STP public health crisis in San Francisco
• Holding a Schedule I license while consulting for the DEA
• Reintroducing and resynthesizing the forgotten molecule MDMA in 1976
• Publishing PIHKAL, the 1994 farm raid, and his cognitive liberty stance