In Cecil’s classic column at http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_227.html, he addresses the question of whether chocolate gives you the same kind of “high” you feel when you’re in love. Chocolate contains a chemical called phenylethylamine, which is present in the brains of people who are in love, so Klein and Liebowitz hypothesized that ingesting chocolate might raise ones brain-phenylethylamine levels and thereby produce the same kind of feeling. Unfortunately, here’s what Cecil had to say:
Sigh … since I’m unlucky with romance, this seemed like dark news indeed. I was hoping I could just eat chocolate as a kind of “girlfriend pill” that would make me feel like I’d become involved with the woman of my dreams, even though I haven’t had so much as a date since the last millennium.
But then I thought: Maybe there is some other way to get phenylethylamine into my brain besides eating it! What if I had a phenylethylamine patch on my arm or leg, like those estrogen patches or nicotine patches? Would that work? How about if phenylethylamine was in pill form, combined with some other agent that would allow it to survive digestion?
Is there anything out there like that? If I can’t have a real girlfriend, can I have a “substitute” in pill or patch form?
Hey, a chocolate patch! Cool idea. But I doubt the DEA would go for it. It might not be exactly illegal, but I’m betting it would be, if the Drug Lab Mad Scientists keep inventing new designer drugs at the rate they’ve been going. The phrase “phenylethylamine derivatives” might be right up there next to the phrase “ecstasy derivatives” and “opium derivatives”.
2C-B is a Schedule I drug, listed under “Drugs and Chemicals of Concern”.
And, it’s not clear that you can even absorb phenylethylamine and its derivatives through the skin in the first place. http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~djw/SI-SZ.html
Ariocarpus trigonus is one of the “mescaline” or “peyote” cactuses. I can’t find anything that says that mescaline or other drugs in the mescaline family are absorbed through the skin. Generally you ingest them.
It doesn’t look like 2C-B is absorbed through the skin, either. It looks like generally you swallow it, or sometimes snort it, which would put it in contact with your mucous membranes, which are much more absorbent (permeable? what’s the word I want?) than your skin.
Funny you should mention phenylethylamine derivatives. I’ve just discovered that there is a relatively new antidepressant drug out there called venlafaxine (marketed under the trade name Effexor), which is a phenylethylamine derivative!
Since Effexor is taken orally, someone has obviously found a way to make phenylethylamine – or at least, a closely-related phenylethylamine-like molecule – capable of surviving the digestion process. Now … can they put it in chocolate?
Cool idea. But I doubt the DEA would go for it. It might not be exactly illegal, but I’m betting it would be, if the Drug Lab Mad Scientists keep inventing new designer drugs at the rate they’ve been going. The phrase “phenylethylamine derivatives” might be right up there next to the phrase “ecstasy derivatives” and “opium derivatives”.