# Girlfriend pills? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 19, 2001, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160 "2001-11-19T05:43:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2001, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160/1 "2001-11-19T05:43:50Z")
In Cecil’s classic column at [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2\_227.html](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: > [@](#): > > Other research has failed to confirm the Klein-Liebowitz hypothesis. One study found that phenylethylamine levels in the blood failed to rise after people consumed chocolate, suggesting that most of the chemical is metabolized during digestion and never reaches the brain. Klein and Liebowitz therefore set about doing another study, the results of which I will pass along when they become available. _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? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2001, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160/2 "2001-11-19T15:55:22Z")
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”. [http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/desi02a.htm](http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/desi02a.htm) > [@](#): > > The Future Synthetic Drugs Of Abuse > Designer Drugs - part 2 of 3 > By Donald A. Cooper > From The DEA > > The naturally occurring hallucinogenic protoalkaloid, mescaline, is 2-(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)ethylamine. Structural modifications which impart hallucinogenic activity to phenylethylamines have been studied and a considerable quantity of that data is easily retrieved. > > The following constitutes a brief review of some of the most salient concepts relative to hallucinogenic activity chemical structure relationships within the family of phenylethylamine derivatives… [http://www.law.wisc.edu/rcid/resourcecenter/statutes/WIST961\_ScheduleI.htm](http://www.law.wisc.edu/rcid/resourcecenter/statutes/WIST961_ScheduleI.htm) > [@](#): > > (4) Hallucinogenic substances. > wg) 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxy-beta-phenylethylamine, commonly known as “2C-B” or “Nexus”; 2C-B is a Schedule I drug, [listed](http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drugs_concern/bromo_dmp/summary.htm) 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](http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~djw/SI-SZ.html) > [@](#): > > Speir, W. W.; Mihranian, V.; McLaughlin, J. L. (1970) Cactus alkaloids. > VII. Isolation of hordenine and > n-methyl-3,4-dimethoxy-beta-phenylethylamine from Ariocarpus trigonus. > Lloydia 33:15-18 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. ---
**Author:** ![Dial\_Tone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b38774/32.png) [@Dial\_Tone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dial_Tone)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2001, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160/3 "2001-11-19T16:07:12Z")
tracer, Maybe you could buy one of those life-size chocolate women. ? ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2001, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160/4 "2001-11-19T18:13:01Z")
Hollow, or marshmallow filled? (Ah, who’m I kidding? I’d nibble off all the good parts first, and **then** where would I be?) ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2001, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160/5 "2001-11-19T19:12:56Z")
Ah, you mean you’d nibble off her _brain_ first, so all you’d be left with would be a brainless female body… wait a minute… ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160/6 "2001-11-20T03:45:22Z")
Duck Duck Goose wrote: > [@](#): > > The phrase “phenylethylamine derivatives” might be right up there next to the phrase “ecstasy derivatives” and “opium derivatives”. 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? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2001, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160/7 "2001-11-29T05:41:49Z")
A familiar phenylethylamine derivative is dexamphetamine sulphate, _Trucker’s Little Helper_[sup] tm[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2001, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girlfriend-pills/94160/8 "2001-12-03T23:47:59Z")
Hrm … so, at least one P.E.A. derivative is a member of the amphetamine family, and would thus be a stimulant (and perhaps also a hallucinogen)? I wonder if straight P.E.A. also acts in an amphetamine-like manner. Are there I.V. drug users who shoot up P.E.A.?