ANN SHULGIN
Without Ann Shulgin and her fourth husband Alexander (Sasha), today’s renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs might not have happened. Ann was born in New Zealand to an American diplomat and New Zealand mother and led a peripatetic existence, moving with her father’s postings until the family settled in San Francisco. There she trained as an artist and worked as a medical transcriber. Although she encountered psychedelics in her 20s, describing her first mescaline experience as “one extraordinary blessed day”, it wasn’t until she met Sasha, a research chemist with a licence for classified drugs, at a party in 1978 that her interest became more than casual. Bonding over their shared interest, the couple married in 1981 and set about serious drug
