When it comes to recreational drugs, many assume that most of the dangerous compounds that people get high on are illegal. But drug makers, dealers, and users know better. They are mining the scientific literature for psychoactive drugs, making them in kitchen labs, and selling them to users on the street. And though this poses a real risk for users, it's perfectly legal. Purdue University chemist David Nichols says he's haunted by the knowledge that his scientific research has led to unsafe--and sometimes even deadly--drug use.
"It's not like you took a gun and shot somebody because then you would know you'd been responsible," he told the BBC, "but people were taking something that you had published and I was alerting them that this might be an active molecule." [BBC News]
In an editorial
in Nature, Nichols discusses how compounds he has developed are being used as street drugs, with ...
