This book is thinner (in every sense) than it's more famous older sibling PIHKAL, but is well worth getting if you're curious about what became of Shulgin after angering the government by publishing PIHKAL. For those with an academic interest in psychedelic drugs, it's almost a mandatory purchase, containing dozens of novel new tryptamine-based psychoactives (including several LSD derivatives), many of which are now available through the so-called research chemical trade. For better or worse, Shulgin's two books are landmark works in the developing relationship between the public, the government, and a dizzying array of new psychoactive drugs.

Alexander Sasha Theodore Shulgin (born June 17, 1925) is an American pharmacologist, chemist, artist, and drug developer. Shulgin is credited with the popularization of MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially for psychopharmaceutical use and the treatment of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In subsequent years, Shulgin discovered, synthesized, and bioassayed over 230 psychoactive compounds. In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL on the topic of psychoactive drugs. Shulgin discovered many noteworthy phenethylamines including the 2C* family of which 2C-T-2, 2C-T-7, 2C-E, 2C-I, and 2C-B are most well known. Additionally, Shulgin performed seminal work into the descriptive synthesis of compounds based on the organic compound tryptamine.