The first time I tried 2C-B, I was at a punk rock show; I threw back the pills as we walked to the venue. 2C-B was both mild and intense, depending on the moment. "The lights dimmed and brightened, forcing a woman’s leopard-print coat to feather and contract with the shadows," I later wrote of the night. "An image decorating the wall of a woman with her hands pushed forward seemed to reach out and grab at the crowd." I experienced light psychedelic visuals, moments of paranoia, euphoria, and at one point anger, when an idiot playing pool kept getting in the way of the concertgoers. My body felt warm, electric, and sensitive to the touch, and the objects and people I looked at seemed to expand and contract in a moment.

The 2C family of drugs has a complex and sometimes controversial past. They are synthetic psychedelics in the phenylethylamine class. They were first synthesized by the late Alexander Shulgin around 1974, who is known for popularizing MDMA. Like MDMA, 2C drugs were first utilized for therapeutic purposes among Shulgin and his colleagues and later became known as club drugs. No official clinical trials were done, but there was some experimentation. Rumor has it that a German company distributed 2C-B in the 1980s for use as an aphrodisiac called "Eros." If this is true, there are no records of it.

(Lukas Kästner)

When MDMA was banned in the US in 1985, 2C drugs became a quick replacement in the club scene. As was the case for many synthetic drugs, 2C drugs’ existence wasn’t well-known among government officials — which meant they weren’t illegal for some time. The main 2C varieties were eventually named as Schedule 1 drugs and became illegal around 1994. Also, like many synthetic drugs, renegade chemists began creating slightly different versions of the drugs so they could claim to sell a legal version.

Since the 1990s, a lot of other illegal drugs — MDMA, marijuana, LSD, and psilocybin — have been more widely studied by the medical research community. The 2C family has been an exception, though. At least in part because of a lack of knowledge around the family, some compounds have caused overdoses that can end in death. Some experts claim the deaths associated with the original 2C varieties should actually be attributed to tainted versions of the drugs, as investigators may have misidentified what kind of 2C it was — but problems can happen when too much of any 2C is taken. Altered versions of the original 2C types can also be significantly more potent, and one known physiological effect is a dangerously elevated heart rate. Problems can also occur when 2C drugs are taken with other substances.

Overdoses related to the derivative 2C-I-NBOMe have been widely publicized; users apparently often thought they were taking LSD. Some experts told The Verge it’s easier to overdose on drugs like 2C-I than it is drugs like MDMA, since it’s more potent. But with the correct dosage, 2C-I is typically regarded as being as safe as MDMA among Erowid users — a group with an interest in psychoactive chemicals.

Around 2000, three deaths were recorded related to the 2C-T–7 derivative. Shulgin, who was still alive at the time, expressed his frustration over what amateur chemists were doing to his promising creation. "I’m disturbed by the fact that you get someone who wants to make a pile of money and doesn’t give a damn about the safety or the purity," he told The Guardian at the time. "It’s a motivation that I’m uncomfortable with. People using psychedelics, I’m not uncomfortable with. I consider it a very personal exploration. But I’m very disturbed by the overpowering of curiosity with greed." Shulgin’s creation, which he believed had serious therapeutic potential, became the synthetic killer of its time.

(Erich Ferdinand)

MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has shown promise as a treatment for disorders like PTSD and anxiety in clinical studies. Shulgin always believed 2C drugs could provide similar benefits. "[2C-B] is, in my opinion, one of the most graceful, erotic, sensual, introspective compounds I have ever invented," he said during an interview with the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics in 2003. "For most people, it is a short-lived and comfortable psychedelic, with neither toxic side effects nor next-day hangover. Its effects are felt very much in the body, as well as in the mind, and thus it has found clinical use as a follow-up to MDMA." MDMA could be used to help people identify their problems during therapy — then 2C-B could be administered to help them open up the "emotional, intuitive, and archetypal" areas of the brain to help them solve those problems, Shulgin said.

That’s because when 2Cs were born, no one did any major investigations regarding medical uses of the class — or even toxicity. Even though MDMA and other compounds are relatively under-studied, enough information existed to suggest they might benefit some people. But because no similar studies have been conducted on 2Cs, there’s no hint the drugs may have therapeutic benefits.