The Shulgin Rating Scale is a simple scale for reporting the subjective effect of psychoactive substances at a given dosage, and at a given time. The system was developed for research purposes by the American biochemist Alexander Shulgin

Alexander Shulgin

Alexander "Sasha" Theodore Shulgin 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...

 and detailed in his book PiHKAL

PiHKAL

PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story is a book by Dr. Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin which was published in 1991. The subject of the work is psychoactive phenethylamine chemical derivatives, notably those that act as psychedelics and/or empathogen-entactogens...

 (Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved: A Chemical Love Story).

PiHKAL Excerpt

Usage

Shulgin Ratings typically include four components. An identification of the chemical being ingested, a dosage, and a descriptive narrative including the ratings themselves used to describe various moments in time. The chemical itself must be clearly identified, preferably using chemical nomenclature, as opposed to popular or 'street' names. The dosage must be known and communicated, as substances may result in wildly different ratings at different doses. The rating itself gives a comparable value relating to the subjective intensity of the experience, including auditory, visual, emotional, mental, physical and other sensory effects. The narrative may include various Shulgin ratings, noting the time to achieve various levels, for instance.

External links

• PiHKAL at erowid.org