Ezekiel Golan tests the drugs he invents on himself on a modern chaise lounge in an office in Vancouver. It's midsummer, and Golan is slouched in front of a giant curved computer monitor chain smoking cigarillos wearing a grey wool toque and thick glasses. 

He comes across as a mad scientist, also known as “Dr. Z” for his long history of pioneering the production of unregulated research chemicals. I’m trying to figure out if one of them was 5-MAPB, which has been popping up on social media as MDMA 2.0 or even Gas Station Molly.

Every surface in his study is covered in clutter. The walls are plastered with patents, modern art, and complicated flowcharts of metabolic pathways. Talking to a genius like Golan means accepting that keeping the conversation on 5-MAPB is ostensibly impossible. 

Every question triggers diatribes in a thick Hebrew accent on why AI will never be as efficient as human metabolism or about his patent for mycorrhizal fungi cultivation. After a sidebar about dolphin communication, Golan confirms he — not David Nichols, as internet rumors claim — synthesized 5-MAPB in 2009, while looking for a way around the tolerance he’d watched people develop after multiple MDMA sessions. 

Golan says people are tired of MDMA after doing it upwards of 50 times. It’s unclear how he arrived at that metric, but one thing is certain: People are finding renewed interest in Golan’s chemical creation, 5-MAPB.

The promise of 5-MAPB is a high similar to MDMA, but much easier to access, as it’s popping up in California headshops, online dispensaries, and obscure corners of Reddit. Enthusiasts describe it as having a gentler comedown than MDMA, with milder stimulant effects, and potentially even producing more loving feelings. 

Chemically similar to MDMA, and part of a group of drugs called “benzofurans,” 5-MAPB was a niche research chemical for drug enthusiasts in the early 2010s. One such person was Tom McCusker, a self-proclaimed psychonaut, who took 5-MAPB during his 7 year phase of trying just about every substance he could find. He obtained the compound through his personal network and, after taking it, started feeling swells of emotion just like one does on MDMA.

"It's less stimulating and it goes by a little slow. It's just a very slower version of [MDMA] for me; like, it's a slow dance," says McCusker. "It definitely lacked that post-MDMA [window when] you're just a zombie for a day or two.”

Judd Weiss, who openly manufactures and sells 5-MAPB in the United States, describes the drug as "more cuddle, less party." He runs an operation called Voyager Labs, and claims it played a role in popularizing other psychedelics on the grey market, such as 4-AcO-DMT, colloquially known as “synthetic shrooms,” that have recently proliferated in edibles products — like gummies, chocolates, mints, and drinks — sold in unregulated dispensaries, gas stations, bodegas, smoke shops, and on the internet.

5-MAPB is Weiss’s latest project, which seems to be a successful endeavor, selling blue pressed pills inside plastic jars and blister packs to headshops and through an online store that ships across the United States. Weiss is cavalier about openly selling 5-MAPB, and says he’s not worried about the potential repercussions.

"Everybody was hysterical that we were [selling 4-AcO-DMT],” Weiss says. “Really, they were so scared, so terrified. So we [have been] dealing with that since 2021.".

Legally, Weiss is in untrodden territory. While 5-MAPB is not named as a controlled substance in the United States, it could be considered illegal under the Analog Act, a 1986 law saying substances that have a chemical structure “substantially similar” and a similar function to a controlled substance could be treated as illegal, meaning manufacture or possession may carry severe consequences.

Barine Majewska, Counsel and Head of Psychedelic and Emerging Therapies Practice Group at Vicente LLP says she doesn’t see the Analog Act used often, “But I definitely know of cases where, you know, DEA agents have knocked on a door and threatened the Analog Act to get people to cooperate. So it's definitely part of their muscle that they're very comfortable threatening.”

Weiss is ready for that to happen. He is no stranger to the courts, having navigated several previous legal battles. He is also a longtime Libertarian party member who campaigned for John McAfee in 2016, Weiss says drug manufacture and distribution is advocacy for a more transparent market for accessible drugs, like 5-MAPB. 

"Our focus now is decrim, but we can show that this whole space can be cleaned up rather dramatically," says Weiss, referring to the unregulated drugs sold on the grey market through headshops and online dispensaries.

The grey market sells psilocybin mushroom grow kits, 4-AcO-DMT, and THC extracts, such as delta-8. In recent years the market has grown into a wild west of products stuffed with "non-detects," or chemicals that won't show up on standard drug panels used by employers screening for drugs or at labs that test the potency of products.

Some grey market brands will provide potency tests or screenings for toxins. Caleb King, co-founder and analytical chemist at Tryptomics, a lab currently testing 5-MAPB, says potency testing is just the start of sourcing a safe product. In the pharmaceutical industry, for example, companies follow the “Current Good Manufacturing Process,” a protocol that tests multiple stages of production, from safety of raw materials to potency of final products. 

King says comprehensive screening is expensive and there is little incentive for brands to voluntarily do it for 5-MAPB. “I think It will come eventually, but it's definitely a tough sell at first when it's not required.” 

Weiss is proud of transparently labeling his 5-MAPB products, showing the exact dosage of each pill, along with dosing instructions, and publicly posting tests of at least one batch of 5-MAPB. His packaging includes a warning that says: “Overconsumption can cause dehydration, hyperthermia, and worse. Don’t fuck around and find out.” 

While interviewing Weiss, it’s difficult to separate the activist from the businessman. He doesn’t like talking about risks associated with consuming 5-MAPB, but when pressed, he concedes, “the safety risk is really around dehydration.” He says not to take the drug more than once per month and to avoid microdosing it. This is consistent with recommendations for MDMA frequency and concerns about MDMA microdosing. 

While there’s a dearth of clinical research on 5-MAPB, we know that it is not risk free. Published reports on 5-MAPB warn of side effects and hospitalizations in line with what one would expect from MDMA or similar drugs. 5-MAPB has a significant effect on serotonin creating open, empathetic, loving sensations. Anecdotes suggest 5-MAPB has less stimulant effects than MDMA at regular doses, although studies show it impacts dopamine and norepinephrine and, particularly at higher doses, it can act as a stimulant. 

"One thing we have found is that, like MDMA, 5-MAPB can cause a long-lasting lowering of serotonin in rats if you push the dose high enough,” says Matthew Baggot, CEO of Tactogen, a public benefit company with a pipeline of compounds similar to 5-MAPB in preclinical trials. “Many of the cautions about MDMA seem to apply to 5-MAPB." 

Baggot worked alongside renowned chemist Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, who popularized MDMA in the ‘70s, and inspired folks like Golan. Tactogen is millions of dollars deep in developing FDA-approved treatments for alcoholism, eating disorders, and cluster headaches with MDMA as its proprietary compound. 

Baggot has publicly opposed the scheduling of grey market psychedelics by the FDA. He comes at 5-MAPB from a different angle than Weiss, particularly when it comes to unleashing a drug on the grey market.

“Honestly, I have mixed feelings,” he says. “Accurately dosed entactogens [drugs that produce feelings of emotional openness, connection, and empathy], which these products claim to be, should be good harm reduction compared to mystery pills. And I expect people are having valuable experiences, but I don't love some people confusing grey or black market 5-MAPB with our work.”

5-MAPB is but one of many compounds populating America’s grey market, and one of hundreds of obscure substances known worldwide. The UN Report on Drugs details over 700 “new psychoactive substances” and notes they are proliferating faster than ever. 

For a long time, drugs like 5-MAPB were a niche psychonaut hobby. Now, it could be the foundation for new FDA-approved drugs and proving to be a fortuitous opportunity for grey-market producers like Weiss. While 5-MAPB is creating interesting business opportunities, it also appears to be a very complicated workaround to the fact that MDMA is illegal and difficult to safely procure. 

Meanwhile, in the few weeks between interviewing Weiss and publishing this article, Weiss’s brand has released several more novel compounds. 

“We're just in a really weird enforcement climate right now. This is probably the most pro-psychedelic administration we've ever had, maybe that we'll ever have. And I can go on Instagram right now and buy just plain old, like controlled substances, plain old psilocybin, and no one's even shutting that down,” says Barine Majewska from Vicente LLP, adding that legal classical psychedelics like MDMA are a more likely long-term scenario than the grey market continuing unregulated.

Golan, the chemist, seemed unconcerned with any of it, even bored that someone was still asking about a drug he moved past a decade ago. Even MDMA is passé for a psychonaught like him, and he says profit was never the motive. And besides, he assures me as I’m leaving the haze of his office, he is working on far more exciting new drugs anyways.

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