Chemical Warfare Secrets Almost Forgotten
Review from the Erowid Library
© 2006/2007
J.S. Ketchum
J.S. Ketchum
Documenting a Lost Decade of Clinical Research
James Ketchum’s Chemical Warfare is an autobiography of a lead researcher at Edgewood Arsenal during the 1960s, a presentation of some of his key findings, and an apologetic for testing incapacitating agents on military and prisoner volunteers. In addition to providing an important window into the formerly-classified world of US chemical weapons research, Chemical Warfare is a valuable source of information on a plethora of psychoactive compounds, including BZ (QNB), LSD, THC, scopolamine, and atropine. Technical information included in a long Appendix will greatly interest the specialist, particularly toxicologists and pharmacologists.
Despite the technical nature of the material and the gravity of the ethical issues involved, the book is written in a chatty prose that is easily accessible to the layperson. While inviting and amiable, the prose is loose and at times unfocused. This book is a long 360 textbook-size pages, and it could benefit from more ruthless editing.
James Ketchum enlisted in the Army in 1955. After completing his medical training in psychiatry he was assigned to the Edgewood Arsenal near Baltimore, Maryland in 1961. Edgewood was already conducting research into the use of psychoactive drugs when he arrived. Research began in 1957 as a joint operation with the Intelligence Center at Fort Holabird. At that time, researchers began administering LSD to volunteers, some of whom took LSD as many as 20 times in a two-year period.
The Army was primarily interested in LSD as a potential incapacitating agent - something that could bewilder and disable enemy troops with a minimum of bloodshed. Edgewood investigated a number of agents for this purpose, including early experiments with PCP that were apparently discontinued after one civilian research subject suffered paranoid psychosis and had to spend six weeks in the hospital.
In 1960, a year before Ketchum arrived, Edgewood Arsenal began investigating an obscure drug designated EA 2277, more commonly known as 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, QNB, or BZ (apparently short for Benzilate). BZ was first synthesized by the pharmaceutical firm Hoffman-La Roche Inc. as a potential ulcer remedy. It came to the attention of the Army when it was found that very small doses (around 500 ug) produced stupor and delirium lasting for days.
Ketchum quickly became a lead researcher at Edgewood and was given wide latitude to design and implement experiments. He began exploring the effects of eight stereoisomers of THC administered in various combinations, and soon shifted focus to LSD and BZ. Over the next several years he would conduct extensive research on the clinical pharmacology of these compounds with his colleagues. Their work frequently involved drug trials with volunteer subjects. The sessions were closely monitored and analyzed, and many findings are described in this book.
If you are interested in BZ, this is the book for you. It is unlikely that another book will ever focus on BZ in comparable depth. The course of BZ’s effects receives detailed attention and copious description. BZ is a competitive antagonist of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. It acts as an anticholinergic deleriant, generating long-lasting effects that closely resemble those of its tropane alkaloid cousins atropine and scopolamine, the active agents in datura and belladonna. This includes highly idiosyncratic effects such as the impulse to take off one’s clothes, or the impulse to smoke imaginary cigarettes.
The average effective dose is 7-8 ug/kg (roughly 500 ug per average male adult). The onset is slow, lasting roughly 3 hours. By the fourth hour, subjects generally enter a stuporous slumber. Around hour 12, subjects become ambulatory but profoundly disoriented for another day or two, during which time subjects typically experience extreme confusion, hallucinations, and delirium closely resembling datura intoxication. > more
Despite the technical nature of the material and the gravity of the ethical issues involved, the book is written in a chatty prose that is easily accessible to the layperson. While inviting and amiable, the prose is loose and at times unfocused. This book is a long 360 textbook-size pages, and it could benefit from more ruthless editing.
James Ketchum enlisted in the Army in 1955. After completing his medical training in psychiatry he was assigned to the Edgewood Arsenal near Baltimore, Maryland in 1961. Edgewood was already conducting research into the use of psychoactive drugs when he arrived. Research began in 1957 as a joint operation with the Intelligence Center at Fort Holabird. At that time, researchers began administering LSD to volunteers, some of whom took LSD as many as 20 times in a two-year period.
The Army was primarily interested in LSD as a potential incapacitating agent - something that could bewilder and disable enemy troops with a minimum of bloodshed. Edgewood investigated a number of agents for this purpose, including early experiments with PCP that were apparently discontinued after one civilian research subject suffered paranoid psychosis and had to spend six weeks in the hospital.
In 1960, a year before Ketchum arrived, Edgewood Arsenal began investigating an obscure drug designated EA 2277, more commonly known as 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, QNB, or BZ (apparently short for Benzilate). BZ was first synthesized by the pharmaceutical firm Hoffman-La Roche Inc. as a potential ulcer remedy. It came to the attention of the Army when it was found that very small doses (around 500 ug) produced stupor and delirium lasting for days.
Ketchum quickly became a lead researcher at Edgewood and was given wide latitude to design and implement experiments. He began exploring the effects of eight stereoisomers of THC administered in various combinations, and soon shifted focus to LSD and BZ. Over the next several years he would conduct extensive research on the clinical pharmacology of these compounds with his colleagues. Their work frequently involved drug trials with volunteer subjects. The sessions were closely monitored and analyzed, and many findings are described in this book.
If you are interested in BZ, this is the book for you. It is unlikely that another book will ever focus on BZ in comparable depth. The course of BZ’s effects receives detailed attention and copious description. BZ is a competitive antagonist of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. It acts as an anticholinergic deleriant, generating long-lasting effects that closely resemble those of its tropane alkaloid cousins atropine and scopolamine, the active agents in datura and belladonna. This includes highly idiosyncratic effects such as the impulse to take off one’s clothes, or the impulse to smoke imaginary cigarettes.
The average effective dose is 7-8 ug/kg (roughly 500 ug per average male adult). The onset is slow, lasting roughly 3 hours. By the fourth hour, subjects generally enter a stuporous slumber. Around hour 12, subjects become ambulatory but profoundly disoriented for another day or two, during which time subjects typically experience extreme confusion, hallucinations, and delirium closely resembling datura intoxication. > more