Early last February, a 19-year-old sophomore dragged himself into the psychiatric emergency ward at a large American university hospital, complaining that his friends and family were plotting against him. Though the fellow knew his thoughts were irrational, he could not shake his bout of paranoia. He also told the receiving staff that six weeks earlier he had swallowed an unknown amount of 2C-I, a recreational drug that, in his case, produced bright colors and swirling patterns and a suffocating onslaught of cosmic dread. The bad vibes had recurred with increasing ferocity in the intervening weeks, until he finally decided to check himself in.

When a third-year medical student named Jack Ludlow showed up for his shift, the receiving staff were asking themselves the same question that probably just crossed your own mind: What the hell is 2C-I? Luckily, Ludlow knew something about the esoteric world of substance use and abuse among young adults, and identified 2C-I as a rare hallucinogenic phenethylamine. But his search of the usual medical databases for more detailed information turned up zilch. Then he aimed his Web browser toward The Vaults of Erowid , where he found data about the chemical structure of 2C-I and a link to the EU's recent scientific review of the substance. "This information helped us to treat this patient's symptoms," Ludlow wrote in a letter thanking Erowid. "We expect that his symptoms will resolve completely."