“There’s only one source for this stuff, the adrenalin glands from a living human body.” That bit of misinformation found in Hunter. S Thompson’s 1971 psychedelic classic, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” likely planted the seed that grew into one of the most outlandish and repugnant of all conspiracy theories. That would be the ludicrous QAnon claim that Hollywood celebrities and “liberal elite” politicians are kidnapping children to harvest their blood. QAnon is a not-so-fringe, baseless theory that a government agent, “Q,” is a source of continuous information about “deep state” secrets such as the existence of a global cabal of pedophiles who thirst for the blood of children. Why? The farcical QAnon rationale is that they are using the blood as a source of adrenochrom, a chemical that supposedly has psychedelic properties and also holds the promise of immortality.

How did Thompson come to involve adrenochrom in his story in the first place, describing it as “making pure mescaline seem like ginger beer?” Somewhere along the line he likely came across the work of Canadian psychiatrists Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond who in the 1950s had noted a similarity between the symptoms of schizophrenia and the effects of mescaline, a naturally occurring hallucinogen found in the peyote cactus.
Mescaline is not produced by the body, but the two scientists wondered if some substance with a similar molecular structure is produced under some circumstance, possibly causing schizophrenia. Since adrenaline shares a basic molecular structure with mescaline, it was a candidate for involvement. It was clear that adrenaline itself, the famous “flight of fight” hormone that is present in everyone’s bloodstream could not be the culprit, but perhaps some error in its metabolism could produce a mind-altering substance.

A literature search of the chemistry of adrenaline revealed that in the lab it can be oxidized to a compound called adrenochrom, with the “chrome” ending deriving from the Greek word for colour since adrenochrom has a dark violet hue. At this point, the psychiatrists in somewhat of a foolhardy fashion tested the effects of this chemical on themselves. Indeed, adrenochrom produced hallucinations!
Maybe, Hoffer and Osmond theorized, adrenaline is also oxidized in the body to adrenochrom, and due to some faulty biochemistry, the adrenochrom builds up and triggers schizophrenia. Since adrenaline is known to form in the body by the addition of a methyl group (a carbon atom with three hydrogens) to its precursor, noradrenaline, Dr. Hoffer postulated that the B vitamin, niacin, being a methyl acceptor, would stall this reaction. Furthermore, vitamin C, an antioxidant, might prevent adrenaline from being oxidized to adrenochrom. Thus was born the “Adrenochrom Hypothesis of Schizophrenia.”
QAnon is a not-so-fringe, baseless theory that a government agent, “Q,” is a source of continuous information about “deep state” secrets such as the existence of a global cabal of pedophiles who thirst for the blood of children.