Adrenochrome, formula C9H9NO3, is the oxidation product of adrenaline; it is synthesized commercially, is not a controlled substance, and its only medical relative in actual use is the hemostatic carbazochrome. In 1954 Abram Hoffer, Humphry Osmond, and John Smythies proposed the adrenochrome hypothesis of schizophrenia, that the compound acts as an endogenous hallucinogen; small studies reported psychotomimetic effects, but the hypothesis failed to replicate, and in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association's task force reported methodological flaws in the associated megavitamin therapy trials and follow-ups that found no benefit.
Aldous Huxley mentioned adrenochrome in The Doors of Perception (1954) as a spontaneously produced compound that might mimic mescaline; Burgess slipped drencrom into A Clockwork Orange (1962). Then Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) delivered the immortal version: there is only one source for this stuff, the adrenaline glands of a living human body, and it makes pure mescaline seem like ginger beer. Thompson's attorney in the book got it from a client he describes as a Satanism freak. Thompson later told Terry Gilliam, on the film's commentary track, that he made the whole thing up.
The modern claim, traceable in its current form to 2013-2014 imageboard threads grafting adrenochrome onto centuries-old blood libel, and amplified by QAnon adherents and influencers like Liz Crokin, whose drug of the elites formulation circulated widely: Hollywood and political elites allegedly harvest the compound from tortured children, and 2020 lockdown photos of unglamorous celebrities were read as withdrawal symptoms. Fact-checks by Reuters, the Associated Press, and USA Today have rated the claim baseless; USA Today documented a Rogan and Whitney Cummings joke clip stripped of context and recirculated as confession. The latest descendant is the content-farm genre of celebrity vampire list videos attributing such a list to podcast conversations whose documented contents contain no list at all: the actual Rogan-Barr episode of October 2019, per contemporary coverage, covered cancellation, mental illness, and evolution.
When the author says he invented the horror and the chemists say the compound does nothing, what exactly is the believer believing?