Opinions - LSD In Fear and Loathing, possible?

[TheBadMan]

Originally Posted by Handle

I know that LSD is one of the trickiest things to attempt, just so in depth, not like a pseudo red phos iodine shake and bake, but requiring the skills of a true chemist.

Wrong.

I also know that it normally takes a long time, certainly a few days in most cases, and that is the limit of my knowledge.

Also wrong.

If reagents for manufacture of LSD were widely available, then I am sure that there would be at least fifty YouTube videos showing you that (1) the LSD synthesis is basically a three step process involving nothing more complicated than column chromatography after refluxing and (2) can be done in about 24 hours, but only because one of the steps literally requires something like 16 hours of refluxing.

The process for synthesizing LSD is so simple that a 17 - 18 year old chemistry student in high school or first year university could be shown the few steps involved in a matter of a few hours.

Of course, I don't think you could fit all of the "fixin's you need for cookin'" in a little briefcase. You'd need a pretty good amount of solvent, and if you still had to extract ergot alkaloids then you'd need quite a bit of solvent and raw alkaloid. Plus, you probably don't want to walk around casually carrying stuff like hydrazine and diethylamine. Still, the mythology I used to hear about how hard it is to make LSD used to be that "you need $20000 in equipment, a PhD in chemistry and absolutely 100% pure ergotamine tartrate." You do not need anything close to any of the three. That's probably 10X more than the equipment and reagents would cost. You could train an amateur or student chemist to carry it out without much work. A crude mixture of ergot alkaloids is needed. The LSD synthesis is nothing special.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Interesting point. Dismythitifing the myth. Well done.

[enquirewithin]

Hunter Thompson should always be taken with a pinch of salt. Fear and Loathing is hilarious and rightly a classic, but not to be taken seriously. Anyone taking that kind of cocktail of drugs (they seem to have been drunk nearly all he time and on speed), could hardly really remember anything clearly.

[Grabnar]

swim doesn't think so , this sort of stuff happens in swims world (- the chemistry), swim is not about the mescaline or alcohol tho ! something about throwing up

[Handle]

Yeah but for example adrenochrome, people claim to have mail ordered this stuff and tried it, said it was really really weak.

[Songcycle67]

Originally Posted by Handle

Yeah but for example adrenochrome, people claim to have mail ordered this stuff and tried it, said it was really really weak.

That's the general consensus. Although, I don't think it would be available in proper form outside of the chemist who made its circle of friends. I'd speculate that most "adrenochrome" sold illicitly is some sort of RC or speed.

[Songcycle67]

SWIM says:

LSD production generally takes 5-10 days, all in. Filtration, reactions, chromatograph and re-crystallization. If it takes more than 5-10, the person (who is probably very very paranoid being one of a handful of LSD cooks in a nation currently gobbling it down like homefries and grits) risks being caught by the authorities. Generally, with the exception of large distributers, labs are mobile and easily taken apart when needed. There actually aren't that many chemistry gadgets required, as the previous posters pointed out. Only the most basic things are needed: beakers and vacuums and columns. Perhaps all one would have to spring for beyond that is a magnetic stirrer, and even those are open to improvisation. The reagents, of course--a different story.

It couldn't be done in a matter of hours, or on the spot, but nevertheless, cooking LSD takes no time at all.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Short but sweet breakdown of the LSD sythesis process.

[Handle]

Hahahah, jolly good to hear. But yeah, re: adrenochrome, plenty of mail order RC's are cheap/dodgy fakes.

[Desertfox]

Originally Posted by Songcycle67

That's the general consensus. Although, I don't think it would be available in proper form outside of the chemist who made its circle of friends. I'd speculate that most "adrenochrome" sold illicitly is some sort of RC or speed.

In regards to adrenochrome, it is not that hard to make at all, one simply needs to oxidize adrenaline, which can be found in any epi-pen people carry around when they're deathly allergic to something. these carry a good dose of epinephrine, take a few of those and some silver oxide, wait til its pink, and you have adrenochrome. Any chemist alsomaking RC's would not have difficulty making it along with all the other molecules so why does SWiY think it would most likely be another RC or speed instead of actually adrenochrome? IF that were true then that would bring into question all the other chemicals that company is lsiting

[Jatelka]

Crikey this thread is making my brain hurt and has really strayed far too far into Chemistry to sit comfortably in the general LSD forum.

[Greenport]

Hehe sorry Jatelka . sometimes swiM's penguin forgets not everyone chem on the same level as swiM does. Also, it didn't really feel like making such a lengthy second-response but it felt it had to answer TheBadMan's inquiries considering half his post was quoting my previous one lol. It tried to shorten the post as much as possible without lacking info but it didn't work too well obviously :S

[TheBadMan]

Originally Posted by Greenport

Be a little more open to others' ideas before immediately bashing them all man.

I suppose this is a difficult spot to reconcile because I basically will believe what I can see. Maybe an order form including diethylamine from a company in the sixties. I don't know. I do know that I am not convinced yet. I concede that you may be right.

I'll read the rest of the post later.

The way I would like to move forward (if you haven't done so by the time I've actually read your post - give me a day) is to be able to agree on what would be convincing physical evidence (old documentation or journal from libraries, esp. perhaps old Scientific American)? I can only tell you that SWIM tells me that he sees few real ways to access these materials without being inside the right industry (though perhaps 100 tonnes of ergot alkaloids and derivatives are made industrially, mostly in eastern Europe, if I recall correctly). According to Lawrence about 100 000 tones of hydrazine are produced. I can't find numbers for diethylamine. Some of it must leak and that "leakage" is used in illicit manufacture. I seriously wonder if it was that simple to find the synthesis of LSD. Even in the information age, university students are unaware of finding technical information in patents. Many users on Shroomery.org have no idea how to use PubMed. Back in the 1960s, you'd be relying on people thinking up the bright idea of going to a university library (which might be a considerable trek for most), figuring out how the journals operate and the journal indexing and then find the relevant article. If there weren't some really well known synthesis, searching for the LSD synthesis might literally involve pouring over the yearly indices of journals of many variations like "J Nat Prod" or "J Org Chem." Finding this information was not nearly as simple as it is now, yet most people don't utilize free scientific publications made available to them (mostly because most people are not that literate in science).

I think that current wisdom has always been that before LSD was made illegal in 1966 (I think), most of what was available was managed by Sandoz. I do not recall the source for this or who supposedly then distributed the drug amongst the population then (did Tim Leary ever order a bunch and give it out?). I haven't paid much attention to what the other supposed cooks (like Owsley) did and I don't know if they ever talk about obtaining reagents.

Lawrence SL. Amines: Synthesis, Properties and Applications. Cambridge University Press, 2004.


Take a look at US patent 4152219, _Separation of Ethylamines_ to Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. It does seem simple enough: react ammonia and ethanol, distill a monoethylamine and diethylamine mixture out (from triethylamine, which could be useful as a mild base). Then distill diethylamine out later. Atmospheric pressure. Heat would go into this. So, there is risk of ethanol fire. Or ethanol fire plus ammonia, mono-, di- and tri- ethylamines. Even if nobody is hurt, it may be likely to attrack attention. This requires caution and monitoring. It seems there would be a lot of sitting around and checking in on the 'lab' if you had any safety concerns. With a big, well ventilated room, heating pads (not hotplates, but warm electrodes wrapped in fire retardand material) used to keep control of reflux. Big flasks with reals stands and neck grips. Sturdy distillation columns. You might be able to get a 20 L system going, which might get you 3 L of diethylamine (enough for a lifetime if you are only using it for LSD).
My guess is that most modern sythesis involves an expensive metal catalyst that only big industries own. Imagine what it must cost to purchase a huge hydrogenator.

[Songcycle67]

Originally Posted by TheBadMan

I suppose this is a difficult spot to reconcile because I basically will believe what I can see. Maybe an order form including diethylamine from a company in the sixties. I don't know. I do know that I am not convinced yet. I concede that you may be right.

I'll read the rest of the post later.

The way I would like to move forward (if you haven't done so by the time I've actually read your post - give me a day) is to be able to agree on what would be convincing physical evidence (old documentation or journal from libraries, esp. perhaps old Scientific American)? I can only tell you that SWIM tells me that he sees few real ways to access these materials without being inside the right industry (though perhaps 100 tonnes of ergot alkaloids and derivatives are made industrially, mostly in eastern Europe, if I recall correctly). According to Lawrence about 100 000 tones of hydrazine are produced. I can't find numbers for diethylamine. Some of it must leak and that "leakage" is used in illicit manufacture. I seriously wonder if it was that simple to find the synthesis of LSD. Even in the information age, university students are unaware of finding technical information in patents. Many users on Shroomery.org have no idea how to use PubMed. Back in the 1960s, you'd be relying on people thinking up the bright idea of going to a university library (which might be a considerable trek for most), figuring out how the journals operate and the journal indexing and then find the relevant article. If there weren't some really well known synthesis, searching for the LSD synthesis might literally involve pouring over the yearly indices of journals of many variations like "J Nat Prod" or "J Org Chem." Finding this information was not nearly as simple as it is now, yet most people don't utilize free scientific publications made available to them (mostly because most people are not that literate in science).

I think that current wisdom has always been that before LSD was made illegal in 1966 (I think), most of what was available was managed by Sandoz. I do not recall the source for this or who supposedly then distributed the drug amongst the population then (did Tim Leary ever order a bunch and give it out?). I haven't paid much attention to what the other supposed cooks (like Owsley) did and I don't know if they ever talk about obtaining reagents.

Lawrence SL. Amines: Synthesis, Properties and Applications. Cambridge University Press, 2004.


Take a look at US patent 4152219, _Separation of Ethylamines_ to Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. It does seem simple enough: react ammonia and ethanol, distill a monoethylamine and diethylamine mixture out (from triethylamine, which could be useful as a mild base). Then distill diethylamine out later. Atmospheric pressure. Heat would go into this. So, there is risk of ethanol fire. Or ethanol fire plus ammonia, mono-, di- and tri- ethylamines. Even if nobody is hurt, it may be likely to attrack attention. This requires caution and monitoring. It seems there would be a lot of sitting around and checking in on the 'lab' if you had any safety concerns. With a big, well ventilated room, heating pads (not hotplates, but warm electrodes wrapped in fire retardand material) used to keep control of reflux. Big flasks with reals stands and neck grips. Sturdy distillation columns. You might be able to get a 20 L system going, which might get you 3 L of diethylamine (enough for a lifetime if you are only using it for LSD).
My guess is that most modern sythesis involves an expensive metal catalyst that only big industries own. Imagine what it must cost to purchase a huge hydrogenator.

It was a great deal easier to produce quality LSD illicitly in the 1960's because until 1966 LSD was legal. There definitely weren't as many restrictions on buying re-agents.

Owsley learned everything he needed to know about organic chemistry from a week at the Berkeley Library with a little help from a girlfriend who was a chemist. Owsley wasn't a chemist by any measure of the word, he just studied the processes necessary for LSD production alone and followed the recipe. It would take years to get enough knowledge to produce LSD from raw ergot the way that Hoffmann did, but with the detailed patent Sandoz synthesis of LSD #25 stored in Berkeley's chem library, he was basically able to just color by numbers. No theory was involved.

Definitely not rocket science.

Once he had the few techniques of organic chemistry needed for LSD production, he set out to acquire the re-agents and the sacred ergotamine. It turns out that this was the easiest part yet. He simply set up a corporation under the guise of producing a range of different chemicals of a mundane nature and within six or so months, he had a license to buy pretty much every re-agent that was needed.

The ergotamine tartrate was obtained through the black market, but at the time it was abundantly available, and this is no longer the case.




As to the point about how Sandoz was spread across the nation: take a look at some old medical magazines or medicinal catalogues from the early 1960's. Nine times out of ten there'll be an advertisement for a new wonder drug from Sweden called LSD #25, available in brown ampoules of (I believe) 25, 75, and 120 mcg. Because these things were being promoted to psychologists and behavioral therapists, you could get an immense load of the stuff for very very cheap (especially in the early 60's). A good deal was bought by many pharmacists and psychologists and it was slowly leaked out in that way. Timothy Leary's first acid was given to him by a psychologist who had gotten it through mail-order, if I'm not mistaken.

As I understand it, the diaspora of LSD was caused because psychologists and pharmacists were so thrilled with it that they were giving it to other doctors and, most notably, artists to see how it would affect them, and then the aritsts/doctors/psychologists started turning on their entertainer friends, and once you have popular entertainers taking it, then it eventually reaches the every day working man and students and grandmothers and who ever else was willing to give it a go.


In almost every case I've read about where entertainers (most notably the beatles) were turned on, it is generally always someone who is in the medical field. John Lennon and George Harrison were turned on by a dentist who spiked their coffee, evidently he'd not gotten a chance to try it and he thought it was like any other recreational drug floating around back then.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Interesting history and cultural background

[Handle]

Yeah, I was thinking along similar lines...that uhh, if not technically easier [ie obviously requiing the same level of practical skill] the fact that the end product was not illegal surely would make some precursors a bit easier to get hold of...but I could be wrong..



Actually, I'm going to search right now for any evidence about the history of precursor control. I know that way back they started clamping down on acetic anhydride, that was seen as intelligence, following the Acetic Anhydride, even in jurisdictions where it could not be used as the basis of a prosecution, was nevertheless seen as a "lead-in" to other evidence.

I'll search for it, but I'll say now if it's not there that would be a great thread, the history of precursor control.

[terrapinzflyer]

Originally Posted by Songcycle67

Owsley learned everything he needed to know about organic chemistry from a week at the Berkeley Library with a little help from a girlfriend who was a chemist. Owsley wasn't a chemist by any measure of the word, ...

Swims turtle was once mentored by a sorcerers apprentice who had supposedly worked with Owsley and was told that it was, in fact, his girlfriend who did the synthesis, and the history of Owsley was a combination of protecting her and owsleys ego. But the silly turtle wandered off before he got too deep into this circle...
Years later, a friend pulled a large bag of OWsleys infamous "orange sunshines" from the deep freeze, and proceeded to tell a similiar story.
Swims turtle has no idea what to believe- the LSD world is so full of storys to protect those at risk really anything could be true. The one time he met the man, introduced by mutual friends and given one of bears belt buckles, he found him to be a most strange person to put it kindly, and through later correspondences wondered if bear really had any grasp of chemistry/science.

As a final note- the only story swims turtle ever heard of bear being high in public was at one of the acid tests- where he completely lost his shit

[Songcycle67]

Originally Posted by terrapinzflyer

Swims turtle was once mentored by a sorcerers apprentice who had supposedly worked with Owsley and was told that it was, in fact, his girlfriend who did the synthesis, and the history of Owsley was a combination of protecting her and owsleys ego. But the silly turtle wandered off before he got too deep into this circle...
Years later, a friend pulled a large bag of OWsleys infamous "orange sunshines" from the deep freeze, and proceeded to tell a similiar story.
Swims turtle has no idea what to believe- the LSD world is so full of storys to protect those at risk really anything could be true. The one time he met the man, introduced by mutual friends and given one of bears belt buckles, he found him to be a most strange person to put it kindly, and through later correspondences wondered if bear really had any grasp of chemistry/science.

As a final note- the only story swims turtle ever heard of bear being high in public was at one of the acid tests- where he completely lost his shit

I've heard a lot of stories like that too floating around among people, but he was producing Meth-Amphetamine, with actual quality lab setting production. He was a real genius with all kinds of other things as well and Nick Sand and Tim Scully both proclaim to have been taught by Owsley alone, not his girlfriend (who had split even before white lightning came around).

But the most compelling evidence to me is that The Grateful Dead lived with him from like 1965-1967 when he was making his cleanest, most potent batches and they all claimed that no one but him was even allowed to touch the equipment. Scully was only allowed to tab and apprentice even during the height of like the Monterey Purple and Blue Cheer batches.

So maybe she was making it during the first few years, but there's lots of eyewitness account of people who were in close with Owsley (Kesey, Hunter Thompson, etc.) actually watching him making it. And since she was gone before white lightning and monterey purple (his first batches to reach upwards of 99% purity and high dose tabs) so I'd wager she wasn't that integral.

In some interviews I've read, though, he definitely does give her a shitload of credit for helping him out with the theory work, and without that they'd never have been able to purify it to the point of being the greatest acid in the black market.

Reputation Comments on this post:

great points- thx

[drug-bot]

Originally Posted by Handle

"Aybody want some LSD? I got all the makin's right here!............All I need is a place to c-o-o-k........." [trails off]

This line has constantly bothered me, and I still don't know the answer. Is there any way, back in the sixties, certain precursors could have been legal that were so close to LSD they could be offered for cooking up in one night at a club?

i thought he was asking the people in the club if they had a place to cook (i.e their homes not actually in the club). and there never was a mention regarding how long it would take to 'cook', so i dont know why its assumed it would be done in a single day.

[terrapinzflyer]

SWIY adds some interesting thoughts. And swims turtle tends to believe Bear was the maker, but would never have gotten to that level without his wife. But swims turtle is so familiar with the lies of necessity of the LSD world that he never knows what to believe anymore. Maybe it was that bear fled to oz for so long, but it always struck swims turtle as strange that others (who were usually extremely protective of those needing protection) would talk so freely of his exploits...