Drug info - Is LSD "different" now compared to the sixties?

[Lobsang]

Ok. I am new here Hi. This is my question and please excuse my lack of chemistry knowledge. Let me try and articulate what I am trying to ask. Given the fact that LSD is a very small dose as it is in micrograms. And this dose easily fits on a blotter. I know that when people say that a blotter can be contamonated with speed or strycinine it cannote be true. Becuase those things would no fit on a blotter hit in a dose that would effect a person. Ok so when they say that LSD now adays is different than it was years ago. Is this true? I mean are there other drugs that can be put on a blotter that have an effect similar to LSD? Or that a blotter that has LSD can be contamonated with that would effect a person? I mean is there any truth to the statement that LSD today is not true LSD but something else many times even on a blotter? Also are there analogs of LSD which appear on blotters sold as LSD? I am not sure I am making my self clear. I have asked a couple of questions.
Thanks if you respond.

[Beanfondler]

Theres always going to be people trying to pass an inert or different substance. Yes there is a possibility that Swiy would get something other than LSD. Assuming similar dosage Swibf can't think of another chem that could be mistaken as LSD. If Swiy is to be ripped off they'll likely be very aware of it.

[RaverHippie]

There are a variety of powerful substances that could be sold on blotter. Most are phenethylamines under the DOx class of chemicals (DOB, DOC, DOI, etc.) Other are Bromodragonfly or small doses of the 2C-x class of chemicals. SWIM has encountered each of these substances in blotter form-passed off as LSD or sold as is.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good solid information

[GentlyWeeps]

Originally Posted by Beanfondler

Theres always going to be people trying to pass an inert or different substance. Yes there is a possibility that Swiy would get something other than LSD. Assuming similar dosage Swibf can't think of another chem that could be mistaken as LSD. If Swiy is to be ripped off they'll likely be very aware of it.

Might of just happened to Swim presently

[Panthers007]

Use the search engine for finding information on DOx chemicals. These are methoxylated amphetamines that are very potent psychedelics. They are often sold as LSD by people without a clue, and by unscrupulous marketeers as they are far cheaper to produce. Their dosage range is in the low milligrams and can, indeed, fit on a blotter-sized object.

Regards LSD being different these days - this argument has been playing out for decades. Pure LSD25 of pharmaceutical-grade all but vanished when LSD was outlawed in 1966-67. Augustus Stanley Owsley III produced quite a bit of LSD after the laws went into effect, and his product was said to be almost as good. But right after underground LSD started to appear, the arguments began. Some say YES - the acid is not as good. Others say NO - it's just the users own defenses kicking into play and satori-type Godhead trips must end sometime. This argument will likely continue until pure, pharmaceutical LSD is once again made available.

[Lobsang]

Well I am positive that 25 years ago the LSD was true LSD. I cannot see hos it could be better even if produced by a company. But I have no idea what the situation is in the world now. I think LSD made by a good lab with a good chemist is probably no different than sandoz. I think that the LSD coming out of the missile silo in kansas was probably true blue. All the right precursers were found and the chemist was tops. But currently I have no idea what is on the market.

[Samadhi]

The analogs of LSD, like PRO-LAD and ETH-LAD are very different from LSD, swim has tried PRO-LAD and found the effects to be much more stimulating than LSD itself. but, on the subject of LSD analogs it is EXTREMELY uncommon for these to make their way onto blotters and liquid, the synthesis for most of them require LSD in the synthesis and are very much more complicated to produce.

To anyone thinking of putting LSD analogs onto blotter and liquid if synthing themselves and selling under the guise of LSD: hell, you've got lsd why not just use that, it's better anyways dummy.

DOx chemicals are a possibility on blotters (UTFSE, ect, ect) but the user is very aware that it is not LSD mostly by the taste (think chemical ashtray) and the duration of come-up (over two hours, eek) and also the duration of effects (anywhere from 12-20 hours depending on which DOx and how much taken)

Anyways, this is an old question that has been answered before, swim just like to type


regards to panthers007's post: why oh why won't the good LSD come back? WHY GOD?!

oh and just because i've never used this smilie thing



yeahhh....

[Songcycle67]

You can get "real" LSD and it can still be so impure that it gives you a terrible trip. It seems to SWIM that when he took lower grade acid it gave you a more "sickened" or "poisoned" feeling, while the highest grade feels really clean, shiny and warm.

I'd assume that most of the people who say "LSD ain't the same" are talking about LSD itself, not research chems. I've ran into plenty of people who say that, and they're usually referring to the purity. In SWIM's mind these impure batches circulate more in the "street scene." He thinks it's easy to find very pure, very real LSD if you have the right connection; after all most of the cooks out there are doing it because they love this experience as much as we do. SWIM also believes that due to all the rumors about LSD purity, serious chemists are pumping out batches of ultra pure, high dose LSD-25 these days, so that even if it is dilluted it will be cosmic. SWIM thinks the more serious issue is with dillution rather than additives.

[Lobsang]

Originally Posted by songcycle67

You can get "real" LSD and it can still be so impure that it gives you a terrible trip. It seems to SWIM that when he took lower grade acid it gave you a more "sickened" or "poisoned" feeling, while the highest grade feels really clean, shiny and warm.

I'd assume that most of the people who say "LSD ain't the same" are talking about LSD itself, not research chems. I've ran into plenty of people who say that, and they're usually referring to the purity. In SWIM's mind these impure batches circulate more in the "street scene." He thinks it's easy to find very pure, very real LSD if you have the right connection; after all most of the cooks out there are doing it because they love this experience as much as we do. SWIM also believes that due to all the rumors about LSD purity, serious chemists are pumping out batches of ultra pure, high dose LSD-25 these days, so that even if it is dilluted it will be cosmic. SWIM thinks the more serious issue is with dillution rather than additives.

When you say that a person can get real LSD but it be impure. Does anyone know what impurities would exist at the microgram level? I do not mean other drugs but impurities that exist because of a poor lab process?

Also I have read that LSD is weaker now adays or as is said "diluted". Why would a chemist even bother making hits which were such a low dose as is reported by some people today? I mean once the batch is made a person would have plenty of LSD I assume. So why would low dose hits even exist? My cat told me that when he took LSD frequently 25 years ago virtually of it was pure and strong. He says he never came accross any with "inpurities" or that was "diluted". But then I hear about people who say that LSD today is not that strong all the time and sometimes as is said above has impurities. Why is that? I wonder if what is reported as "impure" LSD is LSD at all...But I am no chemist. I mean is there really such a thing as "lower grade acid" ?

[RaverHippie]

I remember reading somewhere about the different grades of acid and the grades were visibly present when the acid was purchased in the crystal form. It would be fun to find that website again...

[Songcycle67]

SWIM told me the following:

LSD purity can range all across the spectrum, it solely lies in the hand of the chemist. LSD-25 is produced as well as several other isomers and unwanted forms of LSA; it's not until after this process that the LSD is cleaned. During this procedure it's ran through a machine that tells you what impurities are in it and how many. Then the chemist adds the appropriate reagents to the crystal to remove these unwanted impurities; he does this repeatedly, running it through the machine each time, until it is cleaned to his desire.

He said he believes the majority of people producing it are doing it to the best of their ability, because why would someone so interested in the drug want a shitty batch? He says that if you get weak LSD through a reliable source it's probably due to dillution by the various dealers that have had it handed down to them from the original cook. Of course there are always people out to make a buck, and there are definitely lots of people out there making bad batches to save time and make money.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Reliable and convincing information.

[Lobsang]

Originally Posted by songcycle67

SWIM told me the following:

LSD purity can range all across the spectrum, it solely lies in the hand of the chemist. LSD-25 is produced as well as several other isomers and unwanted forms of LSA; it's not until after this process that the LSD is cleaned. During this procedure it's ran through a machine that tells you what impurities are in it and how many. Then the chemist adds the appropriate reagents to the crystal to remove these unwanted impurities; he does this repeatedly, running it through the machine each time, until it is cleaned to his desire.

He said he believes the majority of people producing it are doing it to the best of their ability, because why would someone so interested in the drug want a shitty batch? He says that if you get weak LSD through a reliable source it's probably due to dillution by the various dealers that have had it handed down to them from the original cook. Of course there are always people out to make a buck, and there are definitely lots of people out there making bad batches to save time and make money.

So my cat has always wondered it the initial lab that makes it also puts it on blotter or makes tablest or gelatan. Or do most initial producers sell it as a crystal or liquid and then in turn other people make put it into the medium that it is sold as in single hits? If the lab does not make the tablets, blotter ect...Then I can understand the low dose hits. They would be made by people down the line and not the lab.

[Songcycle67]

SWIM can only speculate, but he would assume that more and more of this is being done by the actual chemists judging by some of the quality of pre-blotted/tabbed LSD that has been floating around. SWIM says that this was probably not the case a few years ago. But SWIM says that he speculates cooks often keep liquid and even crystal on hand for their more trusted clients, because there is definitely plenty of that out there as well.

He says if your cat has a trusted connection and they offer to get him some LSD, let them know that he knows his shit. Ask them how many micrograms are in each drop--he wants at least 100ug per hit in a vile in my friend's opinion. Ask them how pure it is--there are common names for purity levels, but my friend would only fuck with Silver (about 70% pure), White Fluff (about 90% pure) and the holiest of the holy Needlepoint (about 95% pure). He says an old head would know when they try it if they bullshitted your cat.

[Samadhi]

Unless swim was picking up directly from his source chemists(they have been producing the plain white blotters seen in the summer months in seattle area) He maintains this about common street acid; that it is unlikely a dealer would know the potency of the acid they are slinging. Most of them have the brains to look at erowid and say "150 micrograms is a good dose" and market their acid accordingly. Alot of times by the time blotters and liquid reach the masses, they are very deluded and it's like a game of telephone, no one knows the answer except for the originator of the chemical...

Swim has gotten 98% pure LSD from an exclusive contract chemist and it was indeed, a very different experience than alot of the stuff that floats around, He prefers to have controlled doses and when he researches he tends to like things to be very measured out (i.e. 150mics instead of one random blotter found on the corner)

Swim would say it is different, but not that much. alot of the acid that goes around is medium grade, lower dosage stuff. hopefully, someone will have the balls (and money) to start supplying the market with it again.

But nonetheless, i agree with panthers007, it's all speculative.

[radiometer]

This very interesting article, regarding a rare opportunity for several people to sample a vial of Sandoz LSD from 1951, apparently perfectly preserved, and attempt to compare it to modern samples, was published in Erowid Extracts a couple of years ago:

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_article2.shtml

And this article details and interprets the data from laboratory testing of modern LSD samples:

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_article1.shtml

I'd like to quote one of these articles, as it relates to the topic at hand:

One of the primary arguments against the premise that differences in LSD experiences are the result of differences in quality of material has come from people we've spoken to who have distributed and aliquoted acid in the past. One such person described how some recipients of his LSD would go on at length about how distinct and how much better one type of blotter was than another. Yet, often, both types had been aliquoted by this chemist on the same day, from the same batch of liquid, onto similar blotter paper bearing different designs.

[TMM]

How exactly is impure LSD supposed to be qualitatively different, other than it simply being less potent? I wasn't aware that actual LSD was cut with psychoactive compounds, I thought they were simply said to be LSD on their own.

EDIT: And I just noticed the links above. Reading now.

[sweetsweetmary]

Considering that every dose that SWIM has ever encountered has felt completely different it would be tough to compare the potencies of today's to yesterday's. Sometimes SWIM trips hard off less and sometimes SWIM doesn't trip off more (this is the same stuff here). Not even sure if a control group would be able to tell, because there is no control when a mind is involved. But SWIM has had some of the utmost purest acid and would say that there is no way it was different then what they had back then, possibly just dosed different, like they took one, and SWIM took three sort of thing. But can chemists even make LSD the same with each batch, can they be that precise, and create a certain trip every time?

[Songcycle67]

SWIM personally doesn't think you can do much else to LSD-25 once you have made it to make it any "purer" or "better" than it ever was besides simply to clean it. Since cleaning technologies have improved ten-fold since Sandoz labs was pumping it out, I would bet that most LSD is just as clean if not cleaner than Sandoz. One of Hoffman's main problems when going into his research with ergot was in not having a proper chromatography set up, as this was a fairly new procedure.

Any product sold to anyone through a pipeline of dealers is going to be of an unknown purity, but if one gets their stuff from a reliable connection and knows when they land on some needlepoint or white fluff; SWIM thinks that person is getting just the same exact product as was made in Sandoz or in Owsley's labs, if not better. As technology and ease of preparation improves, the products that it produces inevitably improves if these technologies are in the hands of the right person. Once LSD-25 is produced, and basically you either have it or a couple of spoonfuls of black useless LSA gunk, the only thing that could possibly have an effect on the "purity" or "cleanliness" of the experience is the procedure of cleaning it. SWIM doubts that the purity of Czech or Sandoz ever reached over the 99% mark. They just wouldn't have needed it to be anything beyond a white and fluffy crystal for mass production (something which is reached at about 70% purity). Even Scully and Owsley both claim to have perfected a process that cleaned theirs to upwards of 99% in a basement laboratory with equipment intended for methamphetamine production made in the early 1960's.

I just don't see how this rumor could still hold water, unless my understanding of the chemistry is ill-informed. Cleanliness is all that could possibly matter, and even then you're prescribing a high amount of interference to a relatively small amount of impurity. Even at 50% impurity, something would have to be extremely potent to catalyze the reaction that LSD causes in the brain....still if LSD is that potent, its isomers definitely could be as well.



Oh yeah and I guess there are Owsley's magical incantations, but that's another story altogether...

[Lobsang]

I just don't see how this rumor could still hold water, unless my understanding of the chemistry is ill-informed. Cleanliness is all that could possibly matter, and even then you're prescribing a high amount of interference to a relatively small amount of impurity. Even at 50% impurity, something would have to be extremely potent to catalyze the reaction that LSD causes in the brain....still if LSD is that potent, its isomers definitely could be as well.

All SWIM will say is that he has experienced a high degree of consistency in acid. SWIM hears people say that some acid is "speedier" and such. But SWIM has never experienced this. Also not too long ago quite a few people took acid that was Sandoz. Someone had saved it for decades. People interviewed who had taken acid from illegal labs and then tried the Sandoz said that there was no difference.

[radiometer]

Originally Posted by songcycle67

I just don't see how this rumor could still hold water, unless my understanding of the chemistry is ill-informed.

People seem to be unwilling to accept that when they have two very different experiences, they might just possibly have taken the same drug. All too often I read things like "it couldn't be LSD, it took 20 minutes longer to come on than usual." The average user does not seem to be awake to the great variability and complexity of psychedelic experiences.

The thing is, false memes are incredibly difficult to eradicate. As went the 1960's, so go the 2000's - plus 40 years of myth passed down by word of mouth. (sigh) The problem is compounded by the fact that LSD experiences can vary tremendously among individuals as well as from one trip to the next, perhaps even more than most other psychedelics. Doubly compounding this problem is the alarming and rising frequency of the distribution of psychedelic amphetamines on blotter, often sold as LSD.

[Songcycle67]

From an article concerning the 51-year-old vial of Sandoz opened for Albert's 100th birthday:

Is Sandoz LSD Different?
The other major question on many people's minds seemed to be how Sandoz LSD would differ from the street acid they'd taken before. This was something a number of them considered, after the initial surprise over the fact that the material seemed not to have lost potency. We asked several participants to further describe their thoughts, by answering the query:

"Briefly describe your experience with LSD (number of times taken, how long ago first taken) and compare your experience of other sources of acid with the Sandoz material you tried. Was the Sandoz LSD different than street acid? Was it about the same? Share some of your thoughts about this."

Some people appeared hesitant to answer whether they felt that the Sandoz LSD was qualitatively different from other acid they had taken. Several participants were moderately concerned that if they said the LSD seemed similar to other street acid, the observation could potentially sadden other participants or appear ungrateful to the extremely generous provider. There were raves about the unquestioned magic of the event, and the unique opportunity to try such an elusive and mythically sourced substance. However, the consensus among those to whom we spoke who had substantial experience with street acid was that the 55-year-old, apparently fully potent, Sandoz LSD was experientially indistinguishable from other acid they'd tried. Unfortunately, this subjective finding is unlikely to satisfy people who believe that street acid is impure and low quality. There could be two reasons why the effects of the Sandoz LSD were nearly identical to that of street LSD: good quality street acid could be as pure as Sandoz LSD, or the Sandoz LSD could have been impure or degraded. However, participants described feeling, both during and after the experience, that the quality was high and the potency undamaged; they considered the argument "street acid isn't really like pure LSD" to be settled.

Source: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_article2.shtml


Also the crystals themselves in the vial were described as a "brown, salmony" color. This would, to SWIM's understanding, indicate less than 70% purity was reached by Sandoz, at least in or before 1951. It could also, however, indicate different reagents or techniques used in cleaning. Any simmers have any speculation on this?

[radiometer]

^^ Um...drag your eyes up to post #15, songcycle...

[Songcycle67]

My bad, radio. I saw your link but didn't make the connection for some reason.

[Greenport]

* Oh no, not at all in the literal sense.

* Definitely yes in the legal sense.

* Gotta be a yes in the 'street lsd' sense -- as since the bust of Pickard in 2003 - one of the two men responsible for producing 95% of the LSD in America (or so a report by the wasps has shown once upon a time) -- in a converted nuclear missile launch facility. Since then, a lot of uh, stuff have been psychedelic phenethylamines (2C-*'s,DMMDA,Mescalin,TMA-*,DO*), or other orally active tryptamines (AMT,5-MEO-DiPT). Definitely different in that sense. Sad
---(That just goes to show, wasps would rather bees resort to tripping on designer honey and risking the unknown side effects of them rather than actually getting a true taste of the universe that arises out of a molecule smaller than the tip of a pinky - which has been well documented since its introduction in the 30s.)

* No in that its molecular structure has remained the same

* Yes in terms of opinions about LSD's use

* No based on what it does

* Yes being that every trip is different from the last

* Yes in amounts on a tab. They aren't as high as in the 60's - so neither are bees.

* Yes in that today there is an abundant resource for the research and study of anything imaginable - a computer link to billions of people and their resources and ideas. With that, bees are educated about any honey they do care to ingest. Shit, they can find out everything about it if they wanted all with a google search or find enough with a trip to erowid. This makes trips and tripping different in that bees finally have ways of understanding it inside-out so that when bees decide to try it, they know what to expect.

* Yes in that expectations have changed over the decades.

Yeah a bit random but it'll do

[Panthers007]

No trip ever compares to the first trip. That first time the entire world become brand new. With the eyes of a baby one looks around in awe. How can one ever claim to do that again? Can't. Period.