Drug info - Will using fingers to tear off dose from blotter sheet reduce quality of LSD?

[willow_ufgood]

Greetings!

I've heard some rumors about this, but after years of disregarding and not caring, I wanted to finally know:

Will using fingers (instead of scissors/razor blade) to rip off single hits from blotter strips/sheets reduce the potency of LSD? I would guess that with a lot of grease or sweat on the fingertips, it would lower it, but I wonder how much? And what about someone with very clean and dry fingers?

Anyone have a theory on this?

Thanks!
Willow

[RaverHippie]

yes it would, but likely not in any way that would produce a noticeable difference in potency. The physical contact of touching the blotter will remove some of the substance due to friction.

It's much easier to notice this if one had a research chemical, not real LSD, on blotter. One could lick their fingers and actually taste the research chemical since they're so overpoweringly disgusting to most people.

Besides, it's easier to cut blotters the same size with scissors. Even if the blotters are perforated.

[willow_ufgood]

Thanks for the quick reply!


So you think it would remove between 5 - 10% or so? Does that sound about right?

[RaverHippie]

It's entirely impossible to judge, and kind of worthless to estimate. I'd guess it's a negligible amount--not enough to worry about. In any case, to be safe, it's just easier to use scissors one might find to trim fingernails with from a chain pharmacy perhaps.

My raver friend knows that it's hard to get all the material out of a blotter, that's why it's recommended that people hold blotters in their mouths for so long so that all of the material can diffuse out of the blotter and be absorbed through the mouth. He's had blotters get soaked in the rain which were just loose in his pocket and still retain their strength. But in that same situation his pocket had about half a blotter's worth of substance in it as he sucked it out when he got home and that was from at least 10 or so blotters becoming completely wet then drying again inside the pocket of a shirt. Those blotters didn't contain LSD but rather a research chemical so LSD may behave differently, but not likely in my friend's estimation.

[Samadhi]

if swim gets overly paranoid or is like me and has big meaty fingers, get some tweezers and pick em off the strip.

swim prefers liquid for reasons like this, it is just easier to drop a drop onto a chocolate chip cookie or into a glass of DH2O and call it a night!

Reputation Comments on this post:

Good tip.

[FrogEye]

Originally Posted by RaverHippie

It's entirely impossible to judge, and kind of worthless to estimate. I'd guess it's a negligible amount--not enough to worry about. In any case, to be safe, it's just easier to use scissors one might find to trim fingernails with from a chain pharmacy perhaps.

My raver friend knows that it's hard to get all the material out of a blotter, that's why it's recommended that people hold blotters in their mouths for so long so that all of the material can diffuse out of the blotter and be absorbed through the mouth. He's had blotters get soaked in the rain which were just loose in his pocket and still retain their strength. But in that same situation his pocket had about half a blotter's worth of substance in it as he sucked it out when he got home and that was from at least 10 or so blotters becoming completely wet then drying again inside the pocket of a shirt. Those blotters didn't contain LSD but rather a research chemical so LSD may behave differently, but not likely in my friend's estimation.

Reminds me of a documentary i watched where this guy was talking about someone who spilled lots of LSD all over his shirt, so for the next few months they would cut pieces off the shirt and suck on the fabric lol.

[gmeziscool2354]

everyone here is exactly right.

yes, it would decrease the amount of active material on the sheet

No, you probably won't notice it

the short of it is that LSD is water soluble and the tearer has water on their hands in some form or another. By touching the paper, some of the active chemical comes off into that water, but its really a neglible amount. Someone has held a strip in their hand for 20 minutes and dropped it and noticed no decrease in potency whatsoever

[cra$h]

But would some of the lsd be absorbed through the finger, almost like in scl punk?

[gmeziscool2354]

possibly. I am not familiar with the methods of entry and even if dermal is one. I know that my friend was dossing up some vials of liquid acid for distribution, and he said that he tripped from doing that. Don't know how the drug got absorbed. My theory is through his eyes and nose, but i really don't know

[cra$h]

well skin has pores in it (duh), and acid I believe is a relitively small molecule, so it could be very possible it just kind of sunk in. And legend has it Jimi hendrix would line his headband with LSD, and let the sweat absorb the blotter, then, (through osmosis?) it would go strait to the head, but another theory says he actually cut his forhead, so the sweat would be like an injection.

[FrogEye]

It's documented that when Hoffman made the first batch of LSD he absorbed some of it through his skin and noticed brighter colours etc.

[Shampoo]

Originally Posted by cra$h

well skin has pores in it (duh), and acid I believe is a relitively small molecule, so it could be very possible it just kind of sunk in. And legend has it Jimi hendrix would line his headband with LSD, and let the sweat absorb the blotter, then, (through osmosis?) it would go strait to the head, but another theory says he actually cut his forhead, so the sweat would be like an injection.

Actually, LSD is a rather large molecule, especially in comparison to other psychedelics. Other said psychedelics cannot fit through these supposed "pores", so why should LSD?

For all the hoopla and folklore I've heard about people ingesting LSD through their skin, ever scientific notion of evidence I have come accross begs to differ. Even with DMSO, LSD has been shown not to penetrate the skin. Perhaps in expecially porous regions of the skin (i.e. armpits, vagina, sublingual regions) this would be possible, but certainly not on the fingertips, which unless one has yet to lift their fingers in their existence, are relatively well caloused compared to say, the inner forearm or thigh.

As for Hoffman's experience, a discussion for (and I believe, already in) another thread, but to spark interest: a mystical experience perhaps? or simple fable?

[Jasim]

There's quite a few posts on df about LSD and and skin absorption. To summarize, I think the general consensus on df is that if LSD can be absorbed through the skin, it would be so minute that swiy could not trip from it. There's also a lot of debate about whether Hofmann had his initial effects from skin absorption (which is not proven or documented) or if he had it on his fingers and touched some mucus membrane (eyes, mouth, nose). Hofmanns experiments all involved taking LSD orally.

Personally, this chemist doesn't think LSD absorbed into the body through the skin. Very few drugs do. There's a lot of dead tissue on the surface and not much blood flow until much deeper.

[joshua666]

Well I would think so only because...
One day my friend got a half sheet of acid,well this is before we knew anything about,other then rhe fact you trip from it.
So he begain trying to rip this blotter paper with his fingers,it wouldent rip!
For some reason he couldent rip the paper and evenualy cut it,after about 10 minutes he noticed somthing!
Now it kind of sucks when somthing hapends that you wern't expecting but it hapens.
He wanted to wait till later to eat them but it diden't work out that way!
I don't know if its because he was pressing hard on them trying to tear them,or if they were realy strong,or if he just pressed and pulled on to many but...
After 10 minutes he was like what the fuck?
He felt somthing rushing around,kinda like he knew somthing was about to hapen,so he quickly got on the internet and found out that acid can be absorbed throough the skin.
Anyway he had a very enjoyable time for around 4 hours,waen't realy strong but was defetnly there,he ended up eating more later on but ya,defently can hapen!

[Pondlife]

Originally Posted by FrogEye

Reminds me of a documentary i watched where this guy was talking about someone who spilled lots of LSD all over his shirt, so for the next few months they would cut pieces off the shirt and suck on the fabric lol.

I suspect this was the famous story about Richard Alpert's LSD impregnated suit. I saw this on "The Beyond Within", and have heard it mentioned a few times. Here's a thread about it:

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38457

I suspect it's an urban legend though, as I've not managed to find any concrete references.

[Jasim]

Originally Posted by joshua666

Well I would think so only because...
One day my friend got a half sheet of acid,well this is before we knew anything about,other then rhe fact you trip from it.
So he begain trying to rip this blotter paper with his fingers,it wouldent rip!
For some reason he couldent rip the paper and evenualy cut it,after about 10 minutes he noticed somthing!
Now it kind of sucks when somthing hapends that you wern't expecting but it hapens.
He wanted to wait till later to eat them but it diden't work out that way!
I don't know if its because he was pressing hard on them trying to tear them,or if they were realy strong,or if he just pressed and pulled on to many but...
After 10 minutes he was like what the fuck?
He felt somthing rushing around,kinda like he knew somthing was about to hapen,so he quickly got on the internet and found out that acid can be absorbed throough the skin.
Anyway he had a very enjoyable time for around 4 hours,waen't realy strong but was defetnly there,he ended up eating more later on but ya,defently can hapen!

Interesting. I would think it would be placebo, but you say he didn't know about lsd absorbing through the skin. Swim's experiences with LSD make swim very doubtful on the fact that swiy was having effects after only ten minutes. Swims experiences with lsd via sublingual, mucosal absorption take over 30 mins for effects to even begin to kick in, and thats with really good acid. Swim has noticed very little to no effects over an hour after dropping before.

...Swim has a feeling that this story will change to "after an hour or so my friend starting to have effects"
*sigh* the power of suggestion + faulty memory

[Samadhi]

Originally Posted by Pondlife

I suspect this was the famous story about Richard Alpert's LSD impregnated suit. I saw this on "The Beyond Within", and have heard it mentioned a few times. Here's a thread about it:

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38457

I suspect it's an urban legend though, as I've not managed to find any concrete references.

LSD would degrade very rapidly if used like that. the jury is still out on trans-dermal dosages or whether or not it even works in the first place.

Swim personally tacks this one up to urban legend

[joshua666]

Jasim,well for everyone I know it doesen't seem to take an hour for first effect to hit,uesaly under 30min.
But this time I mentioned was different,because it was like 18 hits,all in strips and he touched most of them with quit a bit of pressure,any he defently did trip,defently wasent a placebo in any way,and it hit withen 10 minutes after playing with the hits,also I washed my hands and I know lsd is soulable in wayer so I dont know.

joshua666 added 1 Minutes and 54 Seconds later...

Just want to ass that he is also very sensitive to pychedelics, a half a hit of acid is all it takes,or 1gr or under for shrooms,so yua he defenlt is pretty sensetive so that might have somthing to do with it.