mixing LSD xtals

[bigstoag]

I was wondering what would happen if you mixed two or more different lsd xtals, i may try mixing JoR #4 and tt tabs in the future. I was wondering if anyone had any experience/insight on this.

 

[Starless]

I'm confused as to what you mean. LSD is LSD, there aren't different kinds. Purity only effects potency, not the qualitative aspects of the trip. Do you mean mixing LSD with other lysergamides?

 

[Hodor]

I was wondering what would happen if you mixed two or more different lsd xtals, i may try mixing JoR #4 and tt tabs in the future. I was wondering if anyone had any experience/insight on this.

LSD is LSD is LSD.

LSD is a chemical substance that doesn't really care whether it comes on blotters with your favourite childhood cartoon, ugly-ass graffitti-style "art", the ubiquitious "Hofmann/Bicycle Day" motif or just plain white on white.

Given LSD's extraordinary potency, it is fairly unlikely that the small amounts of impurities, even if they happened to be psychoactive, would be potent enough to affect the trip in any significant way, so differences between batches can usually be chalked up to:
* the placebo effect
* false claims about dosages (ex.: You're used to being sold "100 µg" blotters that are actually closer to 60 µg; suddenly you acquire 100µg blotters that actually contain close to 100 µg, and you're convinced this must be particularly "good" or "strong" Acid)
* your "Acid" not being LSD at all (ex.: "speedy Acid" really being DOB)

 

[Xorkoth]

Yeah the differences in crystal types are due to slightly varying levels of purity, but it's very dubious as to whether any *tiny* amount of impurities (I mean we're talking the difference between 97% and 99% purity on a super-fucking-potent compound, where the impurities are not nearly as potent) has an actual effect on the subjective effects. If you're getting down to "this family's acid" or "JoR #4", it's down to branding. Mixing two batches of LSD is going to be indistinguishable from taking it all from one batch in a blind test. Knowing what you're taking beforehand can affect your expectations and therefore your trip.

 

[Solipsis]

I was wondering what would happen if you mixed two or more different lsd xtals, i may try mixing JoR #4 and tt tabs in the future. I was wondering if anyone had any experience/insight on this.

This question seems meaningless since it is endlessly debated whether there is even a difference between different batches / crystals of [a lysergamide like] LSD. First someone needs to conduct at the very least a double blind experiment to see if a significant group of people can even tell them apart with statistical significance... identifying them just as the one, or the other without even saying anything specific.

My stance if you're wonder is that I couldn't say for sure - who can? - but I see quite little room for proper explanations or theories why there would be a difference while there is a lot of room for the suggestibility you get from drugs like LSD. There are various examples of how mere suggestions can be blown out of proportion, lead a life of their own, gaining plenty of credibility.
A chemist supposedly said there are ultra-potent impurities, so more potent than LSD itself, yet I don't think it's common or even quite heard of to have such a quantity of them that you would consistently and unequivocally get side effects in everyone who takes it, which is what you would expect with ultra-potent impurities that produce physical side-effects. More holes in the theories than something else imo. But take that to 'dirty acid thread' if you want to start up discussion about that rather than the main question of this thread.

 

[sekio]

If there were 'ultra potent' ergolines that had binding affinities even tighter than LSD or S,S-LSZ would we not have discovered them by now? Either through molecular/computational modelling or by isolating them from crude LSD itself?

The synthesis of LSD is actually pretty dirt simple, mechanistically, and if prepared according to the Garbrecht (Scully/Sand/Owsley) or even Shulgin method, it is almost universally purified by alumina chromatography using UV light to separate the LSD from everything else.

 

[Starless]

If there were 'ultra potent' ergolines that had binding affinities even tighter than LSD or S,S-LSZ would we not have discovered them by now? Either through molecular/computational modelling or by isolating them from crude LSD itself?

The synthesis of LSD is actually pretty dirt simple, mechanistically, and if prepared according to the Garbrecht (Scully/Sand/Owsley) or even Shulgin method, it is almost universally purified by alumina chromatography using UV light to separate the LSD from everything else.

Not nessisarily. Organic chemistry can be quite complicated and lysergamide chemistry in particular is difficult, expensive, obscure, and underfunded. If there was no more work to be done then David Nichols and co. would be out of a job.

 

[Solipsis]

If there were 'ultra potent' ergolines that had binding affinities even tighter than LSD or S,S-LSZ would we not have discovered them by now? Either through molecular/computational modelling or by isolating them from crude LSD itself?

The synthesis of LSD is actually pretty dirt simple, mechanistically, and if prepared according to the Garbrecht (Scully/Sand/Owsley) or even Shulgin method, it is almost universally purified by alumina chromatography using UV light to separate the LSD from everything else.

LSD was found to have an unusual way of getting itself trapped in 5-HT2A and 5-HT2B, explaining why the modification of the diethylamide group tends to be unforgiving. I am still not quite certain how such long activation (astronomical for pharmacological timescales) would not lead to excitotoxicity or other toxicity. People suggested that it might have to do with downstream effects not being unfavorable while for NBOMe's they may be very much unforgiving. How selective for activation pathways are e.g. 25I?

Anyway the point is: if they already tried to modify a lot of positions on LSD, it just seems unlikely that one has even more potent effects on its own, especially since it should also have such 'trapping' qualities. An old idea of mine was that perhaps it modulates the activity of LSD. Recently someone said they knew a chemist who did sample the impure fractions and found activity. Question of course is: how well was it analyzed to show that no LSD was present in such samples? Another question is: how well-respected a research article would it potentially be? I don't know how 'legit' that was, if not that could explain why nothing is done with the data.

Still, if you want to have some credibility with that claim you should share the structure.

Something like a substituted iso-LSD that has not been considered? I remain very skeptical: if a compound is something of a significant by-product of the synthesis, why would it fly under the radar? I expect researchers to check all chromatography fractions to see what's in them and they would have done that long ago.

 

[Incunabula]

Why do people always assume that impurities present in LSD, has to be active in the same dosages as LSD? A blotter or a drop can hold up to 5 mg's. What if a chemist stopped before the final purification? Either because he sucked, and was afraid to loose to much LSD in the process, or maybe he was lazy or didn't have what was needed for the clean up etc etc - use you imagination -. If you came up with a product that contained 100 ug of LSD per 3 mg "gunk", would you have to clean it up to put it on blotter? Not really.

There's 3 different theories, when it comes to the subjective experiences with different batches of LSD:

1. impurities
2. analogs
3. placebo
4. (And then there's polymorphism too, btw.........there is a bit of magic in that imo)

I personally believe all 3 are responsible for the phenomenon. But we are really in need, of proper scientific clinical studies to really pass any judgement on the topic. I personally prefer to be humble about it.

/my 2 cents

 

[Starless]

All I'm saying is that psychedelics, particularly LSD, are known to be highly suggestful and variable due to set, setting, and body chemistry. If you're going to claim that impurities can be substantially active, or that LSD analogues have been sold as LSD on the black market, then you need to provide evidence for that claim. To do otherwise is to shift the burden of proof.

When we start believing and spreading things without evidence, then we potentially compromise harm reduction and become more and more like the shroomery. Do you really want that?

 

[sekio]

Lysergamide chemistry is indeed mechanistically challenging, but the reactions you'd undergo to make LSD from, say, ergotamine are pretty simple and require no more than a second-year organic chemistry education to understand. The whple process from start to finish, purification and all, can fit on a flowchart on a single sheet of letter-size paper. If you read Shulgin's synthesis of LSD in TiHKAL it is rather impressively short and sweet.

The main reason it is obscure, difficult, etc in this day and age is not due to the phsycial sensitivity of the compound but rather the incredibly tight government restrictions on any lysergic acid derivatives and worldwide illegal nature of LSD. Nichols is perhaps one of the only chemists permitted to even source ergot alkaloids in the first place - it's rather difficult to do ergot alkaloid chemistry if you need to grow a field of rye or bollocks around with special strains of Claviceps in tank fermentation.

Anyways, the reaction to make LSD is a simple amide coupling. People have used all sorts of modern peptide-coupling reagents due to the same sort of bond being formed (amides are the backbone linkage of proteins). When run to completion it produces LSD and iso-LSD (the balance of which depends on the exact reagent used and specific conditions.) I have it on good authority that purified iso-LSD is inactive up to millkigram doses, as is lysergic acid itself, and iso-lysergic acid also has a very high probability it's inactive by virtue of both its 'parents' being such. Quoth Shulgin:

Let me mention in passing, that there are three stereoisomers possible for d-LSD. There are l-LSD, d-iso-LSD, and l-iso-LSD. The inversion of the stereochemistry of the attached diethylcarboxyamido group of d-LSD gives the diastereoisomer (d-iso-LSD) which is a frequent synthetic impurity of d-LSD itself. The corresponding optical antipodes l-LSD and l-iso-LSD are also known and have been tasted. All three are completely inactive: d-iso-LSD shows no psychological changes at an oral dose of 4 milligrams; l-LSD none at up to 10 milligrams orally; and l-iso-LSD none at 500 micrograms orally. These dramatic decreases in potency show both the stereoselectivity of the native LSD molecule in producing its central effects, and the LSD-free purity of these isomers.

What if a chemist stopped before the final purification? Either because he sucked, and was afraid to loose to much LSD in the process, or maybe he was lazy or didn't have what was needed for the clean up etc etc - use you imagination -

Then they're not really qualified to be making LSD. Ergot alkaloids are too valuable not to run the synthesis to the letter.The final clean up using alumina chromatography because you can use UV light to visualize the LSD separating from the iso-LSD and other junk. It's the step that will push the purity to >95% easily, and requires so little extra equipment it would be foolish to not do it. The modern synthesis actually produces very little iso-LSD apparently, but in the event that the chemist were to produce it, the seperated iso-LSD can actually be converted back into active LSD by a simple treatment with base. So worst case, you end up with high-purity LSD, best case you can convert the inactive impurity back into the goodies.

LSD chemists are not pop bottle shake and bake meth cooks. They take pride in their work. The people who can tolerate 3mg of garbage on their blotters are the NBOMers.

 

[Incunabula]

Then they're not really qualified to be making LSD. Ergot alkaloids are too valuable not to run the synthesis to the letter.The final clean up using alumina chromatography because you can use UV light to visualize the LSD separating from the iso-LSD and other junk. It's the step that will push the purity to >95% easily, and requires so little extra equipment it would be foolish to not do it. The modern synthesis actually produces very little iso-LSD apparently, but in the event that the chemist were to produce it, the seperated iso-LSD can actually be converted back into active LSD by a simple treatment with base. So worst case, you end up with high-purity LSD, best case you can convert the inactive impurity back into the goodies.

LSD chemists are not pop bottle shake and bake meth cooks. They take pride in their work. The people who can tolerate 3mg of garbage on their blotters are the NBOMers.

To be honest, I was never a big fan of the "dirty acid" theory myself, but I have at times seen good arguments for it. I'm not going to try to bring them here - because they're not my arguments. And as I said, I'm actually usually not an advocate of "dirty acid". I just choose to keep all doors open in lack of better evidence, and because I'm sure there's things going on we don't know about.

You're probably the most knowledgeable person on bluelight when it comes to chemistry, but in my opinion it's hubris to think that you now everything going on. Yes, in theory no LSD-chemist should be making "gunk" - But there's things going on you don't know about. I mean, do you personally know every LSD lab in the world, and how they work? So in lack of a smoking gun, I advocate humbleness to the question.

It's a fact, that there is a phenomenon, of different batches of LSD eliciting different responses. And while placebo certainly also plays a huge role, that particular answer just don't cut it for me.

Coming to think of it, in this thread here, a chemist that made some LSD just for himself, has this to say on the topic:

Now, about "bad acid", the last step in making LSD is the separation of the inactive isomers and impurites from the active isomer d-iso-lysergic acid diethylamide. Only ~30% of the the crude product is LSD, the rest are these inactive isomers and some side reaction products as well. These impurities are only inactive in the brain, they have many effects on the body that contribute to the "body load" or "roughness" of the trip. I am certain that "bad acid" is unpurified crude product, containing a mixture of the aforementioned molecules and LSD. Acid needs to be purified via chromatography twice, once on silica to remove the side reaction products and leftover reactants, and a second time using a chiral substrate to separate the active isomers from the inactive ones. Large, professional labs could easily accomplish this, but smaller, less professional labs might forgo this and create what you call "bad acid".

Of cause, he's just some guy on the internet - but so are you (Okay, Just kidding, you're not.)

All I'm saying is that psychedelics, particularly LSD, are known to be highly suggestful and variable due to set, setting, and body chemistry. If you're going to claim that impurities can be substantially active, or that LSD analogues have been sold as LSD on the black market, then you need to provide evidence for that claim. To do otherwise is to shift the burden of proof.

When we start believing and spreading things without evidence, then we potentially compromise harm reduction and become more and more like the shroomery. Do you really want that?

^^ Lol. I'd like to see that peer-reviewed study, concluding that placebo is the sole reason for the phenomenon of variable batches of LSD. Notice that I never claimed that psychedelics weren't "highly suggestful and variable due to set, setting, and body chemistry". Of cause they are, we all know that.

If you look in this thread, you can see in DwayneHoover's post a GC/MS result of a blotter that contained a lysergamide that wasn't LSD, but maybe LSP or LSB. Results were inconclusive as to the exact nature of the compound - And this blotter was circulating years before the LSD analogs hit the RC market.

And we haven't even talked polymorphism yet......I'm not claiming I know a lot about that, so I will refrain from having an opinion about it, but it is fascinating.

All that said, I'm not here to convince anybody - You can believe what you will, I don't care.

 

[Starless]

When did I say that placebo is the only contributing factor?

 

[Incunabula]

lol 8)

Okay, then just show me any, just any, peer-reviewed study that examines the phenomenon of some batches of LSD being subjectively, as well as collectively experienced differently. Hell, it doesn't even have to be peer-reviewed to be interesting or important. For the moment, the claim that no one can feel difference between batches, has as much going for it, as the claim that some can - and vice versa. As I've said before, due to the lack of proper double-blind placebo trials in a clinical setting.

You make it sound like some of the things I'm talking about are some kind of conspiracy theories - They're not. The truth is that there is just about as much evidence for each of the hypotheses we have at the moment. Just because you can find a chemists who will say that in theory, no chemist would make 'dirty' acid, it's not the final word. Because you can find educated chemists who will have a completely different assesment of the topic, I mean, you can even find chemists who believe in homeopathy 8) And for all knowledge a person might have, he doesn't know everything going on in every clandestine lab in the world anyway. That would be some claim. There's for sure people out there that know the truth, but they're not posting on bluelight about it.

Just because you find one of the hypotheses more plausible than the others, doesn't make it the truth. I too find some explanations more plausible than others. But I thought I had made it clear, that the position I've chosen, was chosen in acknowledgement of the lack of proper evidence. I'm just trying to avoid the always present pitfall of confirmation bias.

I've taken LSD since 20 years, and have experienced the phenomenon several times. And while I have also experienced that psychedelics can be: "highly suggestful and variable due to set, setting, and body chemistry.", that particular explanation just doesn't satisfy me, when it comes to the phenomenon in question.

Let's not repeat the arrogance of the classical physicists, who thought they'd figured it all out, behold the clockwork universe - aaaand enter quantum physics. It's actually a very unscientific stance, to think you've figured it all out - Particularly when that "all" is based on an assumption. I believe in science, and I think one of the greatest lessons that science has thaught us, is to be humble towards the truth. Verisimilitude and all that. But I guess it's getting to philosophical now, lol.

By the way, when I say placebo in the context of an explanation for the topic in question, I'm using it as a general term for what you describe with your: "highly suggestful and variable due to set, setting, and body chemistry.". It just occured to me that, that might not have been clear.

 

[Ballz_Trippington]

All I can say is every single time I've taken a tryptamine like 4-aco-dmt, it's unmistakably 4-aco-dmt....same is true for 4aco- met , 4-ho-mipt, DPT, etc.
I can tell with perfect confidence all of those substances apart in a blind test.
They all have visuals and body load or at least very obvious characteristics that make them.easy to tell apart every single time for me.
I have NEVER had 2 "batches" of LSD that had consist effects...
Some batches over the 20 + years I've been dropping had only the most gorgeous closed eye visuals and zero open eye visuals while having no notable body load or even come up ( this experienced by every single person in the group who took it - 8 people).
I've had batches thst were incredible hard on the come up thst makes you barf and has an intense body load (again multiple people also barfed on come up and reported same effects).
I can go on on, I've sampled many many batches of acid in my area over the last 2 decades and every single one has had very different characteristics....why is that?
Placebo experienced everytime by multiple people on different occasions?
If so then has multiple batches of 4-aco-dmt ranging from snow white crystals to brown gunk still gave consistent results like every other 4-aco-dmt experience?
If it's psychedelic power of suggestion it would be prevalent on pretty much every psychedelic and yet this debate always rages over LSD.
(Also it is possible some of my blotter over the years were not LSD but I've never taken a blotter that ever had a bitter taste ( nbome) or effects that ever lasted any longer than a regular lsd trip.)

 

[Starless]

Why does everyone keep trying to shift the burden of proof? I never said that I know everything, that would be ridiculous. I do know, however, that suggestibility and set & setting are contributing factors because they have been proven in actual studies. I'm not saying that active impurities aren't possible, but if you're saying that they are possible, then you need to demonstrate that. Anecdote and unverifiable forum posts do not count as evidence.

I hate to drag out this old war horse, but should I believe in the flying spaghetti monster just because I can't disprove it?

 

[Ballz_Trippington]

I certainly didn't mean in any way to imply that you have all the answers or to even shift the burden of proof...it might honestly be something as simple as set and setting and suggestability have more importance in an LSD experience than other psychedelics.
I was just trying to explain thst I find it extraordinarily odd that every single other psychedelic I've tried from the 2cx series to nbome to various tryptamines...they all have unique characteristics that can for the most part be easily and consistently distinguished.
And yet from my personal experience every time I've bought acid in my life it has had vastly different subjective effects. That's just puzzled me greatly thsts all. People in our group usually dose sone just 1 tab to me and my bestie usually around 3-5 tabs and regardless of dose pretty consistent effects seem to be reported . Until a year or two later when we manage to find some more and notice how totally different in character the next one is or how much the new batch was like that one from 7 years ago or whatever.
It's just very puzzling because I do understand the chemistry side of this that LSD is LSD and none of the other enantiomers are active.

 

[Ballz_Trippington]

Also, just a random probably ridiculous theory that's been ruminating in my head is thst what of one and only one of the inactive isomers does show activity in the presence of LSD after the others are separated in a similar way that 2,4,5-Trimethoxyphenethylamine does to Mescaline?
It has no activity in itself buy it amplifies the effects of mescaline when taken before or with it.
Probably lyrics an outlandish theory but there honestly so much we don't know about how LSD works.

 

[Incunabula]

Why does everyone keep trying to shift the burden of proof? I never said that I know everything, that would be ridiculous. I do know, however, that suggestibility and set & setting are contributing factors because they have been proven in actual studies. I'm not saying that active impurities aren't possible, but if you're saying that they are possible, then you need to demonstrate that. Anecdote and unverifiable forum posts do not count as evidence.

I hate to drag out this old war horse, but should I believe in the flying spaghetti monster just because I can't disprove it?

You just don't get it, do you 8). There are no clinical studies concluding that suggestibility and set & setting is the cause to the phenomenon in question - There is about as much factual evidence for the other hypotheses as for that one. Which isn't much either. No one is asking you to believe in the flying spaghetti monster, actually, no one is asking you to believe anything. You were the one to question the position I've taken on the topic - and I explain to you, why I've come to the conclusions I have. In my first post in this thread, I put emphasis on saying "I personally believe.........", I didn't say "I know......." or "I can proove.......". But I do have reasons for what I believe, and I have explained these reasons.

You're the one who's constantly talking about shifting the burden of proof. I thought it was clear that in my take on this topic, there isn't even any real proof for anything, only hypotheses.

Anyway, I'm done with this debate It was old and stale even before it began.

 

[DroneLore]

Maybe different stereoisomers of LSD have different binding affinities?

People always talk about R/S ketamine, and LSD has several chiral centers. Is it just one stereoisomer that is active?