• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand

What level of education for producing...?

News Release
April 12, 2004

Seattle Man Pleads Guilty to
Attempted Manufacture of LSD
* * * * * *
Chemicals and Manufacturing Equipment
Seized at his Capitol Hill Residence

John McKay, United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington announced that today GLENN C. SLAYDEN, age 37, of Seattle, entered a guilty plea in United States District Court in Seattle to one count of Attempted Manufacture of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD). SLAYDEN faces a maximum statutory term of imprisonment of 20 years, three years of supervised release, and a $1 million fine when he is sentenced by Chief United States District Judge Coughenour in Seattle on June 25, 2004. As part of the plea agreement, SLAYDEN will also forfeit $100,000 in cash in lieu of his million-dollar Capitol Hill home, which was subject to forfeiture in its entirety as property used to facilitate the commission of the drug offense.

Court records show that between October, 2003, and January 29, 2004, SLAYDEN engaged in a series of recorded internet and telephone communications with a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant in an attempt to purchase ergotamine tartrate, a List I controlled chemical which is an essential chemical in the manufacture of LSD. On February 5, 2004, an undercover DEA Agent posing as the ergotamine tartrate delivery person contacted SLAYDEN and stated that he was at a downtown Seattle hotel and that he had the “package.” SLAYDEN came straight to the hotel and approached the undercover agent, and was subsequently arrested.

Court documents also show that on the same day, DEA agents executed a Federal search warrant at SLAYDEN’s home on 10th Avenue East in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle. Agents discovered numerous items consistent with an attempt to create an LSD laboratory, including chemicals, laboratory equipment, glassware, and reference books containing instructions for the manufacture of LSD. Based on the amount and nature of the precursor chemicals SLAYDEN possessed or attempted to obtain, the nature, size, and sophistication of the laboratory equipment in his possession, and his presumed level of knowledge, the evidence suggests that he was capable of producing at least 800 milligrams but less than 1 gram of LSD. According to DEA agents, a typical single dose of LSD is approximately 50 -100 micrograms.

The manufacture of LSD can result in emission of hazardous materials. As a precaution, the DEA and other authorities instituted hazardous materials protocols during the search, blocking off the street for several hours in order to ensure the safety of law enforcement officers and the public. Units from the Seattle Fire Department and Seattle Emergency Medical Services were stationed on scene to support the execution of the search warrant, which was conducted by specially trained agents in the King County and DEA Clandestine Laboratory Teams. All potentially contaminated materials were destroyed after the search, and no dangerous emissions were detected at the scene.
 
Interesting...

Taken from the DEA Microgram Bulletin VOL. XXXVII, NO. 3 (March 2004).

"
LSD LABORATORY IN HARRISONBURG, VIRGINIA

Chemists from the DEA Mid-Atlantic Laboratory (Largo, Maryland) recently participated in the seizure of a boxed polydrug laboratory in Harrisonburg, Virginia, suspected to be for production of methamphetamine, MDMA, and LSD. The storage boxes were seized from an apartment by agents from the DEA Winchester (Virginia) Post of Duty. The exhibits included a variety of chemicals and glassware, including numerous petri dishes and plastic cups containing fungal growth (see Photos 7 and 8). Analysis and evaluation indicated that the clandestine laboratory operator (a biology student at a local University) was attempting to produce lysergic acid from an uncommonly used strain of ergot fungus, Claviceps Paspali, and appeared to be in the early stages of determining optimal growth media and conditions. The chemicals, extensive literature, and notes found at the site confirmed that the operator was following the lysergic acid, N,N-carbonyldiimidazole, diethylamine synthesis (production routes for methamphetamine and MDMA not specified). All necessary chemicals needed for the syntheses of all three substances were present; however, no final products were recovered at the site. This was the first LSD laboratory encountered by laboratory personnel.

"

Apparently maybe biology students might be educated enough.
 
I recall that report, in particular the use of the N,N-carbonyldiimidazole as the coupling reagent.

The other point to be noted from that report was that it was a "boxed" laboratory.

You can classify drug labs in these three catagories:
__________________________________

THREE BASIC TYPES OF CLAN LABS

1. OPERATIONAL LABORATORY

This is a clan lab that is in the process of "cooking" (synthesis or blending of chemical ingredients). This is the most dangerous stage because some of the chemicals used can be unstable and highly reactive with other elements. During the "cook" blending or synthesis toxic gasses are released, a fire or an explosion could occur.

2. NON-OPERATIONAL LABORATORY

This clan lab has been just set up to begin a cook but has not started the process yet. It can also be a clan lab that has just completed a cook and has not been dismantled.

A clan lab in this stage should not be considered less dangerous than an operational laboratory.

You may find chemicals not stored or out of their original containers, contaminated glassware, chemical/acid spills and chemical residue that might ignite from friction/ heat, exposure to air or water.

3. BOXED LABORATORY

The boxed laboratory is one that has been dismantled and put away. Again, this is still a dangerous situation. You may find chemicals not stored or out of their original containers, contaminated glassware, chemical/acid spills and chemical residue that might ignite from friction/ heat, exposure to air or water.
______________________________

Which type do you think accounts for the majority of arrests? It's the "boxed" laboratory at over 60%. Think about that for a minute.

GLENN C. SLAYDEN was a jazz pianist and IT consulant with no training as a chemist. He was set away for a very long time for just serious thinking about trying to make acid....he never made any.

The moral of the story is don't be stupid and try this. The penaties are very harsh and you don't have to be actually operating a lab or succeeding in making something to face serious consequences.
 
Many people strongly believe that it's worth the risk to spread the love.
 
I don't know much about industry, but presumably someone with the training and ability to manufacture LSD could get a well-paying, respectable job that carried no risk of going to jail.
 
phase_dancer, i'm assuming that you are not suggesting that that POCL3 synthesis be done without a fume hood and a good deal of precaution. some of those things are rather caustic, though i'm sure you already knew that, but, compared to the reagent that hoffman used (anhydrous hydrazine [N2H4], yay let's all go and melt our fingers off shall we!:)), they're relatively safe.
 
Hoffman had bollocks, messing with anhydrous hydrazine, the damn stuff can drop your blood pressure like a sack of bricks off a cliff, and not to mention, mere traces of metal ions or ground glass joints are likely to cause it to spontaneously detonate, I would handle anhydrous N2H4 as carefully as I would crystalline perchloric anhydride=D
 
yeah, it's really nasty shite, it's what they used to power german V2 rockets (along with H2O2, can anyone say "it esploded"?) and now there are some idiots saying that hydrazine sulphate is this new wonder drug (brought to you fnord by friedfishCo. [tm, R, @, $, billgatesisawiener], the same morons(tm) fnord that fnord brought you monoatomic fnord gold(tm) and oxygenated(tm) water(tm)fnord. fnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnord)
 
phase_dancer, i'm assuming that you are not suggesting that that POCL3 synthesis be done without a fume hood and a good deal of precaution.

No, not at all. It was merely to illustrate that such things are possible to do. I was trying not to elaborate too much, procedure wise. Still it's worth sticking in a point on H+S; suitable fume hood being a minimum requirement.


crystalline perchloric anhydride
Whoah!! 8o 8o

Perchloric acid is bad enough thank you! 8(
 
urk!, i just saw that mention of perchloric anhydride, here's a question in response:

what about Xenic acid? (H2XeO3, explodes spontaniously above 30deg. Centigrade [if i remember correctly]) oddly enough it's salts are stable (although the ammonium salt may be of some value as an exotic, not to mention prohibitively expensive, explosive ( XeO3N2H8 ).
 
Ease up on the synthesis talk guys. It's obvious this is in regards to synthesizing drugs.
 
xenates and perxenates are stable, yes, but bloody vicious oxidizers, apparently they ignite on contact with even most flurocarbon greases.
 
I think I read somewhere that unlike traditional explosives ones made from noble gases do not leave behind any residue either.
 
It's best to leave it to nature, if possible. I remember seeing a paper years ago discussing the production of LSD using submerged culture of C. purpura in a vat, with the nutrient ingredients weighted so that LSD became a major biosynthetic product (probably using very unnatural amino acids, while excluding others to 'encourage' the biosynthetic pathway towards LSD - hell it wants to make lyseric acid amides, you just encourage it to make the diethyl one instead of any of the others). Then all you need is a big chromatography colum to separate it from all the other shit that will inevitably be produced.

Basically the same idea as feeding DET or DiPT to assorted Psilocybe species to get then to produce ethacin or iprocin (only a little more complex). Take the best synthestic organic chemist in the world, and they're still a total beginner when compared to natures synthetic methods (for example - app they're still at a loss for a total synthesis for salvinorin A)

Aren't enzymes great little buggers!
 
You don't happen to have that paper do you? I would be MOST interested to see it, or others like it, I always knew the sample of Claviceps Paspali, and C.Purpurea I had in my stash box might perhaps come to some use some day=D

AFAIK salvinorin A has been synthesized, or at least, I think it has, I know for a fact, that a hybrid salvinorin-A based diterpene with both kappa and mu opioid antagonists, more potent than salvinorin-A itself has been synthesised, I know, because I got into a debate somewhere about the dichloromethyl methyl ether that is needed in the synthesis, and warned a poster just how evil a compound it is.
 
Jabbawaya said:
Too bad Rhodium and the Hive are gone. Those were good. Now it's all up to Google for synths, huh? (Or PiKHAL/TiKHAL, though I'm sure there are simpler synths out there)

umm...scientific journals
rhodium and the hive are essentially irrelevant. one could say that the majority of rhodium is just collection of unoriginal articles
 
^Very true. And most posters were just spawning wet dreams. Here people are thank god not allowed to talk about what 99% have no clue about anyhow: organic synthesis.
 
Limpet Chicken said:
Hoffman had bollocks, messing with anhydrous hydrazine, the damn stuff can drop your blood pressure like a sack of bricks off a cliff, and not to mention, mere traces of metal ions or ground glass joints are likely to cause it to spontaneously detonate, I would handle anhydrous N2H4 as carefully as I would crystalline perchloric anhydride=D

When i started as head of R/D for Pentachem their major diazo compound synth used anhydrous hydrazine. After about a dozen lab synths with my bollocks in my throat I figured out how to do a Zn reduction instead and form the zinc chloride half salt in one step.To the point, I got as far from using An-Hyd as I could as soon as I could.
The following says why I would never have had it in our production area.
Never could find a replacement for good ole sulfuryl chloride. That stuff mixed with ethylene dichloride at reflux is NASTY. Had a reactor go south(The owner was constantly changing the temp settings w/o telling the production manager) with that mix and it stripped the paint and rusted all the vehicles in the parking lot,not to mention damn near killing us all. Had so much SO2 we were huffing Ammonia to deacidify our lungs. Bad shit happens when uneducated( my former boss) people try organic synthesis.
We were making dye intermediates not drugs. I shudder to think the quality of drug that would come from a plant which the owner never allowed a reaction to go UnF*cked with to some degree ( I have the scars from chemical burns to prove it)
Pentachem was easily the most dangerous place I have worked,including a season on a crab boat in the Bearing sea, but then their "expert" was a talented undergraduate with no experience...me. And it's owner the son of a chemist but an MBA who would not spew a penny for safety.
It is not just education it is experience that makes for a good chemist.
WR
 
^ Perfect example of why getting enzymes to do the job is far better - physiological conditions for enzymes never killed anybody (although some of their products might!). That said, even working with things like tissue prep chems can be dangerous. I had a lab coat & pair of jeans disintergrate overnight after working with perchloric acid. Also had a spillage accident with liquid nitrogen - luckily only about 30ml, so I've still got 10 toes! Scared the shit out of me at the time though (i've seen how brittle tissue samples become at -178'C and I didn't want my toes to go that way). God bless Dr Marten and his marvellous boots.

PS I was talking about a total synthesis of salvinorin A, not just swapping around the ester groups - that's all they've done as far as I can see (bet that's hard enough though)
 
Sheesh, I wouldn't want to be the one to have to clear up whats left of that labcoat, although I did the same to a pair of leather gauntlets working with liquified SO2, even the metal studs on the back rusted in minutes.
 
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