What were some of the substances that the group synthesized and experimented with?
Todd’s specialty was tryptamines. He would perform Mimosa hostilis extractions but could also produce synthetic DMT. He was very proud of all the different chemicals he had. If you got close enough to him, you would get to see this huge “library” of different substances—hundreds of different drugs. This was back in 2000 before most of these substances could be purchased online as research chemicals. Todd would go around giving everybody stuff, and we were like, “Give me!” I don’t know what most of the things were. Back then I was on so many different substances, it was like living in an entheogenic monastery. I didn’t have to work. I didn’t have to worry about paying bills. I didn’t have to do anything other than take psychedelics. I had the opportunity to use all kinds of unusual things like ALD-52 and ergot wine, as well as some totally novel things that I have not heard of before or since.
What were some of the novel substances?
Well, I couldn’t talk about a lot of this stuff before, but I can now because the statute of limitations has expired. Specifically, there was one substance that nobody had ever tried before. It was something completely new, and what I experienced on it was above and beyond anything I can describe. Because it was like looking... It was like it turned reality into this whole… I mean, it was reality, but like a layer over reality. It’s hard to explain, but afterward I felt like it taught my brain that there was a neurological switch I could just flip and enter an altered state at will.
What was the name of this substance?
Todd didn’t name most of the chemicals he created, but this was a novel analog of 5-MeO-αMT. He sent me a number of letters from prison describing the synthesis in coded language; apparently it could be made with electrified rhodium foil in a 20-gallon fish tank.[1] There were lots of new things, but that one was particularly crazy. He also said it was an especially sensitive molecule that was prone to degradation, and so when storing that particular “book” in one of his “libraries” it had to be “bound” with a “light-blocked book cover.” There were other novel substances as well. Leonard made a new LSD analog called “diazedine,” though I don’t know exactly what that was either.
Are you familiar with lysergic acid 2,4-dimethylazetidide?[2]
No, but they were calling this diazedine. It was also crazy, but nothing earth-shattering. Leonard gave it to Todd in a bottle of Everclear for testing, and we would dose a capful at a time. Apparently, diazedine failed to be doable on a large scale because the production costs were too high and the yields too low. Diazedine caused a lot of stress between Todd and Leonard, because they had high expectations for it as an LSD alternative.
[1] In Todd’s letters from prison, he describes using both 5-Fluoro-αMT and 6-Fluoro-αMT. The former is commercially available in small quantities, and the latter was distributed by Leonard’s group and is said to be a “beast.” Both are active psychedelics, but neither could be produced with the precursors and electrified rhodium-foil fish-tank apparatus Todd described.
[2] Lysergic acid 2,4-dimethylazetidide (aka LSZ) belongs to a very small group of serotonergic psychedelics that surpass LSD in potency. Aside from the fact that “diazedine” is a lexical clipping of dimethylazetidine (diazedine<dimethylazetidine), the first paper describing the chemistry and pharmacology of LSZ came out of a laboratory at Purdue University, where Leonard had previously studied under the renowned chemist David Nichols. Though the paper was published after Leonard’s arrest, it is still quite likely he was aware of the preliminary research. When I asked Dr. Nichols whether he thought Pickard may have produced LSZ, he replied, “Leonard knew of our work, of that I am certain.” Rumors of LSZ distributed on blotter paper (purportedly under the name λ) have circulated for years, though there are few confirmed reports of its existence. Of course, the name diazedine is ambiguous and could be referring to just about anything, but I would bet a kilo of benzotriazole-1-yl-oxy-tris-pyrrolidino-phosphonium hexafluorophosphate that LSZ and diazedine are one and the same.
