Dirty Acid FAQ & Discussion

[sekio]

Whoops - I meant that in the sense of drug-using person with a productive career, not someone who does drugs for a living

 

[elucidator]

I consider myself a professional psychedelic user. I get paid very well if I put enough work in, and most of the time I still get paid even if I slack off and take it easy.
My salary mainly consists of knowledge and wisdom, which I think is worth a lot more than the paper stuff I get from my "other" job.

 

[Psichedelic]

The other isomers and degradation products of LSD are not active. The crystal structure doesn't matter either, LSD tartrate dissolves readily in water, saliva etc no matter if it's crystallised from methanol or benzene.

Original Sandoz LSD was stored in solution made with distilled water in sealed brown glass ampules, likely purged under nitrogen or argon. These would last essentially indefinitely, because LSD needs light (blocked by the dark glass) to react with water and form lumi-LSD. So we can reasonably assume that recently made Sandoz LSD (when it was around) would not have degraded appreciably; much less so if it was distributed in dry tablets. Erowid reports that people opened and consumed some 55 year old Sandoz acid and it was just as potent as "fresh cooked" stuff.

My theory stands dis-proven. Thank you for the information, keeping everything correct is the ultimate goal.

The mystery stands, I do know that LSD that had trace amounts of PCP circulated throughout the 70's, old recipe back from the grave? I feel as if this is absurd, but who knows. Many "at home" LSD synthase routes are outdated. Or perhaps the overall purity of the LSD has something to do with it. I've proposed this elsewhere and been told I was an idiot, without any evidence proving so, just idiotic babbling about who has the largest e-penis of anecdotal evidence.

 

[tryp2fun]

A lot of it may be ascribed to the "Nocebo Effect". This is the opposite of the "Placebo Effect". When you think that a drug has side effects, and you know what they are, you are more likely to experience them, even if the drug is fake. If someone thinks they have taken "dirty acid", they will likely experience unpleasant symptoms. More about the nocebo effect can be found here: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36126/title/Worried-Sick/. What is interesting about the nocebo effect is that it is not only psychological, but also physiological, as it can be blocked by proglumide, an antagonist of cholecystokinin.

 

[Incunabula]

There's just one thing that doesn't add up, why would people expect their acid to be "dirty". Most dealers peddle their wares as "good stuff" and not as "dirty shitty LSD that's gonna make you sick".

Some one taking LSD the first time is going to be more worried about a bad trip than a bad bodyload.......

Anyway, we are actualy talking about 2 different things here, the "dirty acid phenomenon" and the "variety between batches/chrystals phenomenon". My post was in response to blue dolphins post were he introduces the last topic into the thread!

I agree that it's possible that nocebo can be the reason behind some of the "dirty acid phenomenon". As I've already said, I never ever get any bodyload from LSD myself, and I've never felt any "dirty" feeling either (and I don't get vasoconstriction! Maybe that's also just in your minds, LOL)

I've been taking LSD for 15 years now, sometimes regularly (every weekend) some periods just a few times a year,. To me LSD is always the same, the same colors, the same feeling, the same visuals. I think I know what LSD is! And sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I've got "LSD" that was maybe slightly, or even very, different.

As I've already said, I'm 100% confident I could spot some of these blotters in a blind test. It's like the subjective difference between 2CB and 2CI. it's real. And also it's repeatable with the same batch. And let me remind you, the first time I took one of those blotters I expected a "normal" LSD trip.

But yeah, I know that subjective experience is a weak argument vs the placebo argument. So this is pointless.

In the end, I think that the topic of this thread is much more complicated, and we don't even know all the facts. I think it's just too easy to conclude that "Hey, it's all just in your head, guys"

I just think it's funny how this has been debated before, and as usual the theoriticians scoffed at the claim that there was LSD analogs circulating as LSD, and know we have LSD analogs being sold all over the place.

So I don't claim to know what's up and down, but I do know there's more between heaven and earth than placebo.

And honestly, I'm bored to death by the same old set and setting discussion. So I'm going to let this be my last post in this thread

 

[sekio]

There's just one thing that doesn't add up, why would people expect their acid to be "dirty". Most dealers peddle their wares as "good stuff" and not as "dirty shitty LSD that's gonna make you sick".

Hypothetical story: Some dude does acid for a long time, gets a new batch of stuff. The first night he doses the new print, maybe he gets food posioning or something. or he's got a flu coming on and doesn't know it. Or he's pushed himself just a little too hard recently. Or hasn't eaten right. So he gets sore, or sick, or feels less awesome than he "should", or whatever. Even though he's on the same old LSD as before. Rather than attributing it to subtle physiological variations, it's easy to draw the conclusion that "this new batch is dirtier than the old". Even if you don't say it out loud, the impression will stick with you.


The fact of the matter is. nobody has a LC/MS at home to put blotters through.

 

[Si Dread]

Not hypothetical for me, but sadly not surrounding LSD, but the 4-sub tryptamines...

I got a small bunch of these as samples about 3 years ago. I had the same dose of each (I won't go into TR detail), every Friday night for 4 or 5 weeks until I'd been through the set & was able to differentiate them. On one of these nights, I swallowed my usual dose at the usual time some hours after a meal, & began to feel quite unwell. Side effects seemed far greater than usual, I felt quessy & light headed & my stomach felt dreaful. About an hour into a pretty awkward trip (managed to harsh my gf with all my misery Lol) I cramped up & shot into the little room & enjoyed the pleasures of a violent evacuation. It was touch & go but I avoided vomitting too, but holding that together totally fucked up my trip (& hers). The squirts & the other ill effects gave me the impression that one of my 4-subs was either a dodgy synth or just one of the unusual compounds you come across that just does not agree with you.

Nontheless, for the sake of research, I banged the same dose on the Saturday night, the next day, & had a cracking fucking trip! The meal I'd eaten on the Friday afternoon, some hours before the trip had clearly upset my stomach. For the sake of detail it was a beef burger from Giraffe in Chiswick... Lol

So yeah, your hypothetical isn't exactly outlandish!

 

[Deinonychus]

Not hypothetical for me, but sadly not surrounding LSD, but the 4-sub tryptamines...

I got a small bunch of these as samples about 3 years ago. I had the same dose of each (I won't go into TR detail), every Friday night for 4 or 5 weeks until I'd been through the set & was able to differentiate them. On one of these nights, I swallowed my usual dose at the usual time some hours after a meal, & began to feel quite unwell. Side effects seemed far greater than usual, I felt quessy & light headed & my stomach felt dreaful. About an hour into a pretty awkward trip (managed to harsh my gf with all my misery Lol) I cramped up & shot into the little room & enjoyed the pleasures of a violent evacuation. It was touch & go but I avoided vomitting too, but holding that together totally fucked up my trip (& hers). The squirts & the other ill effects gave me the impression that one of my 4-subs was either a dodgy synth or just one of the unusual compounds you come across that just does not agree with you.

Nontheless, for the sake of research, I banged the same dose on the Saturday night, the next day, & had a cracking fucking trip! The meal I'd eaten on the Friday afternoon, some hours before the trip had clearly upset my stomach. For the sake of detail it was a beef burger from Giraffe in Chiswick... Lol

So yeah, your hypothetical isn't exactly outlandish!

Exactly, and more to the point 4-sub tryptamines could be contaminated without the contaminant having to be active at low microgram levels (10 to 20 mics). Further, there are a lot of semi-active substituted tryptamines that are unpleasant sounding judging by some of the Shulgin reports, and they often have a similar dose range as nice, proper, fun tryptamine derivatives. I would still be skeptical until there is some sort of objective verification of impurity, but it is a known thing that 4-subs will degrade in potency if stored improperly. So between potential synthetic impurities and ordinary products of degradation I would be a lot more likely to buy a story about nasty dirty 4-subs than acid. The necessary requirements for activity of some portion of the improper chemicals from either cause are just not so strict.

 

[Deinonychus]

Nobody, it seems, has taken much notice of the request for questions to be submitted for consideration in the FAQ. Consequently I'll now write up the questions I think ought to be included, and then if people want to comment or add their own contributions they can, but either way we'll actually derive a document as planned instead of just chasing this subject in circles, chasing our collective tail.

The first question will necessarily be:
What does the phrase 'dirty acid' mean?

Lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, has been used for its psychedelic properties for the better part of a century. Over this period of time, a consistent undercurrent has been the propensity for some users to experience negative side effects – typically in the form of bodily malaise or tension – that are separate from the concept of a 'bad trip'. The distinction is primarily based upon the definition of a bad trip as an experience where the individual that is under the influence experiences a significant number of unpleasant, negative thoughts, which are not easily dispelled and may ultimately influence the entire character of the trip, spiraling out of control in a cycle of anxiety, guilt, anger, or sorrow. While users of psychedelic drugs will often experience negative thoughts during a psychedelic experience independent of what substance is being used, this does not constitute a bad trip unless the initial seed of discomfort grows and subsumes all positive aspects of the trip, replacing them with looping trains of thought and amplifying the negative emotions until they completely dominate the character of the experience.

The concept of dirty acid on the other hand is generally accepted to consist of negative effects that exist primarily in the body instead of the mind. Often the description of these effects includes some measure of tension throughout the body in the muscles and tendons, a related soreness in the body's joints, sometimes accompanied by distressing symptoms in the stomach or intestines. Users may experience a feeling of being 'strung out', and while the effects are often manifest in the body it is also true that some portion of people experiencing symptoms ascribed to dirty acid also feel that there is a qualitative difference in the mental tone of the trip compared to their other experiences with LSD, and feeling 'frazzled' or 'worn out' mentally contributes to the aforementioned overall impression of being 'strung out'.

These symptoms will not necessarily prevent the user from having a positive or at least neutral experience. That is to say that experiencing the set of symptoms that is ascribed to dirty acid does not necessarily have to lead to having a 'bad trip'. And if there are symptoms that are experienced by a user of LSD that are felt to be unusually harsh, or out of character compared to the user's previous experiences, then necessarily there must be some difference in the quality of the LSD, should the user believe that these effects result from the acid being 'dirty'.

If the impurity of the LSD is to blame, then it follows that the portion of the chemicals on a piece of blotter or dissolved in a vial of liquid that is not (+)-d-LSD – the sole centrally-active isomer of LSD – will be responsible for the negative effects in body and mind. Naturally, not everyone believes that the potential for unusual side effects is a result of dirty acid, in accordance with the wide variety of opinion on almost all matters concerning psychoactive chemicals, and some believe that dirty acid is not an extant phenomenon at all, being instead a natural consequence of the variable nature of both the drug LSD itself as well as the variable state of mind of the user and the various settings in which the user will be tripping.

This FAQ then attempts to clarify the issue. Does dirty acid exist, and if so what may be the mechanism that is responsible for the phenomenon? What criteria must be met by any potential candidates for the impurities that would cause acid to feel dirty? How does the inherently variable nature of the drug itself affect the issue? By applying the principles of logical deduction and rational analysis we seek to analyze the issue herein, motivated by the spirit of scientific enquiry in the face of a lack of definitive data.

---

How's this for an introduction of sorts? It states the aims of the FAQ and brings potential readers up to speed as far as what dirty acid is supposed to be, if it is a real thing, should they not already know about the issue, and at the end there brings up several of the most important questions, in the manner of a thesis statement, while conforming to the idea of presenting the whole thing in the form of a series of questions and their associated answers. You can think of the FAQ as a single question: does dirty acid exist? But I prefer instead to view the document through the lens of a series of interconnected and closely related 'sub-questions' that must be answered in order to form a comprehensive answer to that initial, singular question, of 'does dirty acid exist'.

Please do comment, and suggest alteration, or should you feel motivated to do so submit an entirely different introduction as an alternate choice! I want this FAQ to reflect the nature of Bluelight: we are a community, a collection of many people, not a single monolithic thing. I'll get to further questions and answers in due time, as I wish first to think on the matter a bit further.

 

[Deinonychus]

Can the symptoms that constitute 'dirty acid syndrome' result from the action of LSD alone?

It is worth asking whether the symptoms that constitute what will henceforth be described as the 'dirty acid syndrome' could be simply the result of the nature of the drug itself. Out of all of the genuinely psychedelic chemicals known to man, there are few if any that can match LSD itself as far as variation in the subjective nature of subsequent experiences, and acid is acknowledged to be one of the most powerful psychedelics known to science. Additionally, there is a factor known as the 'placebo effect'. The placebo effect is the manner in which a person may experience something merely because they may expect to experience it. The effect is named for the ability for medical patients to improve in condition when they are given a placebo that they are told is a medicine that will have a positive effect on their condition.

LSD produces a state that is very much dependent on the mindset of the individual who has taken a dose as well as the social and emotional context in which this individual is immersed. These factors are the archetypical set and setting so often mentioned in relation to properly preparing oneself and one's environment prior to administering a psychedelic drug, so as to maximize the chances of having a positive experience. But even in the case of an otherwise positive experience, negative side effects may occur.

The lysergamides as a group generally have effects on the cardiovascular system. These effects are generally weak enough that they do not complicate an acid trip with undue side effects, but due to the variations between the respective physiologies of any two given LSD users as well as the variations over time within the physiological system of a single individual, these side effects may be more prominent some trips than others.

Additionally to the lysergamide-specific side effects, all drugs that bind to 5-HT2a receptors, to say nothing of the effects of binding to other serotonin receptor subtypes, will exhibit a number of effects in the body in addition to the more obvious actions upon the mind. These so-called 'vegetative effects' consist of modulation of the various physiological systems that 5-HT2a receptors have a hand in controlling, such as smooth muscle movement, vasoconstriction and vasodilation, body temperature, hormone levels, clotting response to wounds, and curiously enough the level of dopamine secretion. These functions of the 5-HT2a receptor will all be modified to one extent or another when an agonist, or a partial-agonist such as LSD, acts upon these receptors throughout the body.

As a result, side effects of psychedelic drugs, LSD included such as feeling like you're too hot, or that you're tense, or feeling uncomfortable, can be the result of alterations in homeostatic temperature regulation, smooth muscle contraction, or hormone imbalances respectively. Additionally, while smooth muscle excludes much of the consciously controlled musculature in the body, the stimulating effects of psychedelics including but not limited to LSD may cause the user's muscles to tense up, a common complaint amongst those who are proponents of the existence of dirty acid. In these ways the effects which comprise the dirty acid syndrome may be explained as natural consequences of the intrinsic method of action of psychedelic drugs, that being primarily these drugs' action upon 5-HT2a receptors.

5-HT2a is not the only serotonin receptor subtype to which psychedelic drugs bind however. Indeed, the 5-HT receptor family is not the only family of G protein-coupled receptors to be activated either. LSD binds to all dopaminergic and adrenergic receptors to one extent or another, with D2 receptors being implicated it LSD's effects, unusually for a serotonergic psychedelic. However, we will disregard the receptor families except 5-HT for the moment, and within that receptor family LSD only binds with a high enough affinity to produce measurable effects to the 5-HT1a, 2a, 2b, and 5-HT6 receptor subtypes at >20 nanomolar concentrations, which is relevant since 10-20 nanomolar concentrations should occur in the brain from common recreational doses. LSD also binds to 5-HT2c receptors at concentrations around 23 nanomolar, within the range of plausible heavy dose administrations.

This is all relevant because these receptor subtypes, to say nothing of the dopaminergic and adrenergic systems, are capable of a wide range of effects. Some of these effects are unpleasant, and the combination of the symphony of stimulation of three entire families of major neurotransmitter receptors – receptors for dopamine, serotonin, and adrenalin – likely can contribute some quite unpleasant effects to an LSD trip if certain as-yet uncertain conditions are met. Adrenergic activity in particular is associated with the modulation of the systems adrenalin – also known as epinephrine, primarily within the American medical system – is known to exert effects upon. These include the fight or flight response, general feelings of anxiety and overstimulation, feelings of terror or fear, and many more behavioral factors.

When this evidence is all weighed in concert, it seems likely that many instances of negative effects in body or mind that may occur during an acid trip can be ascribed to the natural effects of partial agonism upon the massive number of receptor subtypes that d-LSD binds to. With that said, although it is certainly possible that dirty acid syndrome could be a natural result of the variable effects of LSD itself, possibly in conjunction with the placebo effect, it would not be prudent to dismiss the concept out of hand as a result solely of these factors. The phenomenon is totally real to those psychedelic drug users who believe in it, and the proportion of LSD users that believe they have experienced dirty acid syndrome is significant. These users claim that they can definitely tell the difference between the ordinary potential for negative side effects caused by d-LSD's action on scads of different receptors and the effects of dirty acid, and so a further analysis is in order, concentrating on what properties any potential impurity must have.

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I think that for sure somebody else needs to read through and edit the stuff I'm spitting out, once the community has a chance to make their suggestions or alterations to the various subquestions. But anyway yeah, it's generally accepted that once somebody writes something, a second person with fresh eyes and a fresh mind needs to go over it sentence by sentence, making corrections are alterations, if the piece of writing is to be displayed in public or published. This is called editing, and applies to pretty much all published text, whether that text is an article on a blog or subject-oriented website, or a fictional story being edited before publication.

In addition to the normal functions of an editor, I think the editor will here need to help me pare down the extensive length somewhat. Or alternately, instead of cutting down the length, there should be a single, paragraph-length short answer for each question, and then some method of expanding it to the full text if a user wants to examine that question more thoroughly. Perhaps putting the full-length bit behind an NSFW tag or some equivalent text-collapsing tags would work. Anyway, something to think about.

 

[DrunkardsDream]

I can only speak for myself.

I have taken LSD two or three hundred times. I have usually been in circles that were well enough connected and I was trusted enough where I knew what kind of LSD it was. What crystal it came from. So the vast majority of the LSD I've ever taken I actually have a vague idea of the purity or at least what it's supposed purity was supposedly.

My experience has been that LSD from the same batch, or same crystal released that same season, pretty much always felt remarkably similar. Of course the trips were different if I was doing different things or thought about different topics... but the overall feel, push, and even visual nature of the drug was remarkably similar.

Variations from batch to batch I however found quite variable. There are a few times I wondered if I had perhaps taken another Lysergamide, but I have undoubtably never mistaken anything like DOx or nBOME or 5-meo-AMT or anything sold on blotter over the years as LSD. I have only ever had "legit" LSD; or, on rare occasion, blotters with no substance on them at all.

That said, I feel I am very sensitive to physical effects of psychedelics. LSD which I knew was fresh and pure felt fresh and pure. My friends also thought it felt fresh and pure. LSD that I knew was Tornado Juice felt crappy but still delivered a powerful mental trip.

You're forgetting the fact that LSD is LSD and that you could take LSD an infinite number of times and you'd never have the same trip or experience twice. What you are describing with "dirty" v.s. "clean" LSD is just psychosomatic, all in your head, and has to do with set and setting, and your mindstate when you took the drug. The marketing of different types of "clean" or "dirty" LSD and supposed types is all just that branding and marketing.

 

[my3rdeye]

I just think it's funny how this has been debated before, and as usual the theoriticians scoffed at the claim that there was LSD analogs circulating as LSD, and know we have LSD analogs being sold all over the place.
------

Do you have test results to back this "fact" up? Where and when were analogs sold as acid? This may amaze you but those ads on SR are fake. Its not "everywhere".

 

[bluedolphin1111]

The marketing of clean vs dirty LSD is not just branding and marketing. If you have seen LSD in pure form you would know better. There is a lot of variability in the appearance alone, in terms of color and consistency, which is obviously due to impurities.

I've never had exactly the same LSD trip. But I've found that certain batches of LSD had exactly the same body feel and physical effects.

As for why dealers would ever call their acid anything but the most pure; It's because a lot of people can tell the difference between clean and dirty acid... to the extent that if you call some dirty acid "Needlepoint" you are liable to be called out on it and people might not react all too kindly.

That last point, to me, is evidence against the whole placebo effect. Many acid dealers are wise enough to bet against the placebo effect, even if it makes their product harder to sell. Because it might fool some people but definitely not everyone.

 

[Livinginthealps]

Since LSD is active in such low dosages impurities should not be active on a blotter. But, what about higher dosages? These negative effects in my experience with potentially lower purity crystal are much more pronounced in high dosages. With low dosages, you are probably going to experience more or less the same experience no matter the purity of the LSD other than dosage variations. Also the obvious effects of external factor such as setting. But, what about eating a few mg of LSD at lets say 50% purity?
Could impurities (byproducts?) start to be active then? Even if they are still in sub active doses alone, could they have an effect on the active molecule, d-LSD? Such as synergy? You can add sub active dosages of certain substances to most psychedelics and experience a change of effects. I always attributed it to synergy between the two substances.

 

[Si Dread]

I'm more of a cynic with this dirty acid thing & I go for the set/setting, all in the mind agle... But I'm also open to other possibilies...

I just stumbled on this in - Peter Stafford - Psychedelics - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychedelic...id=1374427850&sr=1-10&keywords=peter+stafford

The first underground LSD lab was run by two partners Bernard Roseman & Bernard Copely, arrested in 1962 although LSD production was still legal. The disturbing part about Rosemans account of this affair - in his book LSD - The Age of Mind - was his mention that the LSD turned into a blackish, slimey material. He tried it anyway & was impressed by the effects. So the two of them packaged it for sale. The purity of psychedelics on the black market has been an issue ever since

Sounds to me like exactly the sort of thing that might bring untoward effects, if such things did/do actually exist...

Later -

The 70's were the worst time for LSD misrepresentation. When LSD samples were tested 44% contained LSD with two or more contaminants resulting from incomplete or failed synthesis.

What contaminants, I wonder?

 

[Madrus]

I just wish there an explanation for my experience.
I took a tab, all went well. Then 4 weeks later I took 2 of these tabs from the same strip, and this trip was quite different. I would have expected just a stronger trip than first one, but this felt like a different drug. The visuals were very lacking, they were still there and stronger than before , but it was only waving surfaces, hardly any CEVs.

But the main thing was this crippling body load, all of my muscles felt awful. So cramped and forced to contract.

It felt pretty bad. I just want to know how that acid, which felt perfectly fine 4 weeks ago, felt so bad the second time?

And there was a purple ehrlichs and it was from a respected vendor.

 

[Deinonychus]

^^ Because the form that an acid trip takes will vary dramatically based on innumerable variables. For example, the amount of sleep you got the night before, the amount of stress or lack thereof in your life at the time, your diet in the days prior to tripping: these are all variables that the old saw of 'set and setting', however useful, overlooks. There is so much going on in a human body, and probably even more going on in the human mind, and LSD is probably the single most sensitive psychedelic to these factors. Additionally LSD promotes psychosomatic effects: perceiving a mental issue as a form of physical distress or malaise. All this has been said repeatedly in this thread, and is available for the looking at should you have taken that option instead of asking to be spoonfed.

The very fact that this was the same strip of acid will destroy claims of 'dirtiness in the acid' in this case. This is exactly the proof positive that we have been debating; acid is wildly variable, unexplainable sometimes.

I should mention as well that 'this is good acid from a well-regarded dealer' pretty much means nil. Advertising hype and no more, based on the fact that the guy must generally provide the products he advertises.

I'm not trying to be cross here but these same statements keep on coming up and the answers are still just as obviously here, in the thread, for people to use their minds to process and draw whatever conclusion.

 

[Livinginthealps]

I'm more of a cynic with this dirty acid thing & I go for the set/setting, all in the mind agle... But I'm also open to other possibilies...

I just stumbled on this in - Peter Stafford - Psychedelics - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychedelic...id=1374427850&sr=1-10&keywords=peter+stafford



Sounds to me like exactly the sort of thing that might bring untoward effects, if such things did/do actually exist...

Later -



What contaminants, I wonder?

I wonder what contaminants as well. I asked in another thread but, no one answered. I am not familiar with the various synthesis in use but, I wondered can the effects of "dirty" LSD that I and others have experienced be caused by byproducts of synthesis? Not that anyone here would know the exact recipes people are using (other than obvious ones Tihkal etc.) As they are closely guarded and passed down by word of mouth. Regardless of if they are potent enough and active is low ug dosages. As even sub active doses can potentially play effect on the overall experience.

As for black sludge I have seen it, as well as an array of colors and consistencies. I would not eat the sludge like LSD either time I have been around it. Once was black and another more of a earthy brown color. I do know of others who have used black sludge LSD due to its price and not many people enjoyed it due to side effects when trying it out. Not everyone knew/cared what quality or how it looked raw. Who knows why it came out that way during synthesis... new cooks?
I have read in the past about how LSD can take different forms of crystalization and have no effect on purity due to crystal polymorphism. ) Such as a dark crystaline structure being 90% pure as well as clear needle like structure.

 

[sekio]

Because the effects of psychedelics are variable! You were not the same person you were 4 weeks ago, and you doubled your dose. Why would you expect the same experience?

It's been well documented that no two psychedelic experiences are ever the same, and that bad trips are always a possibility. A person can have 49 excellent trips on the same sheet of LSD, but on the 50th he might totally freak out. If the LSD has been stored properly (i.e. not left in the sun or the rain), chances are the person has changed a lot more than the acid has!

Perhaps your body was not prepared for the higher dosage you took. LSD does have dose-dependent side effects - some people get uncomfortable if they take too much. Maybe you were more tense that day than others, or you had some subconscious conflict inside.

it was from a respected vendor.

There are never anything except legit triple stacked pills and respected trusted vendors...

 

[Deinonychus]

I wonder what contaminants as well. I asked in another thread but, no one answered. I am not familiar with the various synthesis in use but, I wondered can the effects of "dirty" LSD that I and others have experienced be caused by byproducts of synthesis?

I think nobody answered because nobody knows. We can hazard guesses, but this is difficult because of the BLUA synthesis discussion prohibition, which is IMO the most onerous and unnecessary of the various limitations upon dialogue that the BLUA imposes. If you wish to speak on the subject please do PM me and we can discuss the characteristics that possible synthetic impurities would require without 'breaking the law'.

Not that anyone here would know the exact recipes people are using (other than obvious ones Tihkal etc.) As they are closely guarded and passed down by word of mouth. Regardless of if they are potent enough and active is low ug dosages. As even sub active doses can potentially play effect on the overall experience.

Actually the routes to LSD are well characterized, and while there may or may not be other methods that are not available in the literature it is doubtful this is the case, and word of mouth is not the primary means of transmitting the information regarding the synthesis. Even a cursory search on the Internet will yield the most common routes, and the chemical abstracts and other literature contain a few more. So it's hardly 'forbidden information', it's actually a pretty well-explored realm of synthetic chemistry precisely because it is illegal so there have been many novel syntheses that have been developed to skirt precursor bans and the like.

I don't think that anyone has established that sub-active doses of certain chemicals can color the experience. If you've got a source for that idea that I don't know about I would happily change my views on the subject but the musings of random Bluelighters or off the cuff comments made to the media by imprisoned synthesists don't really cut it. And furthermore it actually is relevant whether or not whatever impurities are active at <1mg, because even if it were proven true that sub-active doses could color the experience it would matter what the active dose actually is, because that would determine what fraction of a dose could be present, which would then affect the plausibility of the sub-active dose as colorant argument. Meaning that if sub-active doses are shown to be able to color the experience, they're likely to do so at perhaps 50% of the active dose, but not 10%.

As for black sludge I have seen it, as well as an array of colors and consistencies. I would not eat the sludge like LSD either time I have been around it. Once was black and another more of a earthy brown color. I do know of others who have used black sludge LSD due to its price and not many people enjoyed it due to side effects when trying it out. Not everyone knew/cared what quality or how it looked raw. Who knows why it came out that way during synthesis... new cooks?
I have read in the past about how LSD can take different forms of crystalization and have no effect on purity due to crystal polymorphism. ) Such as a dark crystaline structure being 90% pure as well as clear needle like structure.

Well, the difference between purportedly pure clear crystals and impure, not-clear colored crystal is not crystal polymorphism, it's just purity. Crystalline polymorphism is like getting acid that's 90% pure that is needle-like crystals, and another batch that's also 90% pure but has hexagonal crystals. These are just made up examples, as I don't know what the various polymorphs of acid really are.

There's also the issue of potentially having hydrated polymorphs that would have a different shape and composition and texture, but the shape of the crystal or the level of hydration if present doesn't have anything to do with how pure it is. Crystals are by definition made out of only one chemical, because that is how they form on the molecular level: Brownian motion leads individual molecules of the chemical to bang into eachother. At some point two of them will fuse together, and more and more molecules will then attach themselves in a regular, repeating geometric pattern to that initial crystal seed. The specifics of what that geometric pattern is and how the molecules are oriented relative to one another within the crystal structure determines what the overall shape and physical characteristics of the crystal will be, and these various forms, differentiated based on the nature of the pattern and intermolecular orientation, are what polymorphs are.

Since only molecules of the same chemical can attach themselves to the growing crystal while properly fitting into the pattern, other molecules will not have the right shape and won't fit, so the crystal will be nearly pure. I say nearly because occasionally the crystal will grow in such a fashion as to surround a molecule of a different chemical within a single molecule sized void in the pattern. These inclusions are flaws in the crystal. The slower the crystal grows, the less likely it is to accidentally envelop other molecules of different chemicals, and this the purity of that crystal will be greater.

Hydrated polymorphs are crystals where there are individual molecules of water that are included in the repeating geometrical pattern. Necessarily, the pattern will be altered in order to accommodate the steric bulk of the water molecules, resulting in a different overall shape for the crystal and a different set of physical properties. Typically the more water is included the softer and easier to melt the crystal will be. If there's one water molecule per molecule of whatever the crystal is otherwise made of, that is a monohydrate. And the more water molecules per molecule of the other constituent, the greater the numerical prefix before the word hydrate, the easier it is to melt, and so on.

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As for why a batch would come out looking like black sludge, I would put my money on impure precursors. You're supposed to purify your precursors before use if they, for example, come from a plant. Otherwise you'll have a whole mess of other compounds that are going to be acted upon by the other reagents in the synthesis. Some of the impurities won't react and will come through unchanged, some will be chemically altered, some may fuse with eachother, some may impede the progress of the synthesis of the intended product, and so on. So we purify our plant-derived or otherwise impure precursors.

The thing is that when you recrystallization or otherwise purify the precursor, inevitably you lose some of the desired, intended precursor. So if you're a greedy, money hungry bastard who doesn't give a shit about the quality of their product, they purify the precursors less, if at all, so that the end product will weigh more. But naturally that increased weight will be mostly made up of impurities that went through the synth with the intended product. Some of the increased weight will be the form of the intended product, because the synthesist didn't lose as much of the intended precursor due to purification so there's more starting material to work with, but it comes at the expense of also including a bunch of nasty junk crap in the final product.

If a given contaminant in the precursor does indeed become chemically altered by the other reagents, then potentially you'll end up with even some of the intended product remaining unreacted because the other crap used up some fraction of the molar weight of that reactant. Yeah, you could just use a large excess of that reagent (one of the two reacting compounds will always be the limiting reagent, and the other will be added in excess, since adding precisely the same molar amount of each is not likely or even practical to attempt), but the reagents or this kind of thing expensive and hard to get, so you don't want to waste them. Furthermore, it is also the case that some reactions require certain ratios of the various reagents, and not only will using to little of one of those reagents fuck up stuff (like LAH, in certain reactions, and now no more will be said), using too much can also throw off the reaction as well.

Redox reactions are the prime example, you can totally over-reduce your whatever into totally useless inactive garbage, etc. case in point: my first synth ever, methcathinone, the first time it went perfectly, which I'm proud of to this day (for getting it right my first time ever!), but the second time I did something or other in the math wrong and ended up oxidizing the shit out of the precursor that shall not be named with the reagent that shall not be named, and ended up with a dish full of disaster.

Aaaaand then the third time... I got busted by my mom halfway through! I was like 15 I think, using reagents and glassware stolen and smuggled home in my backpack from the high school chemistry lab (they need found out but this is an awful idea nonetheless, in case anybody reads that and decides to be clever), she was so pissed off, it is emphatically not fun at all to have your parents catch your methlab red-handed. But my point is that redox reactions are sensitive to improper amounts of the redox-img reagent *in either direction, excess or shortage*. And having crap in your shit that is unpredictably using up a reagent – or not, you'd have no way to know ahead of time – is thus an obviously awful idea even if you're not pulling a redox, and just one of the many reasons that people who don't purify their precursors should they be less than reagent-grade should have no business making acid – or any drug for that matter – in the first place.

Sure you could then purify the end product, as you should be doing anyway, and you'll lose mass there too, both of the intended product and any impurities, but this is the old ounce of prevention pound of cure deal. It's always best to purify BEFORE reacting, because you just plain don't want a bunch of random shit messing with the synth.

Because the effects of psychedelics are variable! You were not the same person you were 4 weeks ago, and you doubled your dose. Why would you expect the same experience?

Fascinating, I missed that about the doubled dose! No wonder it was not the same, we don't even have to invoke differences in how your body or mind were feeling etc etc at all, the reasoning is right there for all to see!