Hamilton's Pharmacopeia - A Clandestine Chemists Tale

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roady05

Bluelighter
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Dec 16, 2012
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Anyone seen this? It was absolutely fascinating and kinda heart wrenching to see how such great minds are taken apart by the government because what they are doing is for the freedom of the human race :( they weren't just guys making drugs they were making all sorts of discoveries and because those discoveries weren't weapons or pharma products they are 'criminals' and processed in such a way that removes their livelihood.

So sad :( I think I am gonna buy a shulgin print for my room in honour of all the genuine clandestine chemists who risk their freedom to let us guys explore our brains.

Link to video (paywalled)
 
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As a chemist i have met a range of chemists over the years in the workforce and during college. You get the total straight edge nerds. You get the older college guy who has done meth for the last so many years and now has gone to college to learn chemistry usually somehow gets the top marks in organic chemistry and once its over hes off into the wind to never be heard of again ( i assume they are somewhere making some very pure meth). You get the chemists who are just drunk 24/7 after work. You get other chemists who abuse the living shit out of prescription meds. Then you have the psychedelic chemists these are college students who used alot of LSD during their undergrad and realize the potential and how amazing it is these people are usually very smart and some of them are the ones who dedicate their entire life to LSD and go onto get PHDs in organic chemistry and some way or another become a LSD chemist risking everything to raise the consciouness of the planet.

One of my ex boss was a very smart organic chemist with a PHD. He would work in a full blown psychedelic lab coat it was looked fucking amazing he also had a huge as fuck beard he looked like he had stepped right out of the sixties he was very lowkey though i always dreamed up wild ideas that he was making some crazy LSD on the side our wages were way to low afford his car and house he owned.

Another work colleague who a phd in organic chemistry got arrested for cooking meth for a gang he had a 3 million dollar house when the police searched through his work area had many notes written and books on drug manufacture. The shit wages of a chemist force these people into clandestine work.

Chemistry is a area where people have heavy depression due to the stress of the work job and low pay so the majority of chemists have drug use problems or are alcoholics.
 
^ I wouldn't say the majority. There are very high levels of depression but most chemists I've worked with and known throughout my career and schooling had never even smoked weed in their life - straight edge nerd types that are used to being losers so the failure of a difficult career with dissproportionate compensation is something they just seem to handle without drugs. The amount of depression and drug/alc abuse in grad school and academia is obviously noticeably higher because people are failing and realizing chemistry is a dead end for most.

Once in the work force the depression prevalence is much lower, because those people "made it" (if you call waiting to get laid off to take a lower paying job "making it")
 
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to the OP: lets be real. Any chemist illegally manufacturing drugs is likely making tons of money. Its not all about PLUR and spreading acid and molly everywhere as some charitable action.
 
^^^While yes many do it for the money, there’s still a significant amount that do it for the “turn on the world” ideology. And who’s to say many don’t do it for both?

It depends on the drugs though. Certain substances are strictly about money, whereas others like psychedelics aren’t as profitable. With psychedelics, even many of the top guys are doing it for the love of spreading them because the risk to money ratio is garbage compared to if they were synthesizing and selling more addictive more profitable drugs.

Also psychedelics often get used by a person or group for awhile, then they “hear the message and hang up the phone” so to speak. Not exactly the best model in this capitalistic society where getting the consumer to come back is top priority.

-GC
 
^ people that choose the synth psychs proably factor in the fact that they won't have the cartel knocking on their door to either kill them or extort all their profits....only the DEA will be doing that to them in that scenario.
 
^Again because there aren’t that much profits to be had.. Can’t extort what isn’t really there. Sure some of the biggest guys live fairly comfortably, but many do it and make just enough for it to be worth it.

Same with DEA, they’ll take anything they can get but generally they go after the high profit drugs. It’s all about the dollar, if you aren’t making it you aren’t a threat in their eyes.

MDMA and empathogens are like the middle ground though between psychedelic production and high profit drug production. There’s money to had but also a general love amongst many who feel it’s an experience to be shared. Why you also see such a cost discrepancy and quality difference depending on the chemist, dealer, scene, etc..

-GC
 
G_Chem said:
While yes many do it for the money, there’s still a significant amount that do it for the “turn on the world” ideology. And who’s to say many don’t do it for both?
Click to expand...

I have to say in the case of the people Hamilton interviewed the main motivation was feeling like it was a mission. As opposed to someone that gets powders shipped in for the sole purpose of money. It is endearing to hear people like Nick Sand (not in this show though) and others talk about doing it to really turn on the world to make it a better place. You don't see that anywhere else in the drugs for profit world. Even Cannabis is becoming a thing of greed.

Another comment about Hamilton's Pharmacopeia. A lot of those episodes were very touching. The way Hamilton brought flowers to the grave of the guy (shame on me for not remembering his name at the moment) that discovered PCP and apologized for human stupidity. The way he realized that Timothy Wylie was worthy of interviewing and putting on the map. Watching the families in Mexico spend an evening tripping on mushrooms. (beats my family's Thanksgiving. ;) ) Lot's of good things in that show. Initially I did not like Hamilton, but he grew on me and I appreciate what he does with this show.
 
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LucidSDreamr said:
to the OP: lets be real. Any chemist illegally manufacturing drugs is likely making tons of money. Its not all about PLUR and spreading acid and molly everywhere as some charitable action.
Click to expand...
Having met many speed cooks in jail and in the wild only like one in ten actually had a lot of money.i guess ppl who make drugs other than meth either do it for personal use(small scale) or its done industrially(like mdma)for huge profits.the meth cooks were just going from cook to cook putting half of what they made up there arm so it was like paycheck to paycheck.they made money but there gig to fig and if they stopped they'd be broke quickly.this in the days of go-eee or speed which was wet,impure,smelly and cut.now that boxes aren't available theres not many of these ppl left ( and the purity has gone up) which is a good thing bcoz now high quality pure gear is the standard and there's no more sloppy unskilled operators anymore.
 
JackARoe said:
I have to say in the case of the people Hamilton interviewed the main motivation was feeling like it was a mission. As opposed to someone that gets powders shipped in for the sole purpose of money. It is endearing to hear people like Nick Sand (not in this show though) and others talk about doing it to really turn on the world to make it a better place. You don't see that anywhere else in the drugs for profit world. Even Cannabis is becoming a thing of greed.

Another comment about Hamilton's Pharmacopeia. A lot of those episodes were very touching. The way Hamilton brought flowers to the grave of the guy (shame on me for not remembering his name at the moment) that discovered PCP and apologized for human stupidity. The way he realized that Timothy Wylie was worthy of interviewing and putting on the map. Watching the families in Mexico spend an evening tripping on mushrooms. (beats my family's Thanksgiving. ;) ) Lot's of good things in that show. Initially I did not like Hamilton, but he grew on me and I appreciate what he does with this show.
Click to expand...

Your post is my exact progression with the man over the years. The first time I saw him was in the Vice Sapo doc where he acts like an immature little needy girl and disrespects the natives. The part that gets me the most in that doc is when he’s talking about giving the natives basic essentials for giving him a place to stay, he then shows some dolls they made for him and kinda laughs like “yea we gave them all this stuff and this is all they gave us back..” Completely forgetting they’d just sheltered his white privileged ass for days.

Over time though he truly has gotten better in every way. My guesses on this are this; he either got major coaching after people like me bitched or he finally ate enough psychedelics.. I’m assuming a bit of both. Either way I enjoy his shows now and can actually stand to watch him interact with others without needing to rip my skin off from the cringe of it all lol.

-GC

draculic acid69 said:
Having met many speed cooks in jail and in the wild only like one in ten actually had a lot of money.i guess ppl who make drugs other than meth either do it for personal use(small scale) or its done industrially(like mdma)for huge profits.the meth cooks were just going from cook to cook putting half of what they made up there arm so it was like paycheck to paycheck.they made money but there gig to fig and if they stopped they'd be broke quickly.this in the days of go-eee or speed which was wet,impure,smelly and cut.now that boxes aren't available theres not many of these ppl left ( and the purity has gone up) which is a good thing bcoz now high quality pure gear is the standard and there's no more sloppy unskilled operators anymore.
Click to expand...

This is my experience as well. Also my experience with most drug dealers.. It’s not like the movies people, don’t plan on quitting your day job.

-GC
 
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