LSD purity and trip quality

I know how to UTFSE but I don't know what to ask and would just like to make a definitive thread on this issue. I hear a lot about impure LSD giving you bad trips, neck pain yadi yada.... And in the same post someone will state that only lsd is potent enough to be put on blotter (and PEA's... but for this thread we will discuss LSD singularly). So, even if Strychnine was on a blotter with LSD, and it was pure, and no LSD was on the blotter, It would still have to be heavily ladened with it to kill someone. So what turns impure LSD a bad trip beside irritation from being screwed? This doesn't make sense to me. How would 500ug of super impure LSD be any different than 100ug of VERY pure LSD?

 

LSD is not the only hallucinogenic chemical that can fit on a blotter, this is kind of an important variable to consider regarding the questions you are asking. Blotters containing stychnine are a myth...

The most likely causes of variability in physical effects:

- It's a different chemical (Nbome, Dox, 5-meo-amt, etc) then LSD
- Individual variablity and sensitivity
- Different dosages

All of those variables can cause different physical sensations from what you may have previously read about and/or experienced with LSD and factor in to influence your headspace.

 

Like I said... "only lsd is potent enough to be put on blotter (and PEA's... but for this thread we will discuss LSD singularly)."

I know other psychedelics do fit on blotter but assuming we are talking about LSD and no other psychedelics... Why the misconception that poorly made LSD causes bad trips?

 

Probably because some people confuse some of these other chemicals as 'poorly made LSD.'
People probably confuse a lower dose from a fire dose experience as 'poorly made LSD' and don't factor in how powerful set/setting can be.

That's why I'm saying you can't really overlook the former variable.

Those are my best responses, I've heard mixed responses on different types of LSD (different synthesis) and I guess perhaps some types of LSD may have a higher concentration of like iso-LSD and there may be a couple other isomers, which may produce variable effects as well. I don't really know too much about the isomers.

 

I think it has more to do with the individual. The LSD trip can be different from one trip to the next even with the same stuff and people think this change is somehow the chemicals fault. Yes, as guerilla said you could be dealing with different ratios of ISO-LSD too, but LSD is LSD when made right.

 

The misconception comes from people who don't know a thing about basic chemistry, much less LSD synthesis/activity/metabolism, begin to form logical sounding explanations for things like "My back was sore after that acid trip". It sounds reasonable that therefore, it was "dirty acid", but alas things are not so, and there are actually far more explanations that don't even point to anything about the contents of the blotter. Ie, you were tripping really hard, is it possible you were just in a weird position, etc.

because of the war on drugs, a lot of people only get their drug knowledge from their drug using and selling friends, who often only know urban myths like 'strychnine laced acid' or 'heroin based ecstasy vs mescaline based ecstasy' or 'mushrooms make your brain bleed' or whatever. the best source for actual facts about these things is online, sites like this one, erowid, bluelight.

 

I feel very blessed to be apart of this site for such reasons.

 

aparently there is a difference in the purity of lsd after it is synthesized. some lsd is 90% pure, and other lsd is 80% pure, 70% pure, etc.

there are some articles by well respected names in the 60s and 70s that seem to report that there is a difference in the experience qualitatively between the different levels of purity of lsd. you can find some of these on erowid.

i agree with them. i can tell the difference between some lsd purities.

but it comes down to speculation really, as to whether the purity affects the quality of the trip.

still, i wouldn't expect to have a bad trip on low purity lsd. i wouldn't really expect to have a truely bad trip on lsd ever. whether the purity affects the quality of the trip is what is in question here, not whether it might give you a bad trip.

-psychedelic chemistry by michael valentine smith

 

I have heard this too. This is where the fluff, needlepoint etc names come from. Or it can relate to what "family" produced it.

By the way awesome sig quote Deos.

 

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_myth5.shtml
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_myth2.shtml

Technically, not very different. Problem is, the variable is the human.

Guer is spot on with everything there.
Two things come to mind about what he said... one is

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_article2.shtml

The other is set and setting, imo it's importance can't be overstated. Period.

Another interesting aspect here is... exactly what Writer points out...

Not just LSD, thats how most urban legends develop like that, a sliver of truth, a few 'logical' arguments, pretty soon people believe there were kids tattoos laced with LSD, that it makes you stare at the sun, jump of buildings, trip for days or weeks if you take enough... etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kda04Phzc54"]Hunter S. Thompson on Marijuana - YouTube

Lemme drop this on y'all about the LSD purity debate.

1962. LSD is completely legal, its still the 'miracle drug' that receives mostly positive media attention.

Bernard Roseman sets up what is supposedly the first underground LSD lab. By 1966 LSD is being demonized everywhere you turn, the urban legends are flying, everyone knows some poor kid that burnt his retinas or jumped out a window.
Roseman gets busted with a load of LSD. He is charged not with making it, he freely admitted he had. He's charged with smuggling and violations of Food and Drug laws.
October of 66 California criminalized LSD, two years later possession is banned federally. Now we have prohibition and all its consequences as Writer said...

Here's how the Roseman case went down, not hearsay but the actual case documents.
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/364/18/316848/

Hope I haven't lost you's yet... Ok, so, purity. There's that great Erowid page about opening the vial of Sandoz LSD 55 years later.
Here's the first documented batch of "underground" LSD, years before prohibition, just a year or two before all the public attacks on the "evils" of LSD...

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_writings1.shtml

Would anybody here turn down some doses of that black goo?
We think not.

"Impure acid" sounds mostly like urban legend to me, like r00r likes to say, it's either LSD or its not.
The vast majority of "impurities" (read incomplete or impure synths and their byproducts) are not psychoactive enough to quantitatively change the experience, from everything reliable i've read and from my own limited experiences.

Just the notion in the trippers "set", borne of years of propaganda, war on drugs and urban legends will materially change the trip.
Much more than 100 micrograms of strychnine ever will to a human body.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine#Human_toxicity

Ok, fire away !

:hide:

 

Dang Voyage, that looks like one of my posts.
"just the facts please" :2thumbsup:

The only thing I can add to what has already been said, LSD behaves very differently at different doses, so much so that to the inexperienced only familiar with average doses of 50ug-150ugs could easily believe he received a different substance when confronted with a dose of 250+ugs

 

the same timothy scully and owesly that said that they believed the tolerable limits of impurities to be .1%. so while lsd that is impure is still lsd and will still make you trip, only pure lsd blows the doors of perception off the hinges all the way.

these guys produced lsd when it was legal, and then they produced it when it was illegal. so they saw professional manufacture and home labs. they seems to think that impurities can arise, especially for a home chemist.

 

Strychnine has nothing to do with LSD.

Simply not a thing.

Voyage dun well.

 

If we call 250ug a "standard" dose, that math equals .00000025 grams.
0.1% of 250 micrograms.
Are there any substances i'm missing that have a profound effect on an otherwise "pure, blows the doors of perception off the hinges" kinda trip?

Absolutely! doesn't take a chemist to figure that one out. again tho, if even 1% of the dose is impurities, nothing that is 2.5 micrograms (1/100 of 250 micrograms) is going to have a drastic effect on the trip.
A 250 ug tab, with 10% impurities is still a 225 ug hit of actual LSD.

http://www.erowid.org/library/books/psychedelic_chemistry.shtml
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_faq.shtml#adulterants

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_article1.shtml
there really is a huge amount of DATA on lsd at erowid that comes up on google searches.

acid is acid, is what you're saying?

 

LSM-775
LSB
PRO-LAD

Salvinorin A
Fentanyl (just mentioning these other drugs with a similar degree of potency, not suggesting they are in acid)

I think that phrase is misleading especially since NBome has hit the market and a saying like that gives an open door for unscrupulous dealers to take advantage of unknowledgeable individuals. There has been a ton of 'acid' threads on this site alone that have clearly been Nbome or another drug. Having taken the NBome drugs yourself, it's odd to me that you wouldn't acknowledge that fact. The info in the links you present is good, but it's dated, prior to the nbome's coming on the drug market.

As far as the purity of street made vs. pharmaceutical made LSD goes, which I believe is primarily why you are touting the slogan... It is interesting to me, eventhough I don't have a particular stance on the issue. Many drugs, ketamine for example, have quite a difference in affect based on the particular isomer that it is synthed from. I'm not sure all of which qualifies LSD as more or less pure but I know removing isomers (which supposedly are non-psychoactive) is part of the process. I also find it interesting how it may be an exercise in people underestimating their set and setting and how they could attribute such a wide range of affects, to other variables outside of those vital variables for the psychedelic experience.

 

True as this all may be, "dirty acid" is paranoia, partly enabled by the psychedelic nature of the drug.

 

Ya, i think you know that discussion in TIKAL about all the odd isomers of L, way more than i can remember. and alot of them can be by products, sloppy synths (what little i comprehend of that) and some are active and some not.

Dude, super valid points. And being one of the "nbome sold as lsd" kinda of people, (well all misrepresentation), i really should acknowledge that. Perhaps the time has come to let the term "acid" go its way and be more specific.

As much as i thought i had set and setting down pretty well, the importance of what you just said is mostly at the core of my recent difficult trip. Lesson i learned is i can't put too much emphasis on those things.
Certainly its not ALL urban myth and doubtless there's been some way whack synths hit the market, that one story i quoted is perfect, the first known underground synth also was a batched synth. But still fooled a guy that had known nothing else but the real deal prior to that.
In the end, theres some fine nuances that influence trips, but, all the dirty acid talk gets old is all

 

especially when us old farts have been hearing it for 30 years longer than these young whippersnappers....:wheelchair:

 

zactly, i was hearing it years before i ever tripped. and believed some of it even if somehow it didn't make "sense". in my defense tho, Al Gore wasn't in politics yet. :computer:
factual books were really hard to come by, that book "Session Games People Play" I sometimes mention being the only hardcopy info I ever saw before my first trip, aside from grade school propaganda. I heard them all in school, blue star kids tattos, rat poison, Art Linkletter... whodahell didn't believe good ole Art in 1970?

 

Timothy Leary didn't, he called Art a ghoul for using his daughters death as a campaign for Nixon's drug scheduling meme.

Upon investigation, LSD had nothing to do directly with his daughters death. She already suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts.
She took LSD, but not when she jumped to her death.