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LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

psymposia.com

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Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#71

Post by lm28469 »

MayeulC wrote: post #60
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was arrested and searched the police didn’t even find the 200 tabs I had on me. They found everything else, but LSD is incredibly easy to hide from regular law enforcement. They found everything else, but in typical stupid-police fashion, they ballsed that up too and ended up entering a nolle prosequi (do not prosecute) at the district court level. The police prosecutor was sufficiently annoyed, and I was suff…

> but LSD is incredibly easy to hide from regular law enforcement Not that I intend to leverage that knowledge, but you can't just write this and leave it at that. Why so? I've never seen any LSD, so I am not sure why that would be.

It's odorless and colorless.

You can literally dip a Bible in liquid LSD, let it dry and it would be impossible to tell you're carrying thousands of individual doses.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#73

Post by jowsie »

exdsq wrote: post #54
throwaway9955 wrote: post #27

For those that want LSD but not have to be a criminal I recommend trying 1-P LSD which has the functional class of LSD without being illegal in most countries, happy tripping. If you're on the wall about trying it micro dose and work your way up to something functional.

In the UK we had an act introduced to combat legal highs by making essentially everything illegal and then legalising products, rather than trying to ban legal highs as they were discovered. https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/05/27/the-government-j...

Despite this 1P-LSD is still being sold in the UK in a supposedly legal way. It's sold as micro dosing pills that are low enough dose to not produce any psychedelic effects if you just take one. There's nothing stopping you from taking 10, though.

(I have no idea if this supposed workaround would actually be seen as legal if taken to court, but the company has been active and selling in the UK for over a year now, they are a sister company of the well known lizardlabs)

https://micro1p.com/

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#74

Post by praptak »

tutfbhuf wrote: post #50
zelly wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make an example out of them and discourage others, prevent a cottage industry from forming. LSD manufacturing scales immensely. One lone wolf could create enough LSD to serve the whole United States demand, maybe even the global demand. LSD is also harder to manufacture. You generally need at least a MS degree and lab experience. The people who fit that profile tend to think about the future enough to respond to t…

Are the mexican drug cartels able to manufacture LSD in scale and export cross-border?

It doesn't make sense to smuggle a drug that can be manufactured in the country.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#75

Post by skissane »

zelly wrote: post #13
smabie wrote: post #8

For some reasons the feds in the 90s were unusually interested in prosecuting psychedelics. I'm of the opinion that all drugs should be legal, but even if I wasn't, I think I would still question why LSD manufacturers were getting such long sentences around that time. Never really made sense to me.

To make an example out of them and discourage others, prevent a cottage industry from forming. LSD manufacturing scales immensely. One lone wolf could create enough LSD to serve the whole United States demand, maybe even the global demand. LSD is also harder to manufacture. You generally need at least a MS degree and lab experience. The people who fit that profile tend to think about the future enough to respond to t…

In the 1970s, my father worked as a research chemist for CSIRO (Australian government research lab), doing research into new pharmaceutical products. One of his colleagues decided it would be fun to manufacture some LSD after hours for personal use. The colleague made an error in calculating the quantities involved and ended up taking an accidental overdose. It didn’t kill him, but he spent some time in a psychiatric ward as a result. (I’m pretty sure my father was too responsible to try any himself.)

My brother did chemistry at university too. Did an internship at an Australian government laboratory (National Measurement Institute) at which he got to manufacture MDMA - completely legally, it was part of a research project into different synthesis routes, so that by measuring traces they could determine how street samples were manufactured. He must be one of the few people in the whole country to synthesise ecstasy without breaking any laws in doing so. (They were very careful to ensure none of the staff sampled the product; it was all weighed very precisely and signed off by multiple people from precursors to synthesis to analysis to destruction.)

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#76

Post by Anthony-G »

jacobush wrote: post #44
082349872349872 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine once asked his TA about (my memory fails here) either how to activate a leaving group or set up a protecting group at a given hypothetical structure. The TA, without batting an eyelid, responded "I think you'll find all the precursors are scheduled, too." The next lab, the TA, presumably having reflected a bit and in the middle of an unrelated discourse, added "remember, always characterise any synth…

What is a group ? (Group of people, or some chemical compound, or some kind of corporate structure, protecting possibly illegal stuff going on in one of the groups?) Are all the precursors scheduled, or is the punchline that the TA was wrong? Why would one do well to remember to characterise any synthesis undertaken? To protect oneself against legal action by showing that the labs purpose was synthesising legal compo…

Upvoted because these are good questions, indicating a genuine willingness to understand exactly what another poster is saying. That’s the kind of discussion that I come to Hacker News for. Not everyone has the same background and understanding of terminology and they shouldn’t be down-voted for that.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#77

Post by andrepd »

masklinn wrote: post #69
non-entity wrote: post #26

Jesus 2 life sentences for manufacturing LSD? Wonder what people were getting for drugs that actually kill people.

As zelly notes below the US has mandatory life sentence for certain amounts of drug production. Under 21 USC § 848(b), a life sentence is automatic for the principal administrator of a "continuing criminal enterprise" involving in excess of 300 times the quantities listed at 21 USC § 841(b)(1)(B), which for LSD would be (v): > 1 gram or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of lysergic acid di…

Reminder that leaded gas is still in use.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#79

Post by dontcarethrow2 »

thelittleone wrote: post #39
smabie wrote: post #8

For some reasons the feds in the 90s were unusually interested in prosecuting psychedelics. I'm of the opinion that all drugs should be legal, but even if I wasn't, I think I would still question why LSD manufacturers were getting such long sentences around that time. Never really made sense to me.

The one thing powers fear most is losing said power. Open minds present a threat to power structures. LSD has the ability to open minds. So does meditation... just that it typically takes way longer :)

I agree, just to add in my own words -- it gives you a fresh perspective, as if your staring at the world from the eyes of a tree. But is it really that important for those in power to maintain a certain narrative/perception? These sentences sound too rough..

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#80

Post by dontcarethrow2 »

mindfulhack wrote: post #35
seesawtron wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco and alcohol industry are getting government subsidies, bailouts and huge profit margins. Not sure about the other "illegal" drug manufacturers.

It's more acceptable and state-sanctioned to sell drugs that kill people while keeping them subdued, than ones that keep them alive and open their minds. I don't want to sound like a crazy 'conspiracy theorist' or a 'hippie', but I don't know to distill this sad and truthful statement more simply than that.

I like to take that to the extreme and say -- how many hospital beds would be empty and pill shelves full if these drugs weren't around? How many dentists would be out of the biz if they didn't shove glue-like candy in our childrens teeth? Then I see that I'm being silly and take another swig.
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