LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison • Hacker News Board

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#101

Post by eof » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

ketzu wrote: post #45

mindfulhack wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The reasons why tobacco and alcohol are legal are mostly historical and they are basically the only exceptions. There are many drugs that kill people but keep them subdued that are illegal. It seems to me that is not the reason for which are legal and which ones are not.

That’s an over simplistic and not realistic view. Marihuana had a similar history as tobacco, opiates go back thousands of years, caffeine is deemed fine, alcohol was actually illegal for years, etc.

Considering the counter culture and anti war (and thus anti military industrial) sentiment being highly correlated with hippies getting lit—I think it’s impossible not to come to the conclusion that the powers that be consider mind expanding drugs to be a threat to the order of things.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#102

Post by throwaway0a5e » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #77

masklinn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're right, but only technically. Leaded gas is in use in GA aircraft only. The overall contribution this makes to atmospheric pollution is infinitesimal. Diesel garbage trucks are worse for society the amount of leaded gas we still burn.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#103

Post by worldsayshi » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

kitteh wrote: post #10

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.

Friend of a friend got caught with two sheets in the 90s and I think he got 20 years for each one. Downstate Illinois. My recollection was the weight of the blotter paper was considered as the drug itself and that easily increased the federal sentencing guidelines.

> 20 years for each one

That is incredible. For a crime that harms noone.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#104

Post by chrisweekly » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #77

masklinn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

where?

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#105

Post by CivBase » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:13 PM UTC

tazjin wrote: post #95

CivBase wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might sounds less like a 'hippie' if you avoid the phrase 'open your mind'. It implies that psychodelics provide users with some kind of enlightenment rather than just hallucinations and euphorea. Makes it seem like anti-drug politicians are trying to hide some sort of dark secret which can only be unlocked by taking LSD.

The common miscommunication here is that people perceive the statement as saying "psychedelics are the ONLY way of learning certain things", whereas what they should perceive is "psychedelics are ONE (very efficient) way of learning certain things". The thing is that for people whose normal life does not include pursuing knowledge and understanding just for the sake of it (and I think this might be most people), it's…

Is there any credible evidence that psychedelics reliably and "efficiently" help people learn things?

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#106

Post by plmu » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #75

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…

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…

There have been reports of huge overdosis, e.g. by miscalculation by a factor of 1000 or even more.

The physical harm was little to none. The mental harm varied greatly, there were even some people who got improvements in pre-existing mental conditions; with lsd in general, but also with large overdoses in particular.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#107

Post by jschwartzi » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

corobo wrote: post #82

mallomarmeasle wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ET = ergotamine tartarate, the typical salt

It's been a while since I've done chemistry- does typical mean something in the context of chemistry? If someone asked me what the typical salt was I'd say table salt

Organic chemicals are often “salted” to cause them to precipitate out of the solution they’re synthesized in. It’s a salt in the chemical sense, but not in the culinary sense.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#108

Post by liversage » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:15 PM UTC

lvturner wrote: post #37

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.

Possibly fall out from the MK Ultra program - take a zero tolerance stance on LSD to make it look like changes have been made.

I came here to make a comment about CIA's Project MKUltra so I'll just add a quote about the use of LSD from the Wikipedia article:

> [...] experiments included administering LSD to mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and sex workers—"people who could not fight back," as one agency officer put it. In one case, they administered LSD to a mental patient in Kentucky for 174 days.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#109

Post by kerkeslager » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

mlonkibjuyhv wrote: post #55

kitteh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also need precursors (like ET) which is difficult to get. Though China is a pretty good source if you can pull it off (and for other things like safrole, etc.).

I wonder if Ergotamine could be an Amine from Ergot. Should probably be abbreviated EA in that case.

Considering that this is coming from the same drug culture that uses the word "molly" refer to "some mixture of empatheogenic drugs and possibly some amphetamine", expecting specificity from your terminology is a bit unrealistic.

I'm not (just) being judgmental here: volunteering harm reduction at festivals, the number 1 problem we had was that users had no idea what they had put into their bodies.

Actual chemists, no doubt, don't use any of this terminology since chemical reactions don't produce the desired results if you're vague about what you put into them.

Re: LSD chemist William Pickard to be released from prison

#110

Post by kerkeslager » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

corobo wrote: post #82

mallomarmeasle wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ET = ergotamine tartarate, the typical salt

It's been a while since I've done chemistry- does typical mean something in the context of chemistry? If someone asked me what the typical salt was I'd say table salt

The way I learned it, if you mix an acid and a base, you get a salt and water. Table salt (NaCl) is the result of mixing hydrochloric acid (HCl) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH):

HCl + NaOH -> HOH (water) + NaCl

But if you mix a different acid and a different base, you'll get a different salt, for example if you mix sulphuric acid and calcium hydroxide, you get calcium sulfate:

H2SO4 + Ca(OH)2 -> 2(HOH) + CaSO4

Calcium sulfate is just a different salt.