It seems like a common belief among a lot of people I know that if you drop acid more than 7 times you are “leagally” insane. I don’t believe this at all, but I haven’t been able to find anything proving or disproving it. My question is: “Is there really a limit of acid hits that will make you insane?”
I can answer this from experience. I used to <ahem> experiment with LSD and have taken more than 7 hits. I haven’t touched drugs in more than 4 years though, and I can tell you there are no apparent long-term effects of –
OH MY GOD! GET THEM OFF ME! THERE’S INSECTS ALL OVER ME! MUST BURN THE SPIDER’S OFF! DUCK! GET DOWN LOW BEFORE THE FLYING AARDVARK’S EAT YOUR HAIR!
The problem with that definition is that a) it is based on a drug potency that rarely exists today and b) it is also based somewhat on non-clinical definitions.
On a) most of the acid you can get ahold of today is quite a bit more diluted than the true LSD you could get ahold of in the mid 60’s when it began to be a popular street drug in the US. For the most part LSD is expensive and difficult to synthesize when compared to easily produced compounds such as methampheatmines. In fact if you were to “score” a hit of blotter acid today you would be highly unlikely to get any visuals at all, instead getting a lot of body high (or “rushes”). Thats because most blotter is meth based (more on the term “base” at the end of this post) rather than actyally LSD. So it has less psychoactive effects or altered ones at the least. This is a really rapid change. I dosed about a month back with three hits of liquid in sugarcubes. I got minor vosuals and some major body highs, some minor loss of motor function. What this meant to me, becasue I have a lot of experience with “self medication” is that whgile there was some small amound of LSD in the compound it was mostly meth in the form of MDMA (for you kds out there MDMA is "Extacy"s’ grandpa.). Now compare this to the first time I “dropped” with blotter in 85’ and at that time I had incredible visuals (actual neon tracers and cartoon color swaps. Color swaps are when “real” green, for example, is replaced with “cartoon” green. Same goes for the whole spectrum. Everything looks like a really well drawn cartoon.). Thats less than 20 years for a drug to change completely.
Now on the subject of b). Some screening processes for psychiatric care and for military service would ask about LSD use (remember at one time the stuff WAS legal) in determining mental fitness. In fact in 88’ when I joined the ARMY I was asked about LSD use (of course I lied about it) and asked about why that question was on ther rather than just a generic “have you done illegal drugs” question. I was informed that it was because at that time the ARMY would overlook certain limited drug use (I did admit to smoking pot but I said “twice”) for those who had specific abilities or aptitides that were needed by the service (I scored a 98 on my ASVAB. Which is a military aptitude test) but that some drugs affected the mental processes even with limited use and that could affect one’s security clearance. Apparently by ARMY reasoning 3 hits in a lifetime were acceptable but over 8 and you would be regarded as mentally unstable or unable to have a “SECRET” clearance. Obviously this does not take into account the strenght of the dose or one’s previous mental stability, but then no rule really does (taker speed limits for example. My grandmother can’ty safely drive at any speed and I can safely drive at high speeds but no cop can determine who gets what speed so everyone has to drive in the middle ground).
"Base" is used two ways. In compund drugs there is a “base” drug upon which the main chemistry is formulated. The most common synthesized drug today is methamphetamine. It’s cheap to make, highly addictive, and can be used as the started for a variety of other drugs (MDMA, crank, all of your various kinds of “speed”, and most popular today Extacy.). It also has (with just a few slight alterations)m a variety of effects both physically and mentally on the user. How this relates to LSD is that “real” or pure LSD, because it interacts with the brain directly (specifically neurotransmitters) can simulate a lot of physical sensations
LSD and some meth compounds “feel” the same when you are on them. Also with slight alteration meth can cause unusual optical phenomenon. Now for most young people or those unfamilliar with “real” LSD they don’t know the diff. All they know is that they “feel funny” and see dinky visuals so they think they are on acid. Because it is cheaper to produce it is often sold as acid or mixed in with acid to “cut” costs.
The second way “base” is used is as a term referring to any additive needed to stabilize LSD in order to make it remain “fresh” or to keep it on blotter. A lot of people beleive you need to add impurities to LSD to make it actually work. This is actually bunk. Yes LSD will evaporate but it’s going to do that no matter what you add to it unless you keep it in a sealed glass container or freeze it on the paper and keep it frozen (below 20 deg F is a good rule of thumb. Also don’t store in in plastic as that is porous and will leech the drug). All kinds of things are added to real LSD as a “base”, from strychnine, to everclear, to methamphetamine. The real reason is usually to cut costs or because the “chemist” making it has a bad recipe.
All in all I have taken well over 400 doses of varying qualities and formulae in the past 15 years and I am very lucid and probably sane. Of course you don’t know me. I mean, I could be a real nutcase and just happen to be smart at the same time “I may be crazy, but I"m not stupid.” so to speak. I would really advise agains taking anything sold as “ACID” today because of the aforementioned reasons as you will likely not end up getting real acid. In fact the current state of affairs in the LSD community are so sad compared to when my dad used to drop that I made my “trip” of a month ago my last until I can start to make my own or make my bi-annial pilgrimage to Holland where it can still be had in it’s pure form.
Zen, can I be your friend?
Seriously though, it was alway my understanding that LSD is not physically addictive. If I understand you correctly, most “acid” now IS addictive because it’s not really LSD…it’s METH? Scary!
How can you get enough MDMA on a blotter to have any effect? For that matter, how can you get enough of anything but LSD on a blotter to have any effect?
(for you kds out there MDMA is "Extacy"s’ grandpa.)
You meant of course mda, mdma is ecstasy.
The potency of methampheatmines that you might encounter as just crystal meth or crank is greatly reduced. Most designer drugs (called so because in the late 70’s early 80’s they were synthesized to order to evade the overly specific drug lasw of the time) are heavily cut. The meth variant known as “Ice” which is basically a copy of crack cocaine is supposed to be quite intoxicating in small doses (like crack cocaine). The similarities between the two (crack and ice) are that they are both heavily cut with baking powder/soda (I think the ratio is 90-95% inert filler). Also the meth chems used when one intends to make imitation LSD or to dilute LSD are intentionally altered for specific results (the body rushes I mentioned previoulsy). As I stated previously methamphetamine is a base drug and because of this it branches off easily to produce various results. If you compare a “speed high” to an MDA or MKDMA high the results are quite different even though they have a similar chemichal structure.
Also when dealing with blotter or liquid LSD that has been cut with meth you have to be aware that even the microdoses of LSD that are there are highly potent to your brain. Again this has to do with how LSD and chemichals altered to interact directly with the brain realy work.
Even “pure” LSD blotter usually only contains between 50-120 ug (micrograms) of LSD itself. This may seem like a heavy does if you are unfamilliar with LSD or psychoactive chemichals so to give you an idea of how stron true LSD is bear in mind that a common dose is between 15-150 micrograms a heavy dose can be as high as 400 micrograms (so figure 8 hits of bottom shelf single dip blotter) while the LD50 (the dose at which 50% of animals given experience death) is up around 12000 ug (or 32 hits of the same blotter). That is a shitload of acid. Now figuring that 50 micrograms is a moderate dose (enough of a hit that you won’t want to kick someone’s ass over being ripped off) but that same single tab of blotter is capable of holding well over the 400ug amount and in fact because of the expense in producing it (compared to the meth we were talking about before) your big concern is to spread it about a bit over a 3x4" blotter sheet (the size we used to use most often when making blotter) evenly. This is probably where someone started to dilute the LSD with other substances which had properties that would either enhance the drug or make it easier to work with. After all you can’t just spread it on with a spatula. Anyhow lets say you have one 3"x4" blotter sheet that can hold 48 hits (average hit being a 1/4" square but it can be any size really) and you want to give each hit 100ug (might as well make quality and the math is easier) so you have to make 4,800 micrograms (I used to have the formula to calculate volume memorized but that was a long time back) of substance. Now that sounds like a lot and it is in dosages but in volume it is really nothing. So you have to mix it with something in order to be able to dip the blotter sheet in it and get it spread evenly. We used to use everclear because it evaporates in a temperature and humidity that the LSD does not so you don’t get smelly or soggy blotter. anyhow if you take the complete volume that a 3"x4" blotter can absorb and the volume of 4,800ug of LSD (molecular weight is about 300 or so) you have a lot of room left over for other stuff. About 99% of that sheet is going the be available for occupation by other substances. Thus you have plenty of room for your meth or whatever.
I’m sorry if this is confusing, I’m re-reading it now and I’m afraind I have put too much raw data and too littl conclusion here. The point is this: If you even have a tiny relative amount of LSD you will get some trippy effects, now when you add a small amount of meth (specifically altered and undiluted meth) those effects vary radically towards the physical and away from the mental. The relative dose size for MDMA varies radically depending on the results you want. Sure for straight MDMA high you want about 80mg but the threshold dose alone is 30mg and the after effects can be anywhere from 3 to 32 hours. This is w/o combining it with the altered neurotransmitters produced by the brains interaction with miniscule doses of actual LSD.
Sue Duhnym
I wouldn’t worry too much about getting hooked on crank from doing a hit or two of crappy blotter. As I eluded to above the actual amount of crank on a “dose” of acid isn’t likely to exceed 30mg which is marginal at best (hell the LD50 for MDMA is up around 100mg ber kilo of body weight). Plus most people drop acid much less often than those who take crank even recreationally.
And yes, you can be my friend. I’ll be by with the magic bus around noon.
BugZap
Of course you are right. MDMA or methylenedioxymethamphetamine (whew! what a mouthfull) is classed as a psychoactive of lesser effect than MDA which has more of a psychoactive nature (more visuals and imagery). METHYLENEDIOXYAMPHETAMINE is, however the chemichal name for both of them (also signyfying how close they are to one another). In fact if you look at the molecule for each side by side (I wish I could embed an image here) you are hard pressed to see much difference. I see only one long chain seperating them.
Note
The statements above are intended in no way to encourage the unsupervised experementation in illicit narcotics or the manufacture of said narcotics and is intended only to answer specific questions asked. Also in any statement when the poster has stated a use of or involvement in the above mentioned drugs is purely fiction and should the DEA arrive at any time I will have cookies and ice cream and coffee for the fine members of that agency.
I’d like to second the question by my fellow Elvis Costello fan. zen, you state that you have dosed around 400 times. Remember, one’s first dose is always the most intense, possibly because one doesn’t have any idea of what to expect. Any attempt to recapture the first good experience is just ‘chasing the dragon’. And familiarity breeds contempt; someone who doses weekly (or, God forbid, daily) is certainly not going to have the same experience as someone who doses once or twice a year.
I really don’t know, because I sure don’t have your level of experience (and believe me, I do respect that :D), but aging stoners do start to go on about the good old days, and these damn kids today who can’t get it together.
Well you bring up a good point, and it is valid. Just like anything else as one acclimates to an experience one can grow callous to the effects. However, I have compared notes on this (I’m sure you can tell that I have an avid interest in LSD) with others of my generation (30ish), my father’s generation (50ish) and my housemates’ (20ish). Also I have had involvement with those who used to be in the chemistry biz and those who (as of the last year or so) still are.
It’s actually pretty interesting. I happen to live in a state where one of the “founding fathers” of the LSD movement lives and where he started the “scene” that he was in to. My mention of a magic bus might be the tip off on that but to name names isn’t appropriate to this kind of thing so I’ll leave it at that. Anyhow I have a “recipe” given to me by this person that is authentic, and pretty neat just for the sake of who gave it to me. I have also compared this “recipe” with the notes used by a person who is or has been more recently involved with the manufacture of LSD and there are distict differences. Those differences were fairly minor but mainly revolved around inert chems added to the mix just prior to the “basting” of the blotter. Now my “original” recipe is intended for use in making geltabs so some minor variation can be expected but it still did give me pause (after all I still want to make my own someday and I certainly don’t want to die or test on animals until I get it right), so I took time to investigate every formula I could get for free or buy. It has become somewhat of a hobby and I have about 50 different recipes. There are four groupings that all have a valid end result with just minor additives depending on what you want to make (Liquid, gelcaps, or blotter, or windowpane which is really similar to the geltab formula). I have gotten about 20 recipes that don’t have weird things in them like strychnine or MDMA or meth the rest actually list them and have wildly varying amounts for mixing (as well as the stages at which they should be added).
Now back to comparisons mentioned in the first bit. After all of this I really got curious as to who got the bright idea to add this crap and why. The first person I talked with was my dad who was really into the drop-out scene and who knows I used to dose. So I asked him for specifics on his first and last trips. Now, even accounting for dosage he got some really wild visuals. Stuff I had NEVER seen even when I was taking huge quantities myself. He noted that he never got much of a body high and in fact didn’t know what I meant by the term in relation to LSD. I then spoke with my housemate and asked her about her visuals. She hs only dosed maybe a dozen or so times but even then whe rarely even gets tracers (a pretty casual thing when one consideres that you can get tracers from almost any drug if taken in quantity), I also spoke with two other friends in that same age group and only one had ever had visuals to even compare with my own let alone my fathers descriptions. Finally this led me to get in touch with the originator of my first recipe. This is the person I should have gone to first. I’ll retell this bit and please if you are my age I will understand the skepticism but the times he was talking about were not the same times we now live in:
Accodring to my source, where there was LSD there was a LOT of LSD. First of all it was largely a legal substance at the time and one that was just as easy to make in bulk as it was in small quantities (easier in fact because most of the chems that make it can only be had in bulk). Also people were pretty much giving it away and encouraging others to “turn on” with LSD. It was more than a drug. For many it was the heart of a social and political movement and a thing you wanted to share. When Huxley wrote about the doors of perception it was a call for people to open those doors and to get others to do the same. Consequently there was very little reason to make crappy product. A it could be had cheaply and at the beginning legally so where is the profit in counterfeit. My source stated that it was like that for quite a while until it was made illegal. That made the cost go up but there were a lot of peoplr who still wanted it. He stated that then you began to get “bunk” or crappy LSD. At first it was either weak or just plain NOT LSD. Now, because the stuff was made illegal and the fed gov began handing out some real hard time to people making it or sharing the recipe it went heavily underground and people began getting bad recipes. It wasn’t like they wanted to be making garbage, but they just didn’t know any better and thought they were doing it right or were doing it close enough. Hell some of them had never had good LSD so there was no way to know they were making crap.
Thats pretty much what he had to say about that. I never talked to him about the use of meth in it or being sold AS LSD so this is mostly my own opinion which I share with a few friends who have similar goals to myself.
Meth is a highly profitable and easily made substance. People who do meth usually do a LOT of meth. Also the sentences being handed out for the manufacture have just recently begun to get steep and are in fact relatively weak compared to those handed out for LSD use. A lot of people thing this is because the fed gov fears LSD as it can be given to someone unwittingly due to the small amounts required to make someone trip (like say mixing LSD-25 with DMSO and smearing it on the doorhandles of a state troopers car. <GRIN>). If you look at the fines for the manufacture of meth compared to simple posession with intent for LSD you can see that the fed gov really hates LSD. Ok, where was I? Yeah, so LSD isn’t something you do shitloads of so selling it is not really high profit and finding customers for it is tricky unless you like spending all your time in nightclubs. So making quality stuff isn’t often worht the effort or risk. Still, there ARE people who want it but they won’t pay a lot for it. So what do you do if you are a meth dealer who knows about a few people who want acid and you can get a little bit of liquid LSD? Well, you make up some MDMA or MDA the you mix in a little bit of LSD (haphazardly because you probably don’t knowe what you are doing) and follow some formula that someone else came up with or you got off the web and you sell it as LSD. Nobody you are selling it to is likely to know any better (LSD users are really tight knit anymore. When I was a regular user I only bought from two people because it was good and I knew they made it) because if they are buying LSD from a meth dealer chances are all they know about the stuff is from a Greatful Dead mp3. Now bear in mind this is conjecture and a certain bit of paranoia might seem to have crept in. But I do trust all of my sources for honesty and veracity. Also I have read a good deal of literature describing experiences on LSD and they just don’t mesh with my experiences with the substance. Also as I noted. I make a bi-annual trip abroad to a country which is much more friendly to druggies like myself. I can tell you that if you go to the right coffee haus you can get good doses. 
Uh oh, I think I may have brained my damage.
Oh yeah? I live in a state that has an Owsley County! And yes Virginia, it IS that Owsley (or his family, at least).
I’d like to approach the OP from a different angle, that is, the “legal” part of legally insane. Presumably, this bit of urban lore arose as a sort of warped criminal defense. “Dude, they can’t convict me, I’m legally insane, 'cause I’ve dosed more than 7 times.”
Sorry, don’t work that way. It’s fact based. In order to maintain an insanity defense to a criminal charge, one must show that he was not capable of understanding either a) what he was doing or b) that what he was doing was wrong; at the time the crime occurred. (This is a major simplification, and different jurisdicitions use different rules. Check with your personal attorney or tax advisor before going insane and committing a crime. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited by law.)
The upshot of this is that chronic conditions do not necessarily equal a valid insanity defense. F’rinstance, you could be a well-documented and diagnosed psychotic, but if you know that you’re hacking your paperboy up with a machete and, while you’re doing it, you know that it’s wrong to do so, then you have no insanity defense.
On the other hand, perhaps the point of this bit of blather is that consumption of more than 7 hits is presumptive proof of insanity in proceedings to involuntarily confine the tripper. Again, it don’t work thatta way.
If they’re trying to put you (or keep you) in the happy home against your will, the authorities generally must show that you are a danger to either a)yourself or 2)others. The fact that one has consumed a certain quantity of entertaining hallucenagenics at some point in one’s life isn’t entirely relevant to that question.
So, the old 7 hits shibboleth ain’t true. Don’t go out committing crimes and counting on having a free pass because you’ve walked with the King a few times. Alternatively, don’t sweat being locked up in Thorazine Tech because you went to a couple of Dead shows.
Hey! Since we have an expert on the thread, here’s a kind of question: One of the old Urban Legends of the '60’s was that hippies would drop LSD in the water supply and drive towns insane. Scary, no?
But I’ve also heard that LSD is not very stable and would break down at the first contact with clorine.
Since I’ve never heard anything about crazed towns I assume the LSD=unstable is accurate.
Zen, I have to say, you are my current God. Mkay?
Thing is, I like to know a little about everything, and you just expanded my knowledge of acid and LSD by about 500%. Wow.
Where do you live again? Can I move in next door?
I, too, heard the 7 hits = insane thing. I didn’t think much of it, simply because I know someone who’s done more than that of triple-dipped acid at one time…
You’re not kidding it’s scary. If I ever get the urge to do a hallucinogen again, I’ll grow my own morning glory seeds!!
I have heard that as a plot of a comic book I used to read, and I think it was the plot of the original 60’s Batman movie too (or one of the episodes). But seriously I think you would really need to make thousands of gallons of LSD to pollute an entire water supply.
I do know that a lot of “pranks” were perpetrated by ,usually, well meaning hipsters. One of them was the previoulsy mentioned DMSO LSD coctail. For those of you who are unfamilliar with DMSO is it a solvent that has a neat trait. It absorbs through the skin and takes along hitch hikers with it. By itself it is harmless and has actually been used in europe to alleviate pain from such things as arthritis, but imagine mixing it with a powerful hallucenogen and putting it on the door handles of unsuspecting motorists. Dangerous and irresponsible, but kind of funny in the same way those “SCariest Police Chases of People Attacked By Animals While Urinating In The Workplace Coffee” shows that are always on FOX. Some people also have mixed cocaine, heroin, and other drugs with it as well.
Who knows? You may live next door to me now and not even know it. Do you shout in Spanish while having sex? If yes, then “Hi neighbor!”.
Morning Glory:
FAMILY : Convolvulaceae
GENUS / SPECIES : Ipomoea violacea
Turbina (or Rivea) corymbosa
COMMON NAMES :
Morning Glory, Ololiuqui (Aztec/Nahuatl “Round Thing”, seeds of T. corymbosa), Coaxihuitl
(Aztec/Nahuatl “Green Snake” - T. corymbosa), Tlilitzin (Aztec/Nahuatl “Sacred Black Ones” - I. violacea)
IDENTIFICATION :
Annual vine with ovate, deeply cordate leaves 3-4 inches long and 3/4-3 inches wide. The trumpet-shaped flowers vary from white to red, purple, blue, or violet-blue. The ovoid fruit is about 1/2 inch in length and bears elongate, angular black seeds.
RANGE :
Mountains of Southern Mexico, Guatamal, West Indies, & Tropical South America
USES :
Traditionally used in divination. Seeds contain LSA and can cause visual and perceptual effects similar to LSD.
Try Baby Hawiian Woodrose seeds. Less toxic and better results.
FAMILY : Convolvulaceae
GENUS : Argyreia
SPECIES : nervosa
COMMON NAMES : Elephant Creeper, Wooly Morning Glory
IDENTIFICATION :
Large, heart-shaped leaves are green above and downy white below. The seeds are both hallucinogenic and toxic. The funnel-shaped light purple flowers have deep purple throats.
USES :
3-7 seeds maximum and chewed well. There is a layer of nausea-producing fuzz around the seeds which must be scraped off. Still may cause some stomach discomfort. Contains LSD-like compounds, and is very potently euphoriant, hallucinogenic, stimulant, and exhilarant. Used traditionally as a divination sacrament by the Kahunas of Hawaii and Polynesia. (from Haight Health)
But if you don’t mind a 50% chance of vomiting Robitussin DM is a good cheap thrill and it’s good for the cold and flu tripper.
WARNINGS
Products containing any active ingredients other than ‘DXM’ or ‘Dextromethorphan’ should not be used.
High doses of Guaifenesin can cause severe nausea and vomiting.
High doses of Acetaminophen can be fatal. Some brands, including Drixoral Cough and Fever contain acetaminophen.
High doses of Chlorpheniramine Maleate can cause severe and life-threatening symptoms including seizures, loss of consciousness, bleeding from skin, mouth, rectum, and vagina, and possibly death. Some brands, including Coricidin Cough and Cold contain Chlorpheniramine maleate.
Do not take DXM if you are using, or have used an MAO Inhibitor within the last 2 weeks.
MAOI’s include harmine & harmaline, as well as many anti-depressants.
Check with a doctor if you’re unsure whether you medication contains MAOI’s.
When combined with MAOI’s, DXM can cause “serotonin syndrome” with fever, hypertension, and arrhythmias.
Occasional gastrointestinal symptoms and skin reactions have been reported
The large amount of glucose, thickeners, etc., present in many cough syrups may be hard on your kidneys and pancreas.
DXM is mildly addictive.
Naah, not even 7 hits concurrently. Psychoactively, it appears to be a catalyst more than anything else.