In this column, Cecil mentioned in passing that LSD is often cut with other drugs. Since LSD is so potent, how and why would anyone do that? How do you fit a psychoactive dose of PCP, or STP or whatever on a itty-bitty blotter? And wouldn’t the tiny amount of acid needed to send someone tripping be cheaper to make than a much larger amount of something else?
That’s something I’ve wondered too. Through friends in college I knew that a “hit” of LSD went for about $5 at the time, while a dose of MDMA could run up towards $40, with similar prices for other substances. The argument went (and IANAPharmacologist) that LSD was so cheap in terms of volume that it wasn’t profitable to cut it or to substitute. Supposedly the only effective ripoff would be to sell plain blotter paper.
I can’t believe Cecil posted something so dumb.
“It was also pointed out that “street” acid is rarely pure LSD, often containing such drugs as PCP and STP.”
Cecil, what were you wasted on when you posted that? LSD is ordinarily sold on small squares of blotter paper, with doses of 200 micrograms or less. There is NO way of fitting an active dose of PCP on blotter paper.
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/pcp/pcp_dose.shtml
Common oral dose is 5-10 milligrams. This just won’t fit on a small piece of blotter. Active DOM (a/k/a STP) doses can be as low as a milligram, and could could be placed on blotter. DOM has been sold as LSD, but this has been rare. The actual fact is at the time Cecil wrote that, “street” acid was rarely anything other than pure LSD. DOM trips last 10-14 hours:
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal068.shtml
Much longer than LSD. Most LSD users would be pissed off if they got DOM.
I also came in to post the same thing.
The ironic part is that it was in 1984 that a LA County street supply analysis showed that blotters available then were either 96% pure LSD or blank.
If you like irony, how about the fact that the legal drug (alcohol) is the one with the proven damage…