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Talk:LSD
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Why is "hallucinogenic" in quotation marks throughout the article? Is there really any question that LSD induces hallucinations?
-kwertii
- Yes. From this eMedicine link, LSD's effects are best characterized as pseudohallucinations. Merriam-Webster defines hallucinations as "Perception of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory experiences without an external stimulus and..." Now, LSD distorts external stimuli and usually doesn't superimpose imaginary elements onto external stimuli. You won't see a green monster a la Hulk standing on the sidewalk unless there's some(thing/one) already present there. DMT can do that, though. Gyan
I Think LSD is the best creation in the world. I have been using for 25 years now and it has improved my general well-being.
Painting, creativeness and thought patterns are improved imensely.
I take it in Drop form and about 300mg each time.
I understand why it is illegal. Parties and acid do not improve yourself but lsd and mental thoughts make you more intelliget. I can see different situations from all different angles when confronted with situations..So..yes i believe it can be benificial to some people only
- Over the past several years, the potency of LSD obtained during drug law enforcement operations in the United States has ranged between 20 and 80 micrograms per every 50 micrograms
160% purity ?
Are you sure it's per 50ug not per 100ug ?
Here is the original quote from the DEA (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/lsd/lsd-4.htm):
- Over the past several years, the potency of LSD obtained during drug law enforcement operations has ranged between 20 and 80 micrograms per dosage unit. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recognizes 50 micrograms as the standard dosage unit equivalency.
That just describes how much drug is in each "hit" and 50 mg is some kind of average dose. Not anything about purity of drug as delivered. I presume the mean 50 mg of pure (100%) LSD per each hit. ---rmhermen
Dr. Bob, can you send the image to jasonr@bomis.com? Or just ask Jason for the URL of that upload page (I don't have it myself)?
I am idly wondering how many people with doctorates are working on Wikipedia. If it's a very large number, that could be a very good PR statistic. (This isn't to say that people without Ph.D.'s are not welcome, of course!) --LMS
Article read "(Despite rulings that the First Amendment protects religions even if they do not make sense, courts today tend to reject such defenses in "drug" cases.)" -- not only is that very U.S.-centric, it's not NPOV, and completely fails to understand the U.S. Supreme Court's logic. -- SJK
LSD (Libra, Solidi, Denarii) is also the common abbreviation for the British money system prior to 1971. There is obviously potential for ambiguity here when we get round to doing an article on British Coinage. -- Derek Ross
SJK, if you mean the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that the state does not need to show compelling interest to restrict the free exercise of religion provided it doesn't aim the law at particular religions, then I admit I don't understand their logic. Not only does it contradict precedent, but Scalia himself ruled that New Jersey couldn't restrict the Boy Scouts' constitutional rights even with a law that applied to everyone. Would you mind explaining it? -- Dan
I wasn't referring to the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of the compelling state interest test. Even before that, the U.S. Supreme Court had always rejected the use of illegal drugs for religious purposes, with the exception of the use of peyote by the Native American Church. Most countries with constitutional protection of freedom of religion prohibit use of illegal drugs even for religious purposes, and their courts don't consider that a violation of freedom of religion. Constitutional protections of freedom of religion are intended primarily to protect what are traditionally considered to be religious practices, and which can be carried out with little harm to others: e.g. prayer, meditation, singing, giving sermons, printing and distributing literature, etc. They are not intended to give religions a carte blanche exclusion from the law. Otherwise we'd have to allow the practice of such religious activities as human sacrifice.
I'm not saying I agree with the U.S. Supreme Court on this -- I don't support drug prohibition. But "(Despite rulings that the First Amendment protects religions even if they do not make sense, courts today tend to reject such defenses in "drug" cases.)" is biased, and ignores the Court's logic. -- SJK
- Compared to other "hallucinogenic" substances, LSD is 100 times more potent than psilocybin and psilocin? and 4,000 times more potent than mescaline.
Using what quantitative test of potency?
Perhaps people familiar with writing about organic chemistry could answer my small point about language. As I understand the proper name for the substance is "d-lysergic acid ..." with a lowere case "d". Would it not be the case that this would even override the use of a capital "D" even at the beginning of a sentence. Eclecticology 02:46 Sep 23, 2002 (UTC)
- To partly address this question, the use of d- and l- prescripts in natural products chemistry refer to the way solutions of the compound rotate plane polarized light. d, or dextrorotary compounds, rotate a plane of polarized light to the right, and l, or levulorotary compounds, rotate a plane of polarized light to the left. More exactly, if my recollection is correct, there are four stereoisomers of lysergic acid diethylamide of which only one is pharmacologically active. Dwmyers 19:28, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Portions of the manufacture section appear to be cribbed directly from the DEA website. Is that a copyright issue, is it public domain, and since the DEA is not a neutral party, is the info (particularly w/r/t synthesis from morning glory seeds) corroborated from other sources.
- DEA's an American governmental organization, so their stuff should be in the public domain except in special cases. Bryan 03:07 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)
I'm inclined to believe the MK-ULTRA CIA experimentation story, but since it smacks of conspiracy theory, can someone mention the source of this info to try and keep a NPOV? "According to..." or "There are some who believe that...", etc. mjb 04:23 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)
- There's plenty of information out there about MK-ULTRA. MK-ULTRA is far from a controversial topic. However, it would be good to cite sources or point to external references (as it's good to do such things no matter what the topic is). --Jizzbug
- The MKULTRA article goes into more detail on sources. In 1974, the New York Times published a story revealing that the CIA had conducted experiments on US citizens, and the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission were formed to investigate. MKULTRA became public knowledge at Rockefeller Commission hearings during the next year. --kwertii
The MKULTRA information is all from declassified CIA documents released in the early 1990's. The experimentation at Edgewood US Army base and the public experiments in NYC are all backed up by this declassified documentation.
OK, I'm no expert in this area, but ergotamine tartrate is almost certainly not the isolation product from ergot, ergotamine is. However, the free lysergic acid amides, such as ergotamine or LSD, are prone to decomposition when exposed to light, heat or air, and the tartrate salts are less prone to that decomposition. The 8th edition of the Merck Index doesn't speak of the isolation of ergotamine tartrate from ergot, rather, it gives a reference with ergotamine, that being Stoll, Helvetica Chemica Acta 28, 1283 (1945). The Wikipedia probably needs an article on ergotamine itself, it's given to mothers during delivery and otherwise has medicinal uses. My recollection is also that ergotamines can be isolated from Hawaiian woodrose seeds and morning glory seeds, though not in the quantity you can get from the ergot fungus.
Finally, comments to the effect that the synthesis of LSD is somehow difficult and extreme needs to be moderated by the observation that a student of chemistry who has completed a year of organic chemistry and lab at a US university is fully capable of this synthesis (if not experienced in it). All you're making is an acid amide, for cryin' out loud.Dwmyers 01:01, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The article quotes "LSD users do, however, exhibit tolerance; LSD's effects diminish with frequent, repeated use, especially over short periods of time."
- However, personal experience corroborates this Britannica link that original sensitivity is regained if you abstain use for a few days (generally 5-7). If someone can post specific reputed information that supports the write-up or me, we can correct the article. Gyan
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- I don't think there's a contradiction here, just information missing from the article. I've had a swing at it. (As a wild guess, this sounds to me like the tolerance results from the depletion of some endogenous substance that is replenished fairly quickly, rather than the up- or down-regulation of receptors responsible for tolerance against most neuroactive substances.) Salsa Shark 10:03, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
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- But the writeup gives the impression that if you took a hit every 6 weeks, you would still need to take more to get the same effects and that's not observed by me. The tolerance is transient. Gyan
Under the headline Flashbacks, there are some common thories of causes of LSD flashbacks mentioned. However, the most common explanation I know is missing. I first heard it from Robert Anton Wilson and immediately felt it to be a very good and fitting explanation:
The mind is capable of many different "states". We have sober wakefulness, deep sleep, REM sleep, alertness, anger, etc. Some of theses possible states are harder to reach than other (for instance egoloss) but all are more or less reachable by conventional yogic practice (without drugs). Now, a flashback can best be considered as nothing but a change in mental state. A person with LSD experience have a much higher chance of reaching one of the more esoteric states since that person has already "been there". A spontaneous change to such a mental state might be very frightening to someone not very experienced with consciousness change/exploration.
Maybe I could get details of where (in what book/lecture) Wilson gives his analysis on the subject.
I've taken LSD myself, but I don't think that it enhances "thinking" or creativity. It creates certain visual patterns which are quite well depicted in psychedelic art. However the patterns are always the same and as such not very creative. It's main features are colorfullness, repetition and fractal geometry. That's it. And "thinking" is in no way enhanced under LSD, on the contrary, under acute influence of LSD your judgement and intelligence is severely RESTRAINED.
To the question of hallocinations: Yes, LSD only distorts external input. You'll see geometrical patterns on objects, imaginary movements of their shape and size, but the object itself is always real and never completly imaginary. The same for audio input, a person talking far away from you can appear as if he is close to you whispering into your ear, and the sound can be severely distorted - however the sentence you'll hear is always real and never imaginary and as such no real hallocination.
- I'd say LSD have few "built-in" properties like enhancing thinking or creativity, creating hallucinations or working as a self-analysing tool. It's impossible to characterize LSD by such simple properties since it all depends so much on set and setting as well as the trip guide (if present). It's just a tool that can be used to enhance creativity if that is what one wishes.
What about the method of action? Lacking the data to immediately contribute, the best I can do is download my recollection that LSD is a serotonin agonist. Other hallucinogens agonize other receptors - mescalline might be a noradrenaline agonist, but it certainly doesn't work like methamphetamine or cocaine.
Method of action is an important consideration with any drug, and lets us study drug policies in an informed context.
Bird 22:18, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
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