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Comment by zoba | Hacker News Reader

I was wondering if MM120 is actually LSD (why the special name if so?) and found this on another source:

> MM120 is a tartrate salt form of lysergide, a semi-synthetic hallucinogen commonly known as LSD

I wonder what is the significance of it being a salt rather than a pure lsd?

For d-amphetamine making it a salt produces an effect similar to delayed release. The result is sold as a “more modern” ADHD treatment Vyvanse.

So is this achieving similar effect? Flattening the curve, so to speak?

Or maybe it’s just to distance itself from the recreational LSD culture?

Usually these salts remain chemically stable for longer periods of time. In the case of alkaloids, they become protonated (here LSD-with-a-proton, a positively charged particle; the tartrate being the negative counterion) and as such are thus less susceptible to oxidation. Can't steal negative charge from something that doesn't have it.

And with LSD freebase that's not an unnecessary luxury, as it isn't the most stable against decomposition. To answer the question... probably this is the most stable formulation to get it into a pharmacy? I guess like you say, not blatantly calling it LSD helps image building too.

With vyvanse, that's actually something else: not a salt but an amino acid covalently bound to amphetamine. This gives a much stronger bond than between tartrate and lsd ions in the salt, one that can be hydrolysed slowly in the gut to produce the active drug. LSD tartrate doesn't have a similar slow release property.

The API in Vyvanase isn't a salt of straight amphetamine though. It has a covalent bond to a group that your body/metabolism needs to (I guess enzymatically) break down to release the amphetamine. More of a prodrug.

> I wonder what is the significance of it being a salt rather than a pure lsd?

The salt is patentable.

No, Sandoz produced LSD tartarate back in the '50s. It's the common salt form of LSD. The freebase is lipophilic, and is typically dissolved in ethanol, while the salt form is water-soluble, and can be soaked into blotter paper or sublingual tablets.

Amazingly, I found a Swiss clinical trial from 2021 (!) comparing the pharmacokinetics of the freebase vs. tartarate in human subjects: https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04865653

Switzerland is (free)based.

MM-120 is proprietary, because they've isolated the d isomer.

Adderall and Dexedrine are already amphetamine salts. Vyvanse has an extra delayed release mechanism beyond that.

If nothing else, by being chemically distinct from LSD, it remains a crime to have LSD, but not the salt prescription form.

Not sure why this is downvoted, since this has been a working legal loophole for decades. For example, 1cP-LSD is completely unscheduled in the US right now, despite breaking down into pure LSD once consumed (at only slightly reduced potency). It's already banned in several other countries though.

Though, I am sure prescription drugs will always be legal with a prescription, assuming the prescription itself is legal. Even if this were counted as the Schedule I drug LSD that can't be prescribed, it'll probably get moved to Schedule II or III before any actual prescriptions are given out. So anyone who ever gets such a prescription in-hand will always be safe.

probably allows it to be patented

I'm afraid it will be sold at a price most will not be able to afford, especially without health insurance.

I'd support decriminalization efforts instead: we let people with cancer get weed from a dispensary.

Why not let veterans and other people with a generalized anxiety disorder get LSD the same way?

I'm generally in favor of letting (healthy) adults decide what they consume (in particular hallucinogens), but I'm not sure it is a good idea to just hand them out to people with real psychiatric disorders without any therapeutic guidance.

I wouldn't even hand it to normal, "stable" people without some guidance. Not everyone handles losing their marbles with grace and aplomb. It's not in the average person's skillset to be able to say, "it's just the drugs" and keep their cool.

One of the other reasons not to give it out freely is that it varies wildly in effect depending on who exactly takes it. I certainly don't lose my marbles when I'm on it, but plenty of people have lost their sanity from it, sometimes for months, years or even life. Not to mention HPPD can sometimes appear, ranging from just "weird" all the way to distressing or madness-inducing.

Same as Ketamine. Ketamine therapy is available now but, the cost very high so, it is practically unavailable to most.

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