Comment by tedks | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tedks | Hacker News Reader

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From a comment on the page:

""" There are a great many errors in your methodology, and I do not believe you received any of the drug in any of your doses.

First off, you have no way of knowing that what you purchased actually contained the drug. The blotter may have had none in it. Secondly, even if there was some drug, you haven no way of knowing what other chemicals were in that paper, including strychnine, and its effects after being mixed with water, on the drug. Thirdly, I'm not sure that 24 hours in a fridge is a sufficient method of extraction.

But more damaging is that the drug degrades quickly and is very sensitive to its environment. It degrades in the presence of oxygen, heat and light. A common house fridge provides all three- the door is opened at least once a day (to get your dose) letting light in. The container is open to the air which provides oxygen, and while a fridge is cool, it is does not absolutely prevent degradation of the drug due to heat. I've seen storage recommendations for this drug involving sealed, light opaque containers, kept frozen in an icebox and the admonition that this will only preserve it for a few weeks.

You provided less protection, significant dilution, questionable extraction, and stored it for months.

Basically, the conclusion from your research is this: The drug war prevents the kind of exploration of the possible positive effects of such a drug, that could be carried out by a well appointed lab. """

LSD is an incredibly volatile molecule and after months I wouldn't expect any to remain. I think this is a bigger deal than the sketchiness factor of buying drugs -- a silk road vendor selling adulterated product would be severely penalized if caught and the economics don't work out.

I've done some more research on the topic in reply to that commenter, and my conclusion is that she is full of BS, to not mince words. She has yet to reply offering any citations at all for her claims, while all the authorities and references contradict her; I give a few here: http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing#degradation

Phooey. I found that that LSD keeps very nicely without special care. I had some acid I'd kept at room temperature for a number of years in Delaware (hot, humid summers), took one tab, thought it had gone stale, and took another. Both tabs worked.

Missed that comment, and very well expressed. Thanks.

That comment doesn't seem well informed given the casual way that it references the strychnine myth, nevertheless it's true that there is uncertainty about the dose.

Regardless of strychnine, LSD remains very volatile. I wouldn't term it "uncertainty", I would term it "near total lack of certainty" given small sample size and lack of (any) proper verification that the drug was even active anymore. At the very least, he could have taken a dose to serve as this purpose after the experiment (so it would not interfere, and would provide a "later" bound)—it's fairly easy, given certain high contrast imagery, to create certain visual effects that a placebo (or degenerated drug) could not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lsd#Reactivity_and_degradation

"""

"LSD," writes the chemist Alexander Shulgin, "is an unusually fragile molecule."[6] It is stable for indefinite time if stored as a solid salt or dissolved in water, at low temperature and protected from air and light exposure.

LSD has two labile protons at the tertiary stereogenic C5 and C8 positions, rendering these centres prone to epimerisation. The C8 proton is more labile due to the electron-withdrawing carboxamide attachment, but removal of the chiral proton at the C5 position (which was once also an alpha proton of the parent molecule tryptophan) is assisted by the inductively withdrawing nitrogen and pi electron delocalisation with the indole ring.[citation needed]

LSD also has enamine-type reactivity because of the electron-donating effects of the indole ring. Because of this, chlorine destroys LSD molecules on contact; even though chlorinated tap water contains only a slight amount of chlorine, the small quantity of compound typical to an LSD solution will likely be eliminated when dissolved in tap water.[6] The double bond between the 8-position and the aromatic ring, being conjugated with the indole ring, is susceptible to nucleophilic attacks by water or alcohol, especially in the presence of light. LSD often converts to "lumi-LSD", which is inactive in human beings.[6]

A controlled study was undertaken to determine the stability of LSD in pooled urine samples.[71] The concentrations of LSD in urine samples were followed over time at various temperatures, in different types of storage containers, at various exposures to different wavelengths of light, and at varying pH values. These studies demonstrated no significant loss in LSD concentration at 25°C for up to four weeks. After four weeks of incubation, a 30% loss in LSD concentration at 37°C and up to a 40% at 45°C were observed. Urine fortified with LSD and stored in amber glass or nontransparent polyethylene containers showed no change in concentration under any light conditions. Stability of LSD in transparent containers under light was dependent on the distance between the light source and the samples, the wavelength of light, exposure time, and the intensity of light. After prolonged exposure to heat in alkaline pH conditions, 10 to 15% of the parent LSD epimerized to iso-LSD. Under acidic conditions, less than 5% of the LSD was converted to iso-LSD. It was also demonstrated that trace amounts of metal ions in buffer or urine could catalyze the decomposition of LSD and that this process can be avoided by the addition of EDTA.

"""

> These studies demonstrated no significant loss in LSD concentration at 25°C for up to four weeks. After four weeks of incubation, a 30% loss in LSD concentration at 37°C and up to a 40% at 45°C were observed. Urine fortified with LSD and stored in amber glass or nontransparent polyethylene containers showed no change in concentration under any light conditions.

Sounds about right. So even at room temperature (25°C = 77 Fahrenheit), dissolved LSD is stable over a period of months, and removing light sources improves stability even more. This is pretty poor compared to a great many molecules, but far from fatal to my self-experiment.

Were you aware of this beforehand? Did you take precautions to keep the LSD in a cool place away from light?

If it was just in your fridge for five months, I doubt there was much left at the end.

I was aware of it beforehand. After I finished photographing the package, I immediately stored it in the refrigerator under an opaque object.

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