Hacker News Reader

> You see the problem with that particular problem child is that enough LSD to dose every man woman and child on earth could be produced in a single lab and held within a coffee cup which makes it uniquely dangerous as a weapon of mass oppression if it were to fall into the wrong hands. Also the fact that you can't easily test a substance for LSD increases the liklihood of individuals being exposed who did not wish to be exposed.

How the hell would you use LSD in that way "for oppression" or "as a weapon"? The main effect seems to be to cause uncontrollable giddiness and happiness.

The British Military actually tried to use LSD as a weapon. This was the result when they tested it against soldiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX7m4fqTLKU

Needless to say, the "weapon" potential was quickly dismissed.

Edit: Here's a US equivalent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQNqIIGN88

In short, LSD causes people to disregard authority, act chaotically and unpredictably, lose their ability to follow orders.

It's also highly volatile so likely to backfire on the people administering it, causing them to get high too.

From more direct experience, I can also say that LSD causes you to re-examine fundamental beliefs in quite an intense way. Not at all what you want to use on a population you want to control. In fact, if you were a dictator trying to retain control of an oppressed population, you should probably do everything in your power to avoid mass use of LSD in that population.

The details of how such a substance could be weaponized and how such munitions may have been deployed in the past is a sensitive subject not well suited for this forum. A wealth of information has been made available in the past decade or two via the freedom of information act but not much of it has found it's way into the 'for public consumption' version of history. My intention was merely to reference this unique "problem" associated with extremely potent psychedellics in broad terms without dredging up references to particular incidents or organizations. You can do your own research in this area.

Also your personal experiences only apply to normal doses of LSD you have no idea what it can do to someone at extreme doses, nor are you referencing experiments where such doses were tested.

again, I'm not aruging in favor of restricting individuals from access to personal doses, I think that would be a good thing. I just don't want to live in a world where any psychopath can get his hands of billions of doses. This is not something you have to worry about with most other drugs because with most other drugs you can't produce that many doses all at once and transport it easily. I just wanted to point out that this unusual property exists with respect to LSD and it complicates matters.

Why not suited for this forum? I am interested in this information and how, if at all, it has been used by government actors.

Out of respect for Mr Shulgin I don't want to stray too far from his work towards a disturbing subject matter. In order to make my point about legalization I had to make it known that such dark areas of inquery exist, but that doesn't mean I want to expose people to such information who have not self-selected to learn more. It's not my area of expertise anyways.

I'll link you to a Time magazine article in which the author has begun to stick his toe in the water but you'll have to guide your own research from there: http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/23/the-legacy-of-the-cias...

I highly doubt the events in the article you linked are news to swombat, or any one else for that matter. The use of hallucinogens or drugs on the unsuspecting, like the military trials linked above, are well documented, but have little to do with the specific substance and more to do with the absence of morality of those involved. That is a political problem, not a pharmacological one. Were I an unwitting participant in such an experiment, I would much rather be given LSD than some toxic chemical or biological weapon. That too has been done, do you realise?

In certain parts of South America, a chemical derived from Datura is regularly used to zombify people, when they come to their senses 48 hours later, they've a hole in their memories and no possessions left. Again, nefarious people will always find a way to use the tools nature gave us for nefarious purposes.

Anyways I highly disagree with your assertion that discussing any of this, to any level of depth, would be considered disrespectful in any way by or to Shulgin. A man who dedicated his entire life to the exploration of pharmacology in all forms, such discussion is precisely the sort of thing I believe he aimed to encourage.

On the other hand, the synthesis of LSD is usually considered difficult and the molecule itself is quite unstable. So, there are already practical low-level constraints against some psychopath producing any doses (much less a billion) at once and transporting it easily.

LSD is not unique in being of that sort of potency. There are several other related ergoloids that are of similar potency (though usually a bit less).

Some of the psychedelic amphetamines fall into this category too. Many have doses in the sub-1mg range. Some exotics (Bromo-dragonfly) are not only effective in the same dose range as LSD, but last several times as long and are far more toxic. The LD50 of LSD is quite forgiving as I understand it, with BDF it is not and people have died.

There are other substances that border on poison - carfentanil is an opiate used to stun elephants and is active in humans at the 1ug range.

I also dislike the catch-all term 'drugs', but LSD is not entirely unique in its potency.

wonders never cease, thank you for the information.

There are even opiates that are in that realm of potency: some of which are an order of magnitude stronger!

Sorry, but I don't want anybody telling me what chemicals I can ingest. That should be my choice, thank you very much.

Enforcement of purity, taxation on sale, restrictions on advertising and access to children sounds ok.

What, if anything, has already prevented any nation-state from conducting this synthesis?

Isn't the cat out of the bag already?