Comment by berkes
8 months ago
But that's true for any criminalized substance. It's not like the FDA or EFSA or so is going to do lab tests on, say, XTC and fine producers that lie on their ads or ingredient-list.
Though biological products like psilocybin (or weed etc) are harder to measure and control by producers, in strength than purely chemical products like LSD or MDMA. It's hard to trace what mother nature did exactly when producing this particular mushroom cap, but it could be possible to trace what the chemist did when producing this particular blot. If only it were legalized and we could have actual control, tracability, and prosecution of malpractice...
Fwiw at least xtc and coke can be legally tested in the Netherlands. https://www.drugs-test.nl/en/testlocations/
They can be in more countries than just the Netherlands IIRC. And simple test-kits are available too - these aren't as good obviously, but can e.g. prove the absence or presence of certain (by)products.
Also, these tests are set up in a way that they are anonymous in a way that e.g. even if prosecutors could subpoena a test-location or lab to hand over administration, this administration won't contain any PII or even pseudonymous information.
I was under the impression that it's impossible to reliably test, e.g., cocaine for fentanyl, without destroying the drug and it doesn't take much of the latter narcotic to kill you.
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Ah funny! You were 3 hours before me. It's not just xtc and coke. It's much more than that. Most things are simply going to be sent to the lab.
The only thing they don't test are things you can somehow get legally, if I recall correctly (so whatever you can get for any psychological condition).
Lsd can be tested as well in the Netherlands. You can get a quantative analysis, but you lose the sample.
With MDMA if you have 150 mg of powder, you have 150mg of powder, i.e. this is the upper bound on how much substance you will take (be it MDMA or not), i.e. there can't be MORE than 150 mg.
With LSD it's always a solution (either in paper or in liquid), so you can only trust the producer.
Sure it can’t be more than 150mg of MDMA, but that doesn’t tell you how much meth / fentanyl / whatever is in there, so it’s not like you’re somehow in a safer boat with it. At least it’s easier to test LSD for adulteration due to it being such a different chemical than what it could be adulterated with.
That's why I don't vape nicotine. Small molecule, sold in concentrate, mixed by who knows who. A high school chemistry experiment. If a butcher offers you a 4-ton pork chop by mistake at least it's obvious you shouldn't stand underneath it. Cigs are cigs but nicotine in solution is an assassination weapon. Ask the CIA.
People who long for the old days must realize there were serious mental issues in society. It wasn't a simple case of the dids and the didn'ts. People were batsh*it insane, and I don't mean hallucinogens, especially not LSD that is not directly toxic at all. People were literally driven to hysteria by the ~thought~ of LSD.
The juggernaut opposing LSD and set the stage for the endless war on drugs. It was the boogeyman that could justify any legal atrocity. Lives could be destroyed, tripping teenagers were treated as if it was a life threatening medical emergency, which is trauma and sadism. The monkey brain slides that implied chromosome damage was deliberately not replicated after the mistake in handling was found, and the study was cited for a decade after author retracted it. Just too convenient to repeat the lie.
It is not surprising that G. Gordon Liddy a toady in Nixon's cabinet, spoke up at a meeting briefly to suggest putting LSD on opposition journalist Jack Anderson's steering wheel. As if it's presence would cause an instant accident that flipped the car 5 stories into the air. He was showing off his ignorance and trying to boost his reputation as a 'fixer'.
But far more dangerous than LSD, a few impaired people here and there was the mass hysteria to the 'plot' and 'scandal' that wouldn't work anyway and 3/4 of the country was consumed by it. That was in 1972.
Then along comes fentanyl that is really scary and not much serious pushback, until 'recently'.
> If a butcher offers you a 4-ton pork chop by mistake at least it's obvious you shouldn't stand underneath it
brilliantly put
Well, also it degrades over a couple of years (unlike M) so the producer usually makes the dose strong to start
Depends on how it’s stored. There’s still LSD from the 70s in circulation in solution. It degrades in light, otherwise it’s very stable.
You're not wrong, but the biggest confounding factor for LSD is that a 100ug dose comes embedded in 10000ug of blotter paper. Scales are useless for determining how much you're taking.
This is true of every illegal drug to some extent. You do not know how it is mixed. Though sure, your 100mg of "MDMA" is unlikely to contain more than 100mg of MDMA
My point is that the potency at small doses creates novel hazards which, when avoided (and rightly so) interfere with the ability to know what you have.
One dose would be tricky, but you could process twenty doses of "MDMA" via column chromatography and end up with a sample of MDMA which your scale can actually measure. There's nothing scary about twenty doses of MDMA except that maybe you'll get caught with it. If you dropped it, nobody would get hurt.
If you tried the same with LSD you'd have to process tens of thousands of doses before your scale would be of any use. That much LSD in solution is an accident waiting to happen. I wouldn't go anywhere near it.
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