It’s also worth noting that there isn’t exactly strong quality control on the product. There is a good chance what is labelled 150 micrograms is actually closer to 50 micrograms. Or it could really be 150…

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/

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).

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.

The amount that has to be destroyed is miniscule.

my point is that powders don't mix evenly. part of a baggie testing negative for fentanyl doesn't mean the remainder is clean.

Then thoroughly mix the whole amount before taking a sample.

Given that a lethal dose of fentanyl is about two milligrams (similar to 5-7 grains of table salt in volume), that still feels pretty risky.

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.

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.

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

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.

That is not true and dangerous. 20 doses is deadly. It's less than the LD50 for most people, but since MDMA disregulates your body temperature you can easily overheat

Well yeah, if you consume it. I'm worried about it splashing out and touching your hand. That's how LSD was discovered, Hoffman accidentally touched it and got a massive dose. I'm just saying that its much more dangerous to be near several grams of LSD than it is to be near several grams of MDMA, which means that the only person who can tell you the potency is likely the person who was crazy enough to make it in the first place.

Some countries (Germany, Holland) have (or had ~5 years ago when I was interested in this) legal analogues of LSD that are produced and sold in a fully regulated, safe, precise manner.

Well, cocaine and heroin are still used for certain medical applications, too, ain't they?

Cocaine is still legal for medical use, but in twenty years of anesthesia I've never seen it used (though we are not an ENT-heavy practice). Too much concern about diversion. It's a great drug for ENT use but the way little bits of excess disappear means that most hospital pharmacies don't want to touch it (and surgery centers that don't have 24/7-staffed pharmacies want it even less due to risk of break-ins and theft).

Heroin is not legal in the US, although it is in the UK at least as a hospice med (under the generic name diamorphine).

Being significantly older than you (I retired from the practice of anesthesiology at age 67 in 2015) I am able to recount my experience with cocaine use to prepare patients for nasal intubation.

When I began my residency at the UCLA Department of Anesthesiology in the fall of 1977, I was instructed on how to use cocaine.

First, one requested a 2cc glass vial of cocaine hydrochloride solution (4-10% strength, prepared from cocaine powder).

The patient in the O.R. was then sedated heavily to both eliminate fear and anxiety and decrease the stinging and discomfort resulting from the imminent application of the cocaine solution against the nasal mucosa.

Cotton pledgets on thin wooden sticks about 6 inches long were submerged in the cocaine solution until saturated, then very slowly and delicately introduced into both nostrils simultaneously and rotated while being advanced deep into the nasal cavity: usually they went in about half their length.

A nice aid to successful intubation: As a rule, we chose to intubate via the nostril which most easily and deeply accommodated the pledget.

We then waited for 15-20 minutes for maximum local anesthesia and vasoconstriction, then removed the pledgets and proceeded with nasal intubation.

I continued to use cocaine for nasal intubation until I moved to the University of Virginia in 1983; for whatever reasons, the drug wasn't part of our therapeutic armamentarium there, rather lidocaine with epinephrine was employed in the same manner as cocaine solution and produced equivalent results.

I suspected you might have useful insight :)

It's not just used in palliative care (though it is certainly used widely for that). As I understand it, in the UK diamorphine is prescribed for lots of types of acute, severe pain, including pain from surgery, heart attack and childbirth.

Good to know. I read that many, many years ago (it was printed on paper!), but obviously things change. Still Schedule I (no accepted medical use, i.e., totally illegal) in the US.

My wife, a PhD student at the time, was tasked with delivering cocaine to another university's research lab. I believe they were administering it to mice, I don't know much else. Anyway, my wife agrees and proceeds to take a public bus with an illicit substance and no accompanying permit or documentation. Wild.

Like what? What was a legal analogue 5 years ago?

There were multiple, I think they were called 1p-LSD, 1cp-LSD, 1d-LSD, 1v-LSD and currently you can still legally buy 1S-LSD. Its a bit of whack-a-mole with the lawmakers because there isnt a blanket ban, only ever the specific chemical gets banned. Although stuff got quite a lot more expensive with every iteration.

Not quite the specific chemicals anymore. As I understood it, when they outlawed 1v, the legislation was changed to also consider the weight of the molecule. Ok fine, still whack-a-mole, it just took the clandestine chemists slightly longer to figure out what mostly inert structures they could add to the LSD (though not actually add, since that would mean they were at some point making LSD, which is illegal) that would be cleaved off metabolically so you end up with LSD in your system

Prior to those there were LSZ (lysergic acid dimethylazetidide) and AL-LAD doing the rounds in the UK. Very briefly PARGY-LAD too.

1P-LSD was something of a breakthrough IIRC (never tried it but I was still following the scene at that point) because unlike the others it is a pro-drug for LSD, being quickly metabolised to the parent compound, rather than a different but closely related compound as the others were.

Never heard of the rest of those though! I stopped paying attention sometime around then.

There is in the Netherlands. You can test it there [1].

Ah, I see someone else already mentioned it. I'll still keep this here for increased visibility. Drugs testing in NL is solid.

Source: trust me bro ;-)

Second source: go see for yourself! It's anonymous.

[1] https://www.drugs-test.nl/ (use google translate)

counterpoint: you only get your first time, one time.

Counter counter point: if you mess up your first time, it's likely you'll never be able to enjoy the experience.

> Counter counter point: if you mess up your first time, it's likely you'll never be able to enjoy the experience.

That's what drug prohibitionists would love to happen, so they should encourage such a "wrong" experiment instead of prosecuting it. :-)

Continuation the counter points: most traditional uses, guided by shamans or priests use heavy doses.

I had expiremented with moderate/recomended doses of lsd and psilocybin before participating in an auahuasca retreat... and the doses were shocking.

This was a relatively tame centre in western Europe that had trained psych nurses in attendance. Still, the Shaman handed out monster doses... and offered a second one a couple of hours in... and again the following day.

Many traditional practices conceive of "levels" corresponding to doses, and the lower levels are not the ones associated with transformative spiritual experience.

I know there are higher levels out there, but I’ve found even moderate doses of psychedelics to be more than enough to be transformative. You just need to focus the energy right.

valid point, just adding context.

I have no recomendations of my own.

Counter counter counter point: That's a good outcome.

Might be true for some, but I had a long series of bad experiences when I was a teenager (tension and paranoia), was convinced that it wasn't for me, and only in my 30s I started having very profound and positive experiences. Now I only experiment alone, in a non-distracted, aware, self-reflective manner, as if it were a meditation aide.

And it's a very bad practice. No experiment ever should be taken without an assistant (sitter in this case).

Bad advice. Yes there should be at least one other person who knows what you're doing, but if you're experienced in the matter, solitude is the best practice. The emergency contact person could be a phone call away, just in case.

problem is that when you are really in deep, you are not able to make that phone call. It is good advice to always take someone with you. It is like saying: more experienced bikers don't need to wear helmet. Yes, 99.99% of the time things will be fine, but it's still good advice to always wear one. Because that 0.01% can lead to severe consequences.

Exactly.

Unexpected things happen, mental states swing, and now you're in a mentally compromised state in-between reality.

"I know what I'm doing" said the victim before they died.

Why do you say that? I generally just sit there alone, listening to music and observing inner processes.

There are some other commenters on here that seem to implicitly be talking about what I'd consider hero doses. I don't need high doses to experience notable differences in my ability to sense and self-reflect.

Ehh, I would qualify that with it mattering how much you are going to take. Like if someone was going to down an entire bottle of vodka and get raging drunk they should probably have someone around to watch them too, but if someone drinks a single beer it would be a huge over reaction to consider it too dangerous to do alone.

Yes. And I wish I would have started with 75 microgram.

Agree! Go into it with great preparation — be sure to read the manual closely.

In my experience, first times with drugs like MDMA are very important just because the tolerance builds up basically forever. First time with LSD however... Better safe than sorry. My first time wasn't that impressive, but it was safe and didn't involve any negative emotions. I've had many other times since, much more impressive and important.

Drugs' build up and tolerance varies wildly between the drugs, the person and the experience one seeks.

Chemically and physically, LSD for example is gone in a few days and certainly weeks. But taking two days in a row needs "insane" amounts to get you the same (physical, chemical) effect. MDMA is almost entirely gone in months, after which a normal dose will get the same (physical, chemical) effect. Good documentation with even calculators for this can be found online (be aware that it may not be allowed to even visit such sites in some countries!)

I deliberately emphasis the "physical and chemical" because the experience itself may be something you get used to. First time MDMA is wildly different from any time thereafter for many people. For many this is even stronger with LSD or Psilocybin. Many people report that the (first) experience opened up their mind and being profoundly and lasting. The more one gets used to the feeling the more this feeling itself becomes routine.

The intense love and euphoria from e.g. MDMA may be the same on an objective level, after letting the chemicals disappear over months, so technically one can achieve this level a few times a year. But the feeling itself is something one could get "used to" and "become bored by". Similar to how experiencing a rave sober for decades, or even how after decades of traveling it could get boring and a routine.

My point is: indeed first times are important. Even if the textbooks say that tolerance is gone after X time.

Less is more

First time is rarely especially good. This applies to more or less all substances.

That's... not true, lol. That can be true, especially for psychedelics, but that's absolutely not true of other drugs.

MDMA comes to mind. I've also heard (though not tried, nor will I) the harder narcotics such as heroine and meth are almost never as good as the first time.

The first time being the best time is often exactly why people become addicts.

Know then that what you've heard is incorrect. Heroin especially tends to cause nausea and vomitting on first time use, as the body reacts to something as unexpected. Meth may be great the first time round, and still be nowhere near as good as it can be - the drug has a steep learning curve and requires rigorous discipline for it's effect to be exploited fully - a mindset rarely present in first time users. With practically any drug, initial effects are very much subject to the intention of the person taking it, just as much as physical attributes (fitness, body-type, metabolism, etc).

Not to downplay all obvious and less obvious hazards of these 'harder' narcotics, just saying the whole 'first time being the best time' as an explanation of why exactly people become addicts relies very much on hearsay. It's the sort of language that came with the whole war-on-drugs-thing, and does not reflect reality.

That's more like the first time having sex can be special. The novelty gives it a lot of extra. But like in sex, you'll learn to be better at using drugs and the experiences become richer and more pleasurable.

Wat? Maybe my bubble is different, but in my surroundings and experience, the exact opposite is true.

Now, an important factor here is that a first time often comes with anxiety, insecurity, and even fear. With many substances these feelings get amplified so that makes the entire experience be mediocre or even bad. Especially for that, I think it's very important to experience this in a safe, loving, caring and depending on the type taken, controllable, silent, busy, energetic, dark, light etc environment.

Imo not true for psychodelics

You just open the door for many more first times to come

>100-150 micrograms of LSD is a medium to strong trip

Did you get that from a government "risk prevention" website? 100 micrograms is a base, standard dose; There's a reason that that is the most common amount to a piece of blotter paper.

A medium trip would be something like 220(also a common dose), and "strong" can go anywhere from what, 500 to 1000?(1000 and above being commonly referred to as "heroic dose" and fairly rarely taken)

I do agree that a beginner might want to try sub-100 micrograms, but you rub up against the lower border of real perceptible effects around 50.

A friend in IT (and sharp as a tack to this day) gave me empirical evidence that LSD's toxicity is nil. He used to hang around in a subculture that were not 'street users' eating blotters by any means, they had plenty of concentrate and had plenty liquid solution to pour.

It was a Birthday Party, and almost a dozen people had the idea to 'dose him' without knowledge of the others. After the party it was obvious this was an extended journey and those who had done it came clean to the others. The dosage was off the charts. They cared for him in shifts and the ordeal lasted almost three days. But he was fine after, apparently only some people experience flashbacks.

No human deaths have ever been attributed to LSD overdose. Atleast in one case some people got close and were hospitalized, having snorted a line of powder they though was cocaine but was actually pure crystalline LSD, which probably represented tens of thousands of standard doses at a minimum, and likely significantly more than that. LSD probably has one of if not the highest known spread beyween theuraputic dosage and dangerous over dosage. It was once considered the safest drug anyone could get because there was almost nothing else that it could be adultered with effectively because blotter paper and single liquid drops can hold such little of any other drug.

These days there are other drugs that are effective in such small doses, but are not common to encounter unless you specifically look for them and are usually significantly more expensive than LSD to start with.

With medium trip I mean a base standard dose. You may mean something else with a "trip" or "medium". I'm just referring to one usage setting.

Also glorifying large doses especially when discussing first times in a forum with inexperienced audience is rather stupid. Too large doses for beginners is a recipe for unpleasant experiences and subsequent negativity about drugs in general.

I wasn't trying to glorify, only to more accurately reflect the actual "levels" according to my experience. Calling what is essentially the lowest end "medium" is confusing.

>discussing first times in a forum with inexperienced audience

This is HN, not Club Penguin. We don't have to baby our fellow users. They are fully able to make choices based on their own risk profile/tolerance without needing to be misled into being inappropiately cautious. Making such a big fuss about it has as much of a chance of negatively affecting peoples' experience by making them anxious.