When was the last time anyone took acid?

[AngryAmish]

Last summer I read in Slate that the cops have arrested the folks responsible for the vast majority of LSD manufacture in the states, maybe the world (I guess the chemistry of manufacture is fairly complex). Also the distribution is screwed up since the Dead have stopped touring.

I never took acid and don't want to start but it is weird how a drug could be relatively popular and now is almost completely gone. Has another source come on line or is this the end of the lone for LSD?

[Wapsie B]

1. I haven't had it.

But I will admit to being curious about it. I've only had weed and booze.

[Ariana Celeste]

14. It's very interesting

Definitely not for everyone- I imagine it could be pretty scary for someone who doesn't know what they are taking. It's almost impossible to explain, and it's a bit different for everyone. It's nice to do with close friends who you trust- When I did it, it was with my SO and a very close friend- Christmas lights on, lava lamps, calm atmosphere, phones turned off- and we felt that we understood eachother on a completely new level. Was very a cool bonding experience for me and my SO.

[Wapsie B]

16. I wouldn't want anything

that would make me feel so wired that I'd never relax. If it would be a mellow hallucinogen that would be cool. I love mellow. That's what I liked about good weed. I'd have to do it with close trusted friends.

[Roon]

42. I loved the look on everyone's face

when a phone would ring, or someone knocking on the door....acid was always so much fun....

[billyskank]

2. I don't believe it

I was under the impression that acid was dead easy to make, which is why it is so cheap.

[anarch]

8. not really

You need a pretty serious lab, and you also need the lysergic acid that it's based on. It's extremely time consuming, and can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. It is easy to make some LSD-analogs (that don't really do the same thing, but can fool the inexperienced) but I wouldn't recommend it. I mean, it's easy to huff glue, too....


To answer the original question, I haven't had any acid in about six years, and it wasn't very good the last time I got hold of it, either. Pitifully weak, in fact. The last time I had any decent acid was the last time the Grateful Dead came through town.

Edited to add: I think the reason it's so cheap is because you can make a whole bunch of doses from a pretty small initial investment in ingredients. Assuming you already have the lab set up, it's a lot of profit. Plus, a small dose is pretty damn effective if you know what I mean.

[pokerfan]

33. No, it's extremely difficult to make

You need a sophisticated lab and intensive knowledge of organic chemistry. It's also dangerous with plenty of opportunities for explosions. There were maybe a couple dozen labs producing the stuff at the peak of its popularity. What made it cheap was that a little bit goes a long way. We are talking doses measured in micrograms.

I haven't had it in about 25 years and probably took it less than ten times. About the same amount of experience with mushrooms. Shrooms always made me feel kinda sick to my stomach which is not fun when you're tripping.

It is a fascinating experience. We used to go someplace in the woods to take it in a natural environment. The one thing I take away from it is a sense of how all life is somehow interconnected. I've also had empathic sensations where you can feel what another person is feeling, but that's probably just picking up on a bunch of nonverbal cues that normally go unnoticed. It's very difficult to explain. I think Huxley had the best theory. Your mind is constantly being bombarded by external stimuli. Your mind must filter out most of crap if it is going to be able to function at all. He believed that hallucinogens removed this filtering function. Of course, that's just a model. No doubt the actual biochemistry is much more complex.

Anyway, I'm kinda glad I took. I think I understand myself better today than had I not taken it. Have no interest in taking it today, though.

[Ariana Celeste]

41. "I've also had empathic sensations"

That was my favorite thing about it! The first time I did it, with my SO and a friend, it was like, we all knew what eachother was feeling, thinking, seeing, we were connected on an entirely different level, and it was so beautiful.

[TInCanCommunications]

64. Bingo ... You can never recapture the first time ... mind sex ... wow

I tried and tried, but the first time, wow.
We all had ESP or something.

Man, that wallpaper was something. Oh, and the mind-sex ... crazy times.

[Elidor]

3. It's been almost twenty years

I had a brief infatuation with it, but the 15 hour trip is not that enjoyable. After about 3 hours, I always wished I could turn it off. And I always hated the way it made me feel the next day. Eventually, it just lost its appeal. You couldn't pay me to take it again.

[leftyladyfrommo]

5. That is exactly how I felt about it, too.

But I was young then. Now I wouldn't touch the stuff. It could be cut with almost anything.

[djeseru]

4. I don't know.

I can still find it pretty easily.

[leftyladyfrommo]

6. I had read that it was making a comeback? Guess not.

People today seem to prefer the drugs that make them feel like super people - cocain and meth and stuff. I don't like feeling speeded up at all.

[MadHound]

7. Well for one thing, the quality of acid has dropped badly

I got into my hallucinigenic period during the late seventies, early eighties, back when you could get acid that was still clean and pure, generally in the form of windowpane, but also liquid on sugar cubes. Ran wild for a few years, had a great time. Then dropped the stuff due to a number of circumstances, I moved, my work at the time, etc. etc.

Next time I hooked up with acid was about ten years later in the early ninties, and man, had it changed. No longer clean and pure, it was being cut with speed and strychnine(rat poison)and god knows what else. Tried a couple of different varities floating through, but it was all the same. Got tired of the cramped back, and the nasty bowel movements, so I gave it up altogether.

Doubt that I'll ever do it again, just don't trust the street chemists these days, though I do have a couple of friend whom I would trust if they ever decided to come out of retirement. Besides, I've found out that I don't need acid anymore. If I want that kind of vision, there are other ways to achieve it.

But damn, back in the day, it was a blast!

[sshaw1980]

10. i agree 100%

back in the day... i'll never forget seeing aliens and my bud paul & i crakin' up and everyone is screaming...
wouldn't touch it now for all the reasons you've mentioned...

however; i do maintain an appetite for these:



:bounce:

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

11. me too

:9

I think they are much better then acid. Something about the "naturals" i love

[proud2BlibKansan]

47. Yeah me too

I always liked shrooms lots better than acid.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

9. About 4 years ago.

It did almost nothing and it is rather hard to come across.

[Ariana Celeste]

12. A year ago

on Christmas Eve and Christmas night... a couple weeks before that, and a couple of other times in that time period.
I hear it's hard to come by, I probly won't see it again for a long time, and don't even know if I want to ever do it again- I've had one uncomfortable trip (which I mentioned in that other thread) but the rest was just awesome, my perception has changed a lot because of it- and I think that I've had my experience and I'm all the better for it- time to move on. If that makes sense. :)

:hi:

[Wapsie B]

17. A change in perception would be good for me

but I wouldn't want an uncomfortable trip to do that. I'd love something that could do like it did for you, whether that's acid or whatever.

[Ariana Celeste]

18. i've heard...

that mushrooms are a lot more mellow, less intense. i haven't tried them myself (yet) but would love to.

[Wapsie B]

22. If that's the case I would too.

But I wouldn't know where to begin to look for weed, let alone mushrooms. Anything that would produce a mellow would be cool with me.

[enigami]

13. I'm not saying I ever did

but if I were to have done so, it would have been over 30 years ago at Twenty Nine Palms USMC base out in the dessert, calling in artillery during a night exercises and it would have been a spectacular light show. WOW.

[LynzM]

54. Wow, dude....

:wow:

[SoCalDem]

15. umm..never...My 'real' life is/was wacky enough

[WhollyHeretic]

19. My psych professor in college was a student of Timothy Leary

When people first told me this I thought it was one of those college myths until I went to a rave with a few people from my college. I was standing in line waiting to buy water when the big guy in the cowboy hat who had been in front of me finished buying his water and turned around, it was my psych professor. :wow:

Later on that semester he mentioned acid and Timothy Leary during a couple of classes. He was a very smart guy but a little strange at times, I guess doing acid for 30+ years will do that to you.

[Kali]

58. nah it was being in academia for too long that made him strange

just think about all your other profs....

[Left Is Write]

20. Never.

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. Four or five years...

and from what I understood (circa mid-1990's or so), pretty much all the acid in the States came from the same underground lab(s) located somewhere in Northern California. And it's not something that's easy to synthesise, you need a fairly advanced background in organic chemistry (graduate level) to make the stuff, and the chemicals involved (particularly ergotamine tartrate) are near-impossible to procure without setting off a red light somewhere. It's not like making meth in your bathtub out of over-the-counter allergy medicine.

[Evoman]

23. NO

Never done acid. The only drug I've ever taken was weed, twice. Oh...and once I tried Salvia...its a hallucigenic thats supposed to last only about ten minutes. I tried the strongest they had, and I just felt a bit dizzy, thats all. My SO got the giggles really bad and my friend saw dancing clown midgets who were supposed to show her her animal spirit behind a door. When they opened the door, more clowns came out. It did nothing for me. Neither did weed the two times I tried it. It also just made me a bit dizzy...and this was good BC stuff, apparently. I havent tried anything since.

Evoman

[mdmc]

61. welcome to du

peace!

[SteppingRazor]

24. Haven't had it too recently, but it's readily accessible...

I mean, I could get some within a couple days if I wanted to.

What you say is true, though -- IIRC, two brothers in Kansas were arrested with millions upon millions of hits of acid. But there's still other operators.

The main problem is not the lack of acid. The main problem is that the world has turned, and partyers found Ecstasy.

[RandomKoolzip]

27. ...which is a VASTLY inferior drug, IMO.

Ecstacy is a party drug, a touchy-feely kind of slob drug that lowers your resistance to evils like techno music and glow-sticks. (Ick.)

Acid and mushrooms, however, are the keys to unlocking your conscience. Everyone should drop acid AT LEAST once in their life, IMO.

[SteppingRazor]

29. I don't disagree...

I don't really buy into the Tim Leary, find-my-inner-self school of acid. I'm more in the Ken Kesey, let's-all-get-twisted-and-have-a-good-time school. But even looked at from that perspective, acid beats Ecstasy with a stick. Mushrooms I'm a little iffy on. I once went into convulsions on mushrooms. Didn'ty stop me from doing them again, mind you, but all this talk about "organic is better for you" is not necessarily true.

[RandomKoolzip]

31. Well, I never treated my acid experiences with the kind of solemnity

that Leary and Watts and all those cats suggested. It was only AFTER laughing for 12 hours straight that the less frivolous apsects of the trip came into focus. I didn't approach the drugs as sacraments, but as something to get "weird" on. In retrospect, they helped open up parts of my psyche I needed to explore and also taught me much about my place in the universe and the fear of death.

All drugs are tools. The actual acid experience ITSELF (i.e. "Wooooooo! Waaaaauugh! Alligatorturnippumpkingermanhelmetspindlyblubbbbbbbbbb....") is one thing, the lessons learned from it quite another, each with their own emotional tenor.

[SteppingRazor]

32. Very well put.

That I can completely agree with. :thumbsup:

[argyl]

25. Over thirty years ago. Not exactly a multitasking drug. For eight hours

you trip. Not something you'd want to take and go to work on.It's very intense,definite visual and audial perception changes. A floor or wall could become an exquisite piece of artwork.

Quality could vary greatly,from pure to laced with strychnine. LSD has some interesting properties compared with other drugs.I don't think it had any danger of physical overdose,never heard of one case. Also,in my experience,there was a maximum effect after which an increase in dosage wouldn't heighten the effects. Of course an intense trip required no heightening.

It had no potential for physical addiction. One eight hour trip was sufficient for me but I knew people who'd try to extend their trips,taking ever larger doses. After maybe two days no amount of dose could extend the trip.

If I took it again it would probably be at gunpoint,but back in the day it could be quite enjoyable.

[TheBaldyMan]

53. during the ninties sometime,

I prefer psilocybin anyway. Seasonal and free, shame about the bad guts but a great trip. Acid is OK but can't hold a candle to 'silos'

[RandomKoolzip]

26. A post of mine from december of 2005:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=21859#21898
Nope....acid's pretty much off the market these days.






Don't ask me how I know this.

With the demise of the Grateful Dead and the retirement of Phish, America's acid distribution network is pretty much scattered to the winds. The offshoots of the Dead (Ratdog, Phil Lesh and Friends, etc.) don't tour as much and draw ever-dwindling crowds.

It's true; meth and ecstacy and coke have taken the place of acid and weed in the modern young person's diet of drugs. This is a shame, since these drugs are mind-limiting, to say the least (and terribly unhealthy).

The next acid wave will presage a shift in the political climate (it always does.)

[GirlinContempt]

40. No problem here in Canada

*ahem*

[catmandu57]

28. Twenty years

before that about four, but the quality was terrible, I got into the ass end of the golden age, there was some great stuff around then.
I hear that the a#1 maker of pure LSD Owlsley has millions and millions of doses stashed in a cave in Kentucky, that I would ingest anything else forget it.

[EstimatedProphet]

30. Never

[Throd]

34. About 1993

I haven't heard it mentioned in a long time, but then again, i really don't run with those circles anymore. Back in the early 80's I remember it was about as easy to get as any other drug besides marijuana.

[HEyHEY]

35. Couple weeks ago

Oh wait, that was antiacid

[JVS]

38. Killer trip dude!

[HEyHEY]

51. It was like, this fizzy sensation in my stomach... totally freaky man

[jonnyblitz]

36. the summer of 2004 at "the Dead" show nt.

[sendero]

37. A very long time..

... and to this day I'm not sure if I'm glad I did or not.

For anyone out there thinking of trying it, just be careful. Some people really shouldn't take it, and I personally knew one guy who ate a bunch at once because the police were pulling him over and he didn't want to get busted, and he was never the same. Couldn't talk the same, slow - not dumb, but slow.

If I were going to mess with something of that ilk, I'd stick to mushrooms. Preferably ones you picked yourself - just because you get a mushroom doesn't mean some jackass didn't soak it in whatever.

[Crazy Dave]

39. About 1984

Window-pane blotter acid. Made me climb the walls :crazy:

[Kali]

59. um aren't windowpane and blotter two different modes?

Not that I would know anything about this subject.

[Crazy Dave]

60. Sorry

I couldn't tell you anymore myself. That's all from memory which is slipping fast these days. It's hard enough to remember what I did yesterday versus 22 years ago :hi:

[Kali]

62. heh - I vaguely recall something about the little plasic-like

chip of windowpane lost in the multihued, yellow, brown and gold SHAG carpet.:hippie:

[Dave Reynolds]

43. Blotter, 1984.

Shrooms, 1983.

I was never more than a party partaker.

[Whoa_Nelly]

44. November, 1973

was just done...age 19.

[ronnykmarshall]

45. 4:43 Pacific Standard Time

[AngryAmish]

46. Here are the Slate LSD articles

<http://www.slate.com/id/2098109/>

<http://www.slate.com/id/2114793>

I don't know why this has stuck with me almost 2 years later. I guess I find it interesting.

[MrSlayer]

48. Over ten years. I don't even get flashbacks anymore.

Which kind of sucks. A free 10 minute trip is interesting every so often.

[ChoralScholar]

49. I took some acid from Auto Zone, a couple of weeks ago.

Luckily most of it was safely contained inside a car battery.

[maveric]

50. 1974

I havent even seen or heard of the stuff since then.

[mainegreen]

52. Pure liquid, and went to the Baltimore aquarium.

Super visual dose of clean liquid. Sharks and tropical fish are un-real in that state. However, I recommend that you be a pretty cool customer, because aquariums are crowded, noisy, and confusing. Not a good place to freak. Went with about 3 friends. What a good time.

It was totally worth it: like stepping into nature's underwater live motion Dali painting. I still get goosebumps every time I think about it.

I finally think I get why people like tropical aquariums.

PS: Don't do paper. The rat poison isn't worth it. Always made my tummy hurt. Stick with liquid.

[DBoon]

55. 1979

we tried to talk to the cows on a nearby ranch. Suddenly realized we were in bad shape if some cows could outsmart us. My roomate told his girlfriend he couldn't go out with her anymore, as he was dead.

All in all, a good time was had by all

[TInCanCommunications]

56. Probaby 93/94

Pretty hazy memories of those days.
A blast.

I loved it.
But then you gotta grow up

[WCGreen]

57. Sometime in the early 80's.....

[u4ic]

63. Never

I've never even done pot. Drugs never have appealed to me.

[Digit]

65. First and last time 1981

Giggled my ass off on my back porch with my best friend, watching the trails of my cigarette in the air.
I was rebelling my husband/best friend leaving me for another woman.
It gave me what I wanted at the time, which was an escape along with a FU message. I have not desired to do it again