07-24-02 00:14
No 336253
This is an outline rather then a recipe; those who want to do it should have the skills to figure out the details themselfs; personally, I never conducted the procedure described, and never will. Lysergic acid derivatives are not my research interest.
All following steps after the grinding should be conducted with reduced light and/or in red light to avoid the formation of lumilysergic acid.
1. Collect a large amount of mature ergot (Claviceps purpurea) from infested rye fields. It is mature when it is quite hard and breaks almost like wood. (I wonder what happens to the ergot when rye is harvested/milled. Somehow it must be removed in order not to contaminate the flour. Is a flour mill a good place to get it in quantity?)
2. Grind the ergot to a fine powder, which will likely be a bit sticky due to the fat content.
3. Defat the ground ergot: thoroughly mix with some moist ammonium sulfate (10% by weight?) to fixate the alkaloids, then extract fats with nonpolar solvent: canonically hexane, maybe dichloromethane?
4. The alkaloids in the defatted ground ergot can now be hydrolized to lysergic acid and "goo", using KOH in water: stirr the defatted ground ergot for several hours, at elevated temperature, in a strongly alkaline KOH solution. Filtrate the alkaline solution. The filter cake can be disposed.
5. Now comes the magic trick. Follow Patent GB1107156: adjust the solution to pH of 5 - 7.5, add charcoal to the solution and stirr for one hour. Filter the charcoal off and elute the lysergic acid from the charcoal with methanol/ammonia.
6. Evaporate the eluate at 30°C/20mmHg. Suspend the dry residue in a small amount of water, filtrate and dry the so obtained crystalline lysergic acid in vacuum.
...and have a good excuse what you want with the ergot when you procure it.
Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive by Men at Work
...tells my tale.
(Hive Bee)
07-24-02 03:47
No 336322
Have you dreamed this befor?
(Hive Addict)
07-24-02 05:56
No 336360
Dude do you ahve any idea how much fucking sclerotum it would take to get a decent final product??? Do you know how much solvent your taking about to have to defat and extract alkaloids for this enourmous amount of shit?? YOu don't just take a walmart bag and go fill it up and buy a gallon of dcm and metahnol. Take a few contractor clean up bags and with todays fungacides and genetically altered seeds you'd have to cover a fifty square mile area to find enough to fill a small bag. There are much better ways of getting what your looking for... Not to mention the heat when you come back to your car and the officer siting there waiting asks, " Son what you need with two 55gal bags of contaminated rye that you just trespassed on private land to steal?"!
I belived he first said that he hasn't done this! And besides a good excuse if your lucky enough to find enogh ergot and unlucky enough to have to use it is that you resell it to researchers.
(Hive Addict)
07-24-02 06:56
No 336374
also take a look at the ergot identification guide, new on rhodiums site.
(Hive Addict)
07-24-02 08:50
No 336419
All the stuff is at the tryptamine room. In one of the old article of acramon et al(50'/60') (don't have the ref right here, but im' sure I posted it before) They take some claviseps outside ther window, infect 100 sampel, to the most pink one, then infected 100 sampels and again took the most pink one. This strain now produced close to 2,5g LSA/L media (isolated yeald) I think that is the way.
(Hive Addict)
07-24-02 08:50
No 336420
If you obatin a pure strain then you should not wast time infecting fields of rye or growing ergot! You can get 20g of lsa per 7-10days and 40-50g if you wait an additional 10days on that by submerged culture of the strain. Yields are based on minimum alkaloid production in 20 x 1L erlynmeyer flasks. Yields range from 1.2-2.8g/Liter depending on temp, o2 supply, nutrient mix, and days of culturing. In the patents it states that consistant yields are reproduced at 2.2g per 18days incubation at 25c. The culture medium is not that fucked up formula from psychadelic chemistry. It is very simple and consists of four or five ingredients which are very easy to get in large quantities for pretty fair price. Since alkaloid concentration is very high little solvent is needed to extract and is easily recovered and crystaline lsa stored. By starting multiple phases each delayed a period of time from each other depending on wheter you want to work up every week or two weeks. You can set it ip to where you harvest 20g a week or 50g every two weeks. Two weeks is better wastes less culture medium and is less workup plus oyu get much more the longer you wait. Idealy if you wanted to produce kg and move it fast you'd set up very large tanks and harvest every week.
-- The strains I'm refering to are radiation mutated strains.
(Hive Bee)
07-24-02 22:24
No 336657
sYnThOmAtIc: Take a few contractor clean up bags and with todays fungacides and genetically altered seeds you'd have to cover a fifty square mile area to find enough to fill a small bag.
This afternoon I went out, 10 minutes drive, and within 15 minutes I picked a nice bouquet of rye with beautiful sclerotia on it. I'll look for a way to make the pictures available. What I picked was chosen to look good, the cream of the crop. If I'd pick everything that's there, I could get about a teacup full in half an hour, maybe less. And that's not only one field, that grows all over the place. Maybe it's because ergot was and possibly still is cultivated in the area for the production of the peptide alkaloids? In this free European country there is no such thing like trespassing on agricultural property, and the farmer was plowing the field right next to it. He couldn't care less what I was doing.
The content of lysergic acid is low, yes, but there is quite a bit of ergotamine and ergotoxine in it, and that's why there is the hydrolyzation step, to convert these to lysergic acid. The nice thing about the method outlined is that it uses little solvent: the nonpolar for the defatting is essentially all. It is a small amount of charcoal from which the lysergic acid can be eluted with a small volume of methanol. And you know, smart people recycle their solvents insted of flushing them down the toilett.
MaDMAx: For aquisition of LSD precursor material, it would probably be easier to work on diversion of the material, or getting a hold of a modified strain and growing your own ergot with it.
Of course it's very easy to divert the material, and even easier to get hold of a modified strain. You just call 1-800-ATCC, right?
I estimate that 2 people in one afternoon can collect 2 kg. At an estimated total lysergic acid (i.e. including ergotamine and ergotoxine and other lysergic acid amides) content of 0.05% that's 1 g of lysergic acid. I don't need more than 2 liter of hexane or toluene to defat that in a Soxhlet. Pessimistically calculated, I recover 250 mg of lysergic acid. Shulgin achieved a yield of 66% LSD from lysergic acid, which would give me 165 mg. This is about 1650 doses. In my opinion that's not bad for an afternoon picking ergot
. A lifetime supply of LSD for one afternoon in the rye fields and a few more in the lab! Now beat this, dude!Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive by Men at Work
...tells my tale.
(Hive Bee)
07-25-02 03:17
No 336750
MaDMAx: Well then by all means go for it!
I never said I want to go for it, and I actually said very clearly that lysergic acid amides are not within my research interest. I only wanted to post some information which seemed useful, particularly the charcoal-based isolation of lysergic acid from a large volume of solution. This technique can also be applied to solutions obtained from in vitro cultures, for example, or from the Convulvaceae. With your sloppy way of reading posts and lack of ability to see what really matters, I wonder how you got your title.
MaDMAx: Someone I don't know repeated the experiment with some random samples of ergot sclerotia to see if alkaloid extraction would be a feasible means of acquiring LSD precursor material.
Your better really don't know that bastard, because the analysis you are presenting here is bogus. Not the journal article, but those homemade or DEA-made or moron-made plots. You see, sometimes you meet your master, and I happen to have worked in the analytical department of a pharmaceutical company, received particularly training in chromatographic techniques. Someone absolutely wants to convince someone that ergot isn't a feasible source of lysergic acid, and I can only wonder why
. Where do you think Hofmann got his material from when he started to work on ergot-amines? Why did people develop ergotism from eating bread containing ergot, especially considering that the process of beaking will destroy most of the ergot alkaloids? Patent DE0357272 from 1919 in example 2 starts with 2 kg of ergot and obtains the main alkaloid in an unspecified amount, but they certainly wouldn't have chosen to start with 2 kg if the yield was only a few mg. It's probably ergotamine what they obtained, which usually is found in a lower quantity then the other lysergic acid alkaloids together. Selected strains in 1919 when they didn't even know what to select for? Gimme a break!And I can even beat you with your own weapon, the J. Chromatogr. paper: they found 3 alkaloids in every sample: ergonovine, ergocristine and ergotamine. Also, all samples contained more then one alkaloid. Yet, someone you don't know found none whatsoever? And you believe that?
Just from looking at the numbers, the MS strain seems to have about the lowest content: 12.4 µg/ml total alkaloids, not counting the wrong-isomer -inine compounds. This is 0.0124 %. Not great, but the material is for free, safe to acquire and easy and cheap to extract.
It was hell to figure the actual percentage out, because there is something freaky wrong: what should be mg reads on my monitor as µg, yet when I copy and paste it here, it's correct:
2.2. Extraction and sample preparation
One hundred mg of crushed ergot of rye were extracted with...
What the hell is going on here? When you look at the article on your computer, do you see mg or µg? I have a screen shot to proove the µg on mine...
An average strain, FS, contains 130.95 µg/ml, or 0.131 % total lysergic acid alkaloids. That's not bad! It also fits well to my original informed guess of 0.05 % lysergic acid and verifies my calculations. And with these facts some morons are trying to tell us that it's not worthwhile to use ergot as source of lysergic acid? It might be in the DEA's interest that we believe that, because it's just so much easier to get caught when trying to divert ergot alkaloids or acquire a selected strain...
Sorry, but I have to give you a big thumbs down: If you want to be an A+ Analyst you should get a critical mind of your own and get your facts straight...or move your rotten ass out of here, DEA agent MaDMAx. The Hive, knowing you far longer and far better than I, will be able to determine what you are: a moron or an undercover, or still an A+ Analyst for qualities I haven't seen on you yet.
Some will probably criticize me for going so harsh against you, MaDMAx, but it's exactly people like you with their pseudo-knowledge and/or disinformation who are hampering our progress. Without really knowing, you just dismissed ergot as source of lysergic acid, and did whatever you could to keep me from trying it, discouraged everyone with smart psychological tricks: Do some sort of analysis first to make sure you don't waste your time, you recommend. Which bee has even a remote chance to get an analysis done? Of course, you wouldn't mention that such an analysis could be done with low tech: TLC for example. Or simply extract some ergot on a test-tube scale. Then a few tests to verify and roughly quantify (by comparing with known strength solutions prepared from an ergotamine tablet) the alkaloid content can be applied: the peptidic alkaloids show light blue fluorescense under UV light (365 nm, easily available). Maybe that could even be used on the ergot itself? The Keller and van Urk colour reactions are two chemical tests. But instead of drawing the attention towards those easily availabe tests, you make it look like the only way to do it is via some high-tech mumbo-jumbo chromatographic stuff to which 99.999% of people interested in making LSD have no access to. All availabe information indicates that 2 kg of ergot will produce at the very least about 100 mg of lysergic acid, yet you are implying that it would likely be a waste of time. Why are you pressing so hard to discourage when all facts are very encouraging?
If I wouldn't have proven you wrong in every point you made, enabled through my professional training, The Hive would have followed your argumentation and dismissed ergot as a source of lysergic acid once again, and the illusive dream of a selected strain or diverted material would have continued. And those interested in making LSD would have once again missed the most easily and safely available source of lysergic acid, the source the father of LSD used!
Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive by Men at Work
...tells my tale.
(Hive Addict)
07-25-02 04:37
No 336781
dr heckyll lay off the steroids, madmax's post serves as a good reminder of the need for strain isolation and analysis...of course ergot is a great source for precursor, and i seriously doubt that madmax's intention was to say that it wasnt. its a well known fact that alkaloid content varies from strain to strain, and if i wasnt so tired id go look for something that brought up even more variables for alkaloid content...like perhaps the maturity of the sclerotia, maybe even the host organism.
In any case, you shouldnt get on swimax for experimenting or hypothesizing. lsd synthesis needs to be discussed and all angles need to be examined.
(Hive Bee)
07-25-02 05:39
No 336803
bujinkan, you edited your post while I was writing a reply. I can't waste my time on games like that, especially as you didn't even make clear what you edited...
Here is your original post:
dr heckyll lay off the steroids, madmax's post serves as a good reminder of the need for strain isolation and analysis...of course ergot is a great source for precursor, and i seriously doubt that madmax's intention was to say that.
To that one I can agree: it is not madmax' intention to say that ergot is a great precursor (source of lysergic acid).
Does madmax need you to do the backpaddling for him? Or are you madmax' alter ego as you seem to know so exactly what his intentions were? Isn't he man enough to say: Heckyll, you *%&$, you are talking one pack of shit and I can prove it: here you say this but it is so because of that? Once you prove me wrong I'm the first to admit it, and I've proven that. But you just step in and light a couple smoke candles to blur the vision for the facts.
In your edited post, you already start casting doubt in many bees minds again: the maturity here and the strain there and whatnot elsewhere. Why do you try to spread confusion again? Why don't you stick to the basic facts: if someone is in need of lysergic acid, he best goes, in late July to early August, collects 2 kg of ergot, so it is abundant in his area, and extracts it according to a certain, very easy and efficient methods and this way obtains at least 100 mg of lysergic acid which he can convert to a lifetime supply of LSD? Stick to the facts, stick to the basics AND FOR ONCE LET BEES GET THINGS DONE INSTEAD OF JUST PALAVERING....and spreading insecurity I should add.
Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive by Men at Work
...tells my tale.
(Hive Addict)
07-25-02 11:19
No 336899
Dr_Heckyll MaDMAx doo know wath he is talking abouth.
Don offend bees before you have read atleast some of their post's
(Hive Addict)
07-25-02 12:10
No 336905
bujinkan, you edited your post while I was writing a reply. I can't waste my time on games like that,
i doubt that anyone will take the time compare the two posts, and theyll likely take your word for it, but i was fixing a typo and adding a few more lines. My standpoint on the issue was clear however...look at the first few lines.
Does madmax need you to do the backpaddling for him? Or are you madmax' alter ego as you seem to know so exactly what his intentions were? Isn't he man enough to say: Heckyll, you *%&$, you are talking one pack of shit and I can prove it: here you say this but it is so because of that? Once you prove me wrong I'm the first to admit it, and I've proven that. But you just step in and light a couple smoke candles to blur the vision for the facts
you, my friend, have been smoking too much crack. This is the second time your rediculously unwarranted aggression has blinded you to the actual point of someones post. You are trying to make a war where there is none..no one is trying to crush your dreams, I am just acknowledging madmax's point that strain analysis should be done before you invest a large amount into untested claviceps strain.
In your edited post, you already start casting doubt in many bees minds again: the maturity here and the strain there and whatnot elsewhere. Why do you try to spread confusion again? Why don't you stick to the basic facts: if someone is in need of lysergic acid, he best goes, in late July to early August, collects 2 kg of ergot, so it is abundant in his area, and extracts it according to a certain, very easy and efficient methods and this way obtains at least 100 mg of lysergic acid which he can convert to a lifetime supply of LSD? Stick to the facts, stick to the basics AND FOR ONCE LET BEES GET THINGS DONE INSTEAD OF JUST PALAVERING....and spreading insecurity I should add.
have you lost your mind? are you seriously trying to pawn off the idea that alkaloid content never varies according to strain?
and whats your reasoning behind ignoring what should be common sense: because it makes people unconfidant in using ergot as a precursor. this is rediculous. come back and reread the posts when you arent drunk.
And then you say that i am spreading smoke and talking nonsense...the sad thing is that my posts rarely get read at all, even though the contents are usually well thought out and valid, so everyone will probably believe you. But for your sake ill reiterate the points once again..
-alkaloid content varies from strain to strain in claviceps purpurea.
-it may also vary due to other factors.
-this doesnt mean it cant be used, those are just fact that any bee should be aware of
I suggest you look at the thread ergot and agar. do a search.
(Newbee)
07-27-02 00:09
No 337479
I figure that going to a grain store with a gravity separator at the right time of year you could get 100's of kilos of ergot. surely the clay absorption method reduces the qty of organic required to trivial levels, the only problem is then how to homogenise the ergot prior to extraction with aqueous acid.
(Hive Bee)
07-27-02 08:31
No 337621
the sad thing is that my posts rarely get read at all, even though the contents are usually well thought out and valid, so everyone will probably believe you.
Not true, B. I read your posts and have respect for your thoughts. Without looking at the Hive, I can probably write down a good handful of screennames just from memory, just from having seen the names so many times. You would be on the list, Heckyll would not (no offense, just making an observation).
On this board, having credibilty is very important. (I mean who you gonna believe, "Rhodium", or "CraZayGluSnifr"?)
Besides the moderators, there are quite a few bees that shine - whose advice I would trust for the most part. There have been times I posted something and get a response from someone and then go back and search for the username sorting oldest first and read through posts that person has made. Just to see if they know what they're talking about and "feel out" the person through their posts. Known dumbasses and people whose posts I never happened to read I'm skeptical about. Most known dumbasses sign up for a new name after their stupidity or bullshit lies become apparent, so strangers and newbees I'm skeptical about also. This is just the respect system on the Hive and I think we all know that.
Anyways, yes back on topic a little here - isn't this process of ergot acquisition dangerous, b/c I think I remember reading that one runs the risk of getting gangrene or something like that while cultivating ergot. Perhaps that's just from the process of cultivating your own or someone might have mentioned it by now.
(Old P2P Cook)
07-27-02 09:12
No 337639
Anyways, yes back on topic a little here - isn't this process of ergot acquisition dangerous, b/c I think I remember reading that one runs the risk of getting gangrene or something like that while cultivating ergot. Perhaps that's just from the process of cultivating your own or someone might have mentioned it by now.
Nah, I think that is just a myth. I believe I have read (Perhaps in Hofmann's book) that before submerged cultivation was developed collecting ergot from the fields was done by children.
(Hive Addict)
07-27-02 09:19
No 337644
terbium, locrian...are you two serious? remember st anthony's fire? dont handle claviceps purpurea without gloves.
locrian, thanks, nice to know that im read.
(Hive Addict)
07-27-02 12:46
No 337688
I'v been working with ergot culture without glowes(liquid and agar) and havent's seen Skt. Anton yet.
Acramonn don't say anyething abouth it either.
(Hive Bee)
07-27-02 17:05
No 337727
Just re-read this thread sober. Very interesting, although you were overboard just a bit there, Heckyll. The DEA shit was funny, though. Well if he is a DEA agent, he's the best damn agent they have (or maybe the worse?). Fooled all of us - and taught swinl more than a thing or two about orgo. lab! (And I don't think I'm the only one who appreciates all his contributions to this site and field of study.) Thanks for the help, DEA, we owe you one! And he picked a damn good name - I mean, you know, for an undercover agent posing as a bee.
Very clever black n' decker.Dr. H., You seem pretty convinced that most if not all wild growing (if you will) ergot will contain a decent enough amount of alkaloids to make a random trip to the nearest rye fields worthwhile. MaDMAx disagrees quoting that studies seem to indicate most ergot is worthless for alkaloid extraction. So where does the truth lie? MAx, got any info on where good ergot grows then, how to obtain, or maximize content? What causes the alkaloid content to be high or low - the rye, the length of time it has grown, what? You know, kinda like how Brazilian Sassy is supposedly prefered (having less "pre-run"), or how some MHRB doesn't have hardly any DMT, or like how some regions have wild growing weak to moderate mushies, but others have the dank ones, etc.
Heckyll - do have any kernal of knowledge that would convince someone enough to just go try this? - convince me it would be worth a bee's effort. ie - how are you sure that most ergot is worth extracting alkaloids from? (Damn, excuse the preposition ...) Just from what you've posted, you sound somewhat convinced yourself, but its not your field of interest you say. Really? You sure seem passionate about it. But I guess not since you say you're not - the same as all of us seem to know this cat, SWIM, he's a cool guy. I'm just playin' though, I believe you, or you probably actually wouldn't give a damn about this sort-of-debate. I mean, wasting time, energy and money REALLY sucks (take it from swinl - had bunk Sassy recently, fucking pigs!), plus debatingly risking gangrene (ok probably not, but still) for a worthless experiment also would suck. MaDMAx really was just trying to prevent crappy shit like this from happening (thanks, 'MAx!). Don't leave the thread on a sour note, brush the chip off and share your knowledge, I was listening ...
(Chief Bee)
07-27-02 20:43
No 337777
This is also interesting reading: ../rhodium/pdf /ergot.alkaloi
(Hive Bee)
07-29-02 04:45
No 338295
Locrian, lysergic acid derivatives are not my research interest, because I'm exclusively looking at legal to manufacture compounds. For me that's kind of part of the game. I'm working on a different basis than most bees and with a different objective, so legality does matter for me. I'm passionate, yes, because someone is trying to cover the truth under some crappy analysis. (Where is the baseline drift comming from, not seen with the positive sample? Why is there no noise in the signal, no spurious signals from various basic compounds necessarily found in ergot? What weird shape of peak is this, invented super-chromatography? Why does even the paper look different? How can you expect to get a good signal above noise with twice the amount you get none at all; at least x 10 would be necessary? The decomposed sample, btw, looks more "real".)
Yes, I'm convinced that every ergot sample is a viable source for lysergic acid (LSA), although maybe not for large-scale production. One would have to be extremely unfortunate to find no useful LSA content. I did read over the paper Rhodium just posted, but I didn't see and relevant information; I have to re-read it more thoroughly though.
Heckyll - do have any kernal of knowledge that would convince someone enough to just go try this?
I thought I made my case. Even the paper Madmax cites indicates a usable content in their worst sample. I suggested some simple means for preliminary tests. Sorry I can't give you a reference guaranteeing that every ergot sample will contain at least x % of LSA alkaloids.
Are you all aware that it's the LSA alkaloids which cause the gangrene / St. Anthony's fire (I called it ergotism)? You are worried about gangrena from ergot, and at the same time that it contains no LSA alkaloids? Spock would call this extremely illogical.
All right, I was overboard re madmax, but I couldn't understand how someone could possibly be so predjudist, elitist and blinker minded, trying to proof with some crappy analysis that ergot collected in a random rye field is not a valid source of LSA, not even properly analysing the literature he cites...and everything but dismissing ergot completely based on one failed analysis.
Btw, I never claimed madmax IS a DEA, and if I did so please tell me where. Madmax, you're rediculous with your new signature. Again, you're showing your lack of analytical skills
.A big battle would be won in the war against the war if ergot could be proven to be a vaild source of LSA.
I could help to do that in two ways:
1. Supply to one serious bee in Europe 2 kg of Secale cornutum collected in my area. (Looking forward to a small sample of the finished product in return
.) Shipping ergot to the US is just no feasible.2. Help to establish a simple procedure to estimate the LSA alkaloid content of ergot, using the methods I mentioned earlier. EDIT: I just noticed that bujinkan in Post 338166 (bujinkan: "Heres the above post by mountain girl in readable", Tryptamine Chemistry) seems to have started looking at that option already. Hint: hydrolize alkaloid mix to LSA, use TLC, develop with van Urk. Can be used on crude extract in test tube, but tryptophan will interfere.
MaDMAx is not a DEA but an A+ Analyst wearing blinkers instead of sunglasses to look cool
(Moderator)
07-29-02 15:51
No 338520
Ok, everything said me thinks... We don't want to move this thread to the Couch, do we? BTW, no chance regarding the signature... People would start signature wars...
(Hive Bee)
07-29-02 19:45
No 338598
MaDMAx, you mustn't read what you want to read, you must read what is written; here is what I exactly said, and it leaves two options for you:
If you want to be an A+ Analyst you should get a critical mind of your own and get your facts straight...or move your rotten ass out of here, DEA agent MaDMAx.
I was hopeing that you would take my initial (admittedly somewhat caustic) critique as an opportunity to strike me back within the frame of a heated flaming scientific debate. Knowing more about you now, I understand that you had no choice but to take it personal. It never was my intention for our dispute to case ripples throughout The Hive, but after you changed your signature I had to make a move. Of course, as soon as I found out that you changed yours back to normal mode, I followed your good example.
Let's move one; we're both not visiting The Hive to fight some guerilla civil war against one another. Maybe it'll make you feel better when you see it as a learning experience: I guarantee you that what happened to you here by the evilness of Mr. Jive will happen to you again in life. But next time you will be better able to cope with unfair treatment, won't you?
Happiness, health and wealth through chemistry...
(Resident Smart Assium)
07-30-02 02:37
No 338707
How viable would the extraction of LSA from morning glory and/or Hawiian Baby Woodrose seeds be, relative to ergotamine?
\\|//
ôżô -- Anger management? Fuck that!
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(Hive Bee)
07-30-02 03:16
No 338725
Don't they mainly contain lysergic acid amide? I think the average percentages are quite well known, just not to me by heart. I would have to look for it. The method I described would have to be modified, but the key step, adsorption on charcoal, would facilitate things here, too. Take the lysergic acid amide content, and a pessimistically-realistic recovery rate of 25% and you get your lysergic acid yield.
Happiness, health and wealth through chemistry...
(Chief Bee)
07-30-02 05:38
No 338782
Heckyll: LSA = LysergSäureAmid = Lysergic Acid Amide
(Hive Addict)
07-30-02 06:24
No 338798
madmax, could you tell us some about the origins of the ergot samples? how far apart from each other were the samples taken?
(Hive Bee)
07-30-02 07:32
No 338832
I was hopeing that you would take my initial (admittedly somewhat caustic) critique as an opportunity to strike me back within the frame of a heated flaming scientific debate.
How was referring to MaDMAx as "DEA agent MaDMAx" something that would trigger a "heated flaming scientific debate" or something "within the frame" of one? That's a personal attack that has nothing to do with science, so why would you expect a scientific answer? You're bullshitting because you can't admit you acted like an asshole, which is unnecessary and unbecoming. Why can't you just be a gentleman about your points, disproving or contrary as they may be to others? Is it necessary to talk shit? Is it necessary to accuse (and yes that's how anyone would have taken it)? I got respect for both of you cats, so lets all try to avoid this bullshit in the future and keep things scientific (no calling peeps DEA, ok? - the scientific facts about the graph was more convincing than posting "DEA agent MaDMAx").
Anyways, that being said, - good job on the reply, you are pretty convincing in your points. Swinl just may try something of this nature soon - results would be posted. This makes me wonder about Catcher in the Rye, now, you know? Kid goes a little mental? Dosing perhaps? j/k Peace.
(Hive Bee)
07-30-02 07:38
No 338836
Rhodium: Heckyll: LSA = LysergSäureAmid = Lysergic Acid Amide
I know, Rhodium, but earlier in the thread I was defining lysergic acid as LSA. Should have probably chosen LA for lysergic acid. Well, stone my...
For every molecule there is a moron thinking it will be a great drug
(Hive Bee)
07-30-02 07:57
No 338846
I believe HBWR seeds contain ~0.04% LSA and Morning glory seeds contain ~0.01-0.02% LSA. To get just 1 gram LSA you would need 2.5KGs of HBWR seeds and 5-10KGs morning glory seeds.
hcildoduedn
(Hive Addict)
07-30-02 09:33
No 338880
Madmax while i am impressed by your experiment, and i respect you as the A grade researcher that you obviously are, i think that there should really be more analysis before we close the door on unmodified natural ergot strains.
however, ive always thought that cultivation is the way to go..and selectively cultivating ergot in order to make it more effecient may not be as difficult as one would expect.
Madmax, if i was in your position i would analyze ergot samples until i found one that produces a satisfactory amount of alkaloids, then i would attempt to isolate high producing strains using agar. of course, theres a lot to be discovered here.
agar ideas Post 226926 (cyril: "Re: ergot and agar", Tryptamine Chemistry)
and of course, growth mediums.Post 246869 (bujinkan: "Re: ergot and agar", Tryptamine Chemistry) (and further threads)
or, there is the remote possibility that we could mutate ergot strains ourselves. Post 246873 (bujinkan: "Re: ergot and agar", Tryptamine Chemistry) the Ethyleneimine idea is interesting.
the point im trying to make here is that while natural ergot sampling is fine, i believe it should be looked at as a first step to better, more efficient way of obtaining lysergic acid via cultivation. Heckyll, even you must admit that for the large scale, wild ergot collection becomes less feasable. this in no way says that lysergic acid from wild samples isnt great for small projects, but self sufficiency may also be an issue, since as madmax's experiments are alluding to, alkaloid production in ergot MAY (emphasis on MAY so that you dont call me an agent) vary widely dependant on who knows what kind of variables.
there....now can we all return to the peaceful utopia that tryptamine chemistry once was?
(Newbee)
07-30-02 23:17
No 339093
Swim has seen quite affordable bulk seeds recently...
// Dex
07-31-02 23:07
(Rated as: flaming)
(Stranger)
08-01-02 01:51
No 339532
hello , I must apologize for not having a reference, but i have read that european strands of claviceps purpurea have significant amounts of alkaloids , while many other strands of claviceps are useless.
this is a statement of facts i read. I will be happy if someone actually can find a confirmation.
beeLoyal
The war isnt over!
(Old P2P Cook)
08-01-02 03:29
No 339552
Sweet dreams ... and good bye!
Don't forget to shut the door on your way out.
PS: there is one last thing you should know: indole, the heart of all tryptamines, smells like, well, faeces (means shit)
Did you read that in the Merck Index? I certainly doubt that you have ever actually smelled purified indole. Have you ever even been in a lab?
(Stranger)
08-02-02 12:35
No 340178
(Rated as: excellent)
One of the few good remarks of Uncle Fester in his LSD book was this one at page 5/6:
"Sources Of The Lysergic Amides
Let me begin this chapter by nuking an oft-chanted mantra, this mantra being the claim that a person can grow ergot fungus in a culture medium and get it to produce lysergic acid amides to feed into LSD production. This claim as seen in Psychedelic Chemistry and other publications I read while in college is pure BS. It is truly unfortunate that nature does not cooperate in this manner, since this would obviously be the best way to set up a large-scale production operation, as the logistical complications of crop growth and harvest would then be eliminated.
Let me give a science and literature reading lesson to those who have made these claims. See Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Volume 155, pages 26 to 54 (1961). Also see US Patent 3,219,545. You will note while reading these articles detailing how to get lysergic amide production in a culture medium that these guys had to scour the globe to find that rare strain of claviceps fungus that will cooperate in this manner. The vast majority of claviceps fungi just will not produce these alkaloids while being cultured. See the following articles to convince yourself of just how futile it is to collect a wild strain of claviceps and try to get it to produce lysergic acid amides in culture: Ann. Rep. Takeda Res. Lab Volume 10, page 73 (1951); and Farmczco, Volume 1,
page 1 (1946); also Arch. Pharm. Ben. Volume 273, page 348 (1935); also American Journal of Botany, Volume 18, page 50 (1931); also Journal of the American Pharmacy Association Volume 40, page 434 (1951); also US patent 2,809,920; also Canadian Journal of Microbiology, Volume 3, page 55 (1957), and Volume 4, page 611(1958) and Volume 6, page 355 (1960); also Journal of the American Pharmacy Society Volume 44, page 736 (1955). With this matter disposed of, it is time to move on to what actually are viable sources of lysergic acid amides for the production of LSD..."
So far Fester. Unfortunately there is one US patent which he doesn't cite: 3038840. Look it up and you will see in an instant why Claviceps paspali is much better. This fungus produces lysergic acid in aerobic surface culture! (extra bonus: the patent cites a simple 'virulention' technique which re-activates lysergic acid biosynthesis in paspali strains which almost have lost that quality).
Another interesting quality of this funny fungus is that it does not keep the alkaloids in its mycelium (like psilocybians do), no, it excretes the acid in the medium! (*). According to the patent, the lysergic acid can be extracted from the medium with a simple A/B protocol. So you do not need to go through the hassle as described in Am. patent 3183172 for isolating psilocybin (of which the freebase is soluble in water, so A/B doesn't work properly but only yields the less stable psilocin).
In post no. 339507 I described a simple medium for paspali surface cultivation which doesn't need much sterile precautions. It enables mycelium production in the very same container which is later used for the A/B.
The virtue of the addition of peroxide to growing media was first published by K.L. McAlpine in The Orchid Review of January 1947, p. 20-22, and further developed for basidiomycetes by <www.mycomasters.com>. In my experiments with C. paspali the pinkish color reaction is not hurt in any way after the addition of H2O2 (the fungus decomposes it as usual - I suggest to buy the manuals from <www.mycomasters.com> if you want to know all the details - do not inform the author about the fungus you would like to use it for if it is not an edible one).
From old notes I can present a medium which is even better than the one in post no. 339507, that is if you live in an area where the temperature does not exceed 20 centigrade or so: a contamination proof solid-to-liquid medium for areobic surface cultures.
It goes like this: prepare a maltose+marmite medium as described in post no. 339507 but add 20g/l (2g/100ml) of gelatin. Pour in cultivation containers (marmelade jar, sep funnel etc.). Allow to soldify in fridge, then put at roomtemp (<20 centigrade or gelatin will liquefy). Inoculate with bit of fungus and leave it alone.
Now what happens is that the fungus will decompose the nutrients, the peroxide and the gelatin in about 2 weeks. The result is a nice watery liquid which can be A/B'd
Determine the lysergic content of the medium by a reagent test (I think Keller reagent but I will have to look that up). Isolate & purify by TLC. Extract the strip of TLC paper you need and purify further.
What I have done so far is the cultivation of paspali on described media, and seen the pink reaction. I have not performed the extraction or the TLC test. Perhaps later, in a country where that is legal to do. I do not possess the knowledge to process the lysergic endproduct further but I hope one of you beez has and will publish results.
P.S. C. paspali Stevens&Hall is not a very restricted fungus. Especially in Eastern Europe and I believe even Germany are culture banks where you can buy it.
(*) McLuhan was right!
bibliopharmacophile
(Stranger)
08-02-02 14:25
No 340190
(Rated as: excellent)
In his book THE CHEMISTRY OF MIND ALTERING DRUGS, Daniel M. Perrine writes about paspali (p.277):
"Meanwhile, the biologists had found a better way: in 1964, they observed that a strain of Claviceps paspali under saprophytic cultivation in fermenters would produce an abundant quantity of paspalic acid [see: Kobel, H.; Schreier, E.; Rutschmann. J., Helv. Chim. Acta, 1964, 47 1052]. (C. purpurea will only grow on grain in a field.) And soon it was discovered that paspalic acid easily isomerized under basic conditions to lysergic acid; conjugation with the indole ring being under these circumstances more thermodynamically favored than with the carbonyl [see: Troxler, F., Helv. Chim. Acta, 1968, 51, 1372] To the present day, this probably remains the most efficient and economical way of obtaining lysergic acid.
(...)
It is likely that the LSD so widely available in the United States (at least on college campuses and at rock concerts) comes from a few clandestine laboratories in San Francisco and, perhaps, on the East Coast, each with a few tanks of fermenting C. parpali—cultivation of which is only one or two orders of magnitude more sophisticated than fermenting yoghurt. After all, it can be done by biologists. Instructions on how to cultivate Claviceps are given in Smith, M. V., Psychedelic Chemistry, Loompanics Unlimited: Mason, MI 48854, 1981. A more reliable source of information, chemist Alexander Shulgin, tells me that specimens of C. paspali are readily available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And, of course, as with yoghurt, once you have a sample of the fungus it reproduces indefinitely. You can endow other clandestine daughter labs. This and the fact that LSD is so astonishingly potent (1 g = 10,000-20,000 doses) probably accounts for the fact that there has been no discovery of any clandestine LSD production in the United States by any police agency in almost two decades”
An even more intriguing possibility is quoted in Jonathan Ott's book PHARMACOPHILIA OR THE NATURAL PARADISES (ISBN: 1-888755-01-06), p. 125/126:
"…there are considerable strain variations in alkaloid production by ergots, which may contain the visionary ergonovine [Merck Index 12:3694] and at least two known ergolines of almost certain visionary activity, which have yet to be tested in human beings: elymoclavine and lysergic acid-N-(1-hydroxyethyl)amide. (...)
The latter, likewise found in ololiuhqui and related seeds (...) is known from Claviceps paspali Stevens and Hall parasitizing Paspalum distichum L., in which it can be readily converted into ergine [vide: E Arcamone et alii, “Production of lysergic acid derivatives by a strain of Claviceps paspali Stevens and Hall in submerged cultures” Nature 187: 238—239, 1960]. Moreover, it has been shown that some strains of C. paspali in saprophytic culture are capable of transforming this natural hydroxyethylamide of lysergic acid into its close relative, the diethylamide, or LSD [vide: F. Arcamone et alii, “Production of a new lysergic acid derivative in submerged culture by a strain of Claviceps paspali Stevens and Hall” Proceedings of the Royal Society 155B: 26—54, 1961]. It thus appears likely that there exist strains of ergot which produce L5D itself, and that this will eventually be shown to be a natural product."
Any comments?
bibliopharmacophile
(Hive Addict)
08-02-02 19:58
No 340258
One of the few good remarks of Uncle Fester in his LSD book
i dont understand, are you being sarcastic?
Thanks for your ideas on culture mediums and techniques, it would be nice to know just how much of the alkaloids are being produced in these settings.
(Stranger)
08-02-02 19:58
No 340259
(comment for Yachaj´s last Post) If such a strand of C. Paspali exists I would gladly trade my golden eggs laying chicken for a growng culture.
anyways for more serious matters,
I read your posts Yachaj , and I read the patent 3038840, it was very helpfull. but I feel that my insecurities have still left me with grey areas in my comprehension of the subject.
1. Virulention : I would please like to have more information on the exact procedure of mutating Claviceps Paspali , to make the LSA producing Claviceps Paspali.
2. would C. Paspali collected from the Paspalum Dilatatum (Dallis Grass) be good as starting specimen for the agar cultivation procedure?
3. THIS ONE IS A NEWBEE QUESTION! where should i look for to find ARTICLES? the above mentioned articles from NATURE, HALVATICA , Proceedings of the Royal Society of London , and all other mentioned periodicals and such. please i really want to read them but as I am no scientist have never had to look up this kinda sh1t. WHERE DO U LOOK UP THIS STUFF?
online sources would be appreciated for these.
-
4. how would u go about using collected Claviceps Paspali from plants as a start? would u grow it on agar? and what the hell is this Agar ? I am not a native english speaker and fail to understand what agar is, and so pictures or acurate descriptions of how to make a it in various forms (i gathered that many types exist). for example how would u make Potato-glucose-agar
5. after making the nutrient medium, what part of the agar colony would u add to it? how much of it per liter? would u just mix it in the solution and let it incubate? and if so does the solution look uniform or are there solids on the bottom? A Picture will be great.
6. after the production of the culture and Alkaloids, how would u go about extracting them? YES I am asking this even after reading the Patent.
the lysergic acid can be extracted from the medium with a simple A/B protocol.
sorry for being such an ignorant fool, but what is an A/B protocol? what do A,B stand for?
7. after collecting the Alkaloids in crystals form, how would u go about converting all to LSA and ISO-LSA, and would u then feel its needed to make purifications procedure to convert ISO-LSA into LSA as described in Rhodium´s site before starting for final synthesis?
there is also mentioned in the patent a "known way" of Alkaline Hydrolysis that is supposed to be in "(J. Chem. Society, 1934, p. 674 and 1936, p. 1440.) what are the specifics of this know way and please how do i find the original article?
8. In the patenet description they always refer to the MgSO4 * 7H2O what do they mean? is it MgSO4 / H2O 1/7 in proportions?
9. what is the pink reaction u are refering to ? and how would i go about doing the TLC test? (funny, can u imagine i still dont have any experience with TLC, or any chromatography), how is the keller reagent used to test LSA quantities in medium?
I know my questions are those of a 6 year old but if u answer them ill sell u my sister hehehe.
BeeLoyal
The war isnt over![blue]
(Stranger)
08-02-02 21:01
No 340282
Bujinkan, I am not sarcastic but merely refering to the fact that Fester never made LSD nor ever cultivated any fungus ever, but still makes a living by selling 'information'. According to an interview with him in George magazine <www.georgemag.com>, December 2000, p. 116-119&125-127 he no longer does empirical drug research because he is threatened with the '3 strikes and you are out' law (he has already 2). Perfectly understandable, but he doesn't state that in his books. Duh!
BeeLoyal,
1. info is in the patent text (UV etc). But ATCC 13893&13984 probably do not need to be revived (their pinkish / fleshcolor just beneath the white fluffy hyphae is OK and I am told that that is because of the lysergics. But like I wrote I have not performed a reagent color test.
2. No idea. Isolate astrain, make Van Urk reagent and find out!
3. University library (cheap), <www.scirus.com/?s> (expensive)
4. isolating fungi from the wild: <www.fungi.com> <www.mycomasters.com>
what is agar: <www2.google.com>, <http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/botany/pstgrd
4b. Read the patent text & utfse utfse utfse UTFSE UTFSE UTFSE UTFSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK: first A/B, then TLC, find a useful colorimetric reagent from which the desired alkaloid can be liberated and do just that. Zubrick's The Organic Chem Lab Survival Manual (ISBN 0-471-38732-0) informed me about everyting I needed to know about TLC, and Trout's Notes #FS X-7 title SOME SIMPLE TRYPTAMINES (available via books@troutsnotes.com) contains the most extensive list of recipes for colorimetric reagents for TLCing bioactive tryptamines I have ever seen. Not much about lysergics, but you migh get an answer if you use the email adress&order the book).
5. Unfortunately I am at loss here. But I think this is something for Rhodium (if you are lucky)
bibliopharmacophile
(Chief Bee)
08-02-02 21:02
No 340283
3: The journals the articles are published in can be found at your nearest university library.
3 (the other question #3): Agar is a nutrient mix used to grow fungus, bacteria etc. Buy from a biochem supplier.
7: MgSO4*7H2O is magnesium sulfate which has crystallized together with seven molecules of water. It is called Epsom Salts. Can usually be bought at a pharmacy or at a chem supplier.
(Stranger)
08-02-02 21:13
No 340289
Bujinkan, if the patent text is right then there should be about 100mg of alkaloids per 100ml of medium. A maltose/marmite/gelatin medium contains about 8.5g of ingredients at the moment of inoculation. This is probably much less after completion of the biosynthesis, but 100mg of alkaloid per 8500mg of dry ingredients (after evaporation in vacuum) is roughly comparable to the concentration of nigerine in MHRB. I do not think it is very difficult to isolate it. But again, this is not empirical but just intellectual masturbation á la Fester.
bibliopharmacophile
(Stranger)
08-02-02 21:29
No 340293
Beeloyal, I made a mistake. I pass Question 7 to Rhodium, not 5.
Answer Q5: everybody will always tell you that you should take a bit of mycelium from the rim of the mothe culture, but if you start from a lyophilized culture you will have to start from powder anyway. Just do what the label suggests. But I wouldn't use peroxidated agar for a lyophilized culture.
Q9: actually it is more a caucasian flesh color. Not pink. But scrape the top fluffy white mycelium off with an inoculation hook or needle and you will recognize it immediately.
bibliopharmacophile
(Hive Addict)
08-03-02 00:41
No 340330
Taking mycelium off of the rim of the mother culture would not bee a good idear if the mycelium has reached the edge of the dish, there is a higher chance that there will bee contaminants in that area. In such a situation, it is adviseable to cut a wedge from the center (like a pie), and cut the wedge into thirds, taking the middle peice. Of course, usual precautions are nessisary (flame sterilze scalpel etc...)
The edges of the petri dish generally tend to bee hot-spots for contamination, as thats where they usually seep in.
DMT... its good for what ails ya!
Just remember to bring back some of the love.
(Hive Addict)
08-22-02 05:56
No 347578
refering to the fact that Fester never made LSD nor ever cultivated any fungus ever, but still makes a living by selling 'information'
is this self admitted by fester? I had always wanted to get festers practical lsd manufacture, because i didnt believe that such a large book can be based around such impractical ideas on obtaining precursors...(become a farmer)
If I'm reading this correctly..and I like to think that I am.....
(Hive Addict)
08-25-02 05:45
No 348719
Hey Buj,
For awhile there was some online interview with Fester up, don't quote me on this but I think it may have been the Lycauem (sp?) and in this interview Fester did admit to not having tried one of the methods published in his LSD book.
I'll see if I can locate that link later and will retreive it if I do find it.
He claimed to want a nymphomaniac as a partner but did he comprehend the full scope of his wish?
(Newbee)
08-25-02 22:15
No 348903
when eluesis and fester had the dick sizing contest on rec.drugs.chemistry I seem to remeber fester confessing to being a theoretician not that there is neccessarily anything wrong with that. Fester has done a lot of good and collected together information from the scientific literature into one location which saves a whole lot of library time. The down side is that the information in festers books often need a reality filter. practical LSD manufacture doesn't really do what it says on the box, but it is certainly worth reading in order to get some ideas.
Ergot alkaloids were originally extracted from wild collected ergot however the concentration is not that great. If you can get hold of 50 KG it is definately worth a go, if it works then fantastic. Don't become a farmer become a purchaser of grain..find out who has a gravity separator and go and negotiate with them. they are backward country folk who haven't got the faintest idea why you would want ergot. In this country organic rye contains ergot sclerotia in appreciable ammounts. 5 to 10 sclerotia per 50kg bag after gravimetric separation.
(Stranger)
09-09-02 06:46
No 354520
http://www.xenopharmacophilia.com/ee/fes
The Entheogen Explorer Exclusive interview with Uncle Fester
by: Rev. MeO
[NOTE: The following tales may or may not be true. Often tales which involve illegal substances are told in 1st person even though they did not occur as such. To my knowledge, no illegal activity has occured.]
PART 1/3
REV: To what extent were you trained in the arts of organic chemistry? Did you go to school, or were you lucky enough to happen upon a chemist who trained you?
FESTER: I went to Marquette U. In Milwaukee from 1977-1981, graduating with a double major in chem and biology. Those 70's were something, let me tell you. Smoke from the bongs could be smelled pouring down the stairwells of the dorms, all the way to the cafeteria.
About halfway through college, the idea came to mind that cooking my own chemicals would be far suppier to buying unknown products from dubious sources. Through my chem lab sources, I could walk home with glassware, and an occasional useful chemical. There was a chemical store down the street that would deal cash and carry with people who walked in off the streets. All sorts of chemicals. Times were much different then.
My various attempts at making various mind altering chemicals were filled with trial and error. I was reading the available "underground" publications of the time, and reading through the scientific literature at the University library. Neither one satisfied me. The "underground" press was laughably poor, and the scientific literature was often vague and sometimes in error. Many of their procedures were unpractical for clandestine application. I often told myself I could do better writing for that purpose.
After some practise, I became a pretty damn good cooker. Since the batch size was more than I could consume, before I knew it a lot of my friends were helping out with the consumption. They would pitch in by going to the chemical store to get chemicals.
Looking back, the methods we used weren't at all tailored for a low profile. We used lots of chemicals, and ignored the hardware store and OTC materials as sources of feedstock. I used ether as a solvent. One time while I was cooking, a friend stopped by and told me he could smell ether down the street. The whole thing was nuts.
In my books, those points are emphasized. Use OTC and hardware store feedstocks where possible. Use solvents that don't have a great smell. Keep a low profile, don't attract attention. I think it's fair to say that I'm the person responsible for making clandestine cooking what it is today, a burgeoning pastime.
REV: A psychedelic friend of mine recently said that the LSD you tell how to make is just standard "street crap", which lacks potentcy and authenticity. Are these recipes for true LSD-25?
FESTER: I'm the first person to admit that I've never made any acid myself. I wrote the book because the other books out there in the popular press just did such a god awful job in covering the topic. The methods given in the book are the standard ones, which were good enough for Dr. Hoffmann, Owsley, and other famous acid chefs. Some newer methods are also given. This is the genuine LSD-25.
The difference between street acid of today and the famous brews such as White Lightening is first of all the individual dosage is much smaller. Secondly, the purification isn't as good. Purity problems stem from unavailability of good feed materials such as ergotamine tartrate. Starting with ergot as the starting material requires a purification during the synthesis. If the hydrazide method is being used, the hydrazide crystallizes well to allow purification. If the lysergic acid methods are being used, purification of the lysergic acid using a cation exchange resin also allows a clean precursor to be used in the synthesis. To get the product LSD itself to crystallize is a much more difficult proposition.
I'm not first hand familiar with the purification methods being used in today's acid labs. I assume they do the above procedures, along with chromatography of the product. There may be a handling and storage problem between the acid labs and the folks who package the product onto blotter.
REV: We know that "Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture" is in its millionth printing and revision, but are you anticipating the release of any new books?
FESTER: Yes, the meth book is now out in a revised fourth ed. The meth from ephedrine chapter has been updated to include news of the meth act of 1996. Also those wacky theories I had in there to explain why one generally gets a lower octane product from pseudoephedrine than ephedrine have been yanked out. Sometimes I fuck up, but the recipes are generally valid and quite workable. I also wanted Loompanice to pull out chapter 10, which has a recipe taken from a US patent for making substituted phetnylacetones from the allylbenzenes found in plant oils. The patent claims a 90% yield, but people using it are getting more like 5-10% yield. I wanted to replace it with three methods that work much better.
You asked what other new books I have coming out. Well that new "condom" method is in the book they are finally going to put on sale in Sept. "Advanced Techniques..." I wrote that book about a year ago, and they are finally getting around to selling it. Loompanics is a messed up place. It's also got a lot of new and hopefully really useful recipes, along with news, scame for getting chemicals, and a keep out of trouble section from Mr. X n the slam. People will like it, I'm sure. Right now, I'm writing "Ask Uncle Fester" which has even more new recipess along with answering the most often asked questions from the net.
REV: What is this talk about using condoms instead of lab equipment? What condoms would be best?
FESTER: Let's talk about condoms. My day job is as an electroplating chemist. As such I set up electrochemical cells and do electrochemistry everyday. It is high time the good electric synthesis methods get introduced into clandestine chemistry. The equipment is very simple, a cup will do for reaction vessel, and the reagent is electricity. This is clandestine suitable to that max. One day while reading through an electrochem book, I started to read about electrocatalytic hydrogenation. This is where the hydrogen electrically generated at the surface of a hydrogenation catalyst serves to do convenient tabletop hydrogenations. No elaborate equipment required. This caught my interest. With all the heat that red P and iodine have acquired of late, hydrogenation is the synthetic method of choice now for making meth. The next question was how to adapt electrocatalytic hydrogenation to this task to make a gram or two of stash in a very sneaky manner. The first requirement is an easily available and disposable cell divider. The reaction solution can't come into contact with the anode, as it would be destroyed there. A kling-tite rubber, or other brand made from sheep guts serves this purpose quite well. Of course, it has to be washed clean in dishwater first. Then there is the reaction mixture. The reaction mixture used for hydrogenations using a catalyst doesn't work because it doesn't pass current well, not does it easily break down to hydrogen at the cathode. The acid solution is much too concentrated. What does work is to use very dilute sulfuric acid solution as the electrolyte. The palladium ingot is first anodized in the sulfuric acid solution to form a surface layer of palladium black, the active catalyst. Then a gram or two of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine of PPA is put into a test tube with about 7 ml of glacial acetic acid per gram of ephedrine. The mixture is heated to dissolve the ephedrine, and a couple drops of sulfuric acid is added to make the acetic acid ester of the ephedrine. The anodized palladium ingot is then made the cathode and the surface charged up with hydrogen electrically generated. After about 20 minutes of this, the ester reaction mixture is poured into the electric cell, and current passed with stirring for a few hours. The acetic acid ester of the ephedrine gets reduces to meth. It is extracted out of the reaction mixture by adding some lye and extracting in the usual manner. Passing HCl gas through the extract gives good yields of a very nice meth. The palladium ingot can be used over and over. This method will be very popular.
REV: How worried are you about anonymity and possible backlash from law enforcement because of your highly controversial books?
FESTER: My anonymity, that went down the tubes back in 1992. A couple of feds came into Loompanics headquarters with a subpoena demanding the identity of Uncle Fester. Yes, I'm aware of the backlash potential. I know that if they got their hands on me, the treatment that Hogshire got will be nothing compared to what they would like to do to me.
REV: Do you feel that the govt. would prefer you dead or behind bars?
FESTER: Dead or in jail would suit them just fine, but I think they would prefer dead because I could still write in the slam.
REV: Does that make you worried, or does it make you smile?
FESTER: That just makes me smile, the power of the pen and the press has just amazed me over the years. The printed word carries with it such weight. I can't believe all the lives I've reached out and touched over the years. To prevent what happened to Hogshire from being repeated with me, I lead a generally quiet and normal life. I'm a real family man, and there are no Bob Blacks to mess with my existence. I also avoid doing crazy and reckless things that would make putting me away easy.
REV: What did a little Uncle Fester want to be when growing up?
FESTER: Gladiator movies were hot back then, and I thought that was really cool. Then I find out that the games are no longer played down at the arenas, so pro wrestling was the next obvious choice. Too bad I stopped growing at 5 ft. 8 in., so went on to hit the books.
----------------------------------------
PART 2/3
REV: Have you ever had the urge to run over to Shulgin's house, just to use all of his neat equipment and chemicals?
FESTER: It would be a pleasure to meet him, and fun to play around with a lot of fancy equipment and exotic chemicals. More useful to the field of clandestine chemistry, however, is learning to think like a Viet Cong. Low tech aces high tech. Simpler is better, and if you can get it at the hardware store, from industrial sources, or over the counter, it is gold.
I've done plenty of bio-assays during my years. About 20 years ago, I got the idea to write a book called "I Was A Taste Tester In A Meth Lab". That book eventually became the Secrets of Meth book. These bio-assays were mainly a quality control measure and research tool to judge quality of product produced by various production techniques. I've always loved crank, and don't mind acid either. I don't get to do that stuff anymore. That's been the price of fame.
REV: Are you familiar with the now defunct CRSB (Chemical Resale of Santa Barbara) and Tom Kasper's recent troubles?
FESTER: Tom Kasper, what an interesting topic. Back before I unplugged myself from the net this past Spring, I was following that story.
REV: What are your thoughts on the company, and Tom? Possible govt. set-up?
FESTER: My take was that the guy was incredibly reckless. His behavior on the airplane confirmed that assessment to me, and I just think he wasn't all there, so to speak. As far as it being a great govt. set-up, I just know that whatever shipping company he used was quite "cooperative" with the heat. I wonder how good was his record keeping. I certainly wouldn't want to be getting chemicals from CRSB if I was up to anything "sinister". This brings us back to "Viet Cong thinking". When doing clandestine chemistry, the aim should be to avoid the use of "interesting" chemicals, from almost any source.
That is reason number one why this new electric method is going to be so popular. All that is required is a cup to do the extraction in, a rubber, a source of DC current with amp meter, pill extract, sulfuric acid and acetic acid, and an ingot of palladium (a one ounce bar of palladium...kind of looks like a strip of latinum on Star Trek DSN).
When the reaction is finished, the solution is made alkaline with Red Devil Lye, or other source of NaOH, and extracted with toluene paint thinner from the hardware store. Crystals of product are then obtained by bubbling dry HCl gas through the toluene extract. This is a simple and good method. Something I've come across in the literature lately is that a catalytic cathode of even higher activity than a palladium ingot can be made by electroplating a thin layer of palladium onto a graphite rod or bar. This would mean shorter electrolysis times, and higher yields. That variation will make it into a book eventually.
REV: Can anything "sinister" be done with the 50 mg. of l-desoxyephedrine [l- methamphetamine] contained in those Vicks Inhalers? Swallowing one "bullet" provides a minty burp and breath, as well as an altered state.
FESTER: In the latest printing of the meth book, I suggest taking these Vicks Inhalers and heating them with 30% HCl at about 110 C for a day or so to isomerize them to d, l- meth racemate in the same manner as ephedrine or pseudoephedrine can be racemized. It should work. I have received a report that bringing the solution to boil with 35% HC; causes the destruction of the product. This is an interesting result, since the formyl amide of meth gets boiled for hours with concentrated HCl at the end of the Leuckart reaction to yield meth. No destruction of the product occurs there. Perhaps the formic acid produced in the hydrolysis has a protective effect on the product, so adding some formic acid to the solution with Vicks Inhalers would similarly protect the product in that case. There should be a variation that works.
REV: Many people feel that meth is a terribly dangerous drug -- corrupting the youth of the nation -- what do you think? Do you think ALL drugs should be legalized for consenting adult use?
FESTER: Let's talk about legalization. Just the way you frame the question shows how messed up thinking has gotten out there as a result of official propaganda. When the officials lead out with "protecting the children", get ready to cover your ass, because you are about to receive a reaming! If they gave a damn about the children, they would see to it that they are properly educated instead of running those idiot factories they call the public schools. Raising and protecting the children is the responsibility of the parents. If they are out doing dope, they should get a boot in the ass from dad, a stern screaming at, and their wayward lives straightened out. Children shouldn't be doing dope, just like they shouldn't be having sex.
When we talk about adults, what has to be stressed is the concept of self- ownership. Damn it, I'm a free man, not the ward of the state. They have no right to regulate my body chemistry. With that right comes the responsibility to not overindulge. There should be no enabling of overindulgence with welfare, free "drug treatment" or any other horseshit. Overindulgence should carry a social stigma, but should be dealt with as a personal, family, and medical problem rather than the failed police state solutions we have been subjected to for the past decades.
REV: When was the last time you voted in a government election? Who did you vote for?
FESTER: I'm an economic nationalist, and a social libertarian. I think the borders of the country should mean something, and this third world flood must be stopped. That means both material and human. The fat cats who exploit slave labor in places like China to make obscene profits should be brought to heel. The remaining industrial base in the US should be protected and rebuilt. This multiculturalism crap we are being fed must also be stopped, or the country will be as crowded as China with no wild spaces left, and we'll have a situation that will make the former Yugoslavia look like a walk in the park. I ended up pulling the lever for Perot the last two times out because I'm so fed up with the status quo and business as usual.
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PART 3/3
REV: Do you think "entheogen people" or any people, think of you as some sort of speed freak? Do you care?
FESTER: How would they get that idea in their heads!? Actually, so long as they enjoy my books, learn from them, and so long as I continue to advance the field I've spent the past 13 years covering, they can imagine me with a third eye growing out of my forehead if they like. It's all cool by me.
REV: I definitely see why "thinking like a Viet Cong" would be beneficial in clandestine cooking, but with all of the chemical restrictions that are continually being placed, do you think that "they" will ever win and make clandestine drug labs a thing of the past?
FESTER: They have been pumping out the bull for something close to 30 years now that all they need is the power to control this or to outlaw that and this "problem" will disappear. The latest push is to regulate the retail sale of cold pills. This has already passed in California, and will probably spread. Walmart has rigged their cash registers so that no more than 3 packets of cold medicine can be sold at one time. I saw this coming a year ago when I wrote "Advanced Techniques", and counsel in that book that the ephedrine/pseudoephedrine routes are suitable for making a few grams at a time only with all the regulations coming down. The Fester Formula is ideally suited to this small scale, personal stash level of production.
For larger scale production, new methods are given using common industrial or hardware store chemicals. We'll see if they try to control that too. At some point the futility of this exercise is going to have to become apparent to everybody. One would think that the politicians who grandstand this issue to demonize the "dope fiends" to the point where they are now the new Jews being shipped off en mass to gulags would be held up to the ridicule they deserve. What is lacking in this issue is media that doesn't just toe the party line. Their gutlessness is really distressing.
REV: Couldn't it be dangerous promoting clandestine cooking as "to think like the Viet Cong"? With that, you are giving the government fodder wherein they can compare you to the Viet Cong, and claim that you indeed boast the same comparison.
FESTER: To directly go to the Viet Cong analogy, I don't know if smearing some group with the Viet Cong label carries much emotional punch anymore. Hell, Bill Clinton marched through the streets for the Viet Cong, and he got elected president! They even get somewhat sympathetic treatment in the movies now, I'm sure that if they think that some propaganda advantage can be gained by using the Viet Cong label, they will fling it. I have great doubts about how effective such a propaganda tactic would be.
REV: It is good to see that you make out pretty well with the book proceeds, and that's not the only book you've got out there! If Loompanics could somehow place your books into all college book stores, you'd be set - you could be a fat cat!
FESTER: [Yeah], if Loompanics...was somehow able to place my books into state owned (largely) college bookstores, I probably would be well on my way to being a fat cat. My books do make good companion reading to a chemistry curriculum.
REV: You say that children should neither use drugs nor have sex; but when did you first experiment with either? Is this a hypocritical dilemma? You put an age on when people officially become owners of their own bodies?
FESTER: Oh, that is a good question. Just as a starting point, I don't wear a big sign around my neck saying "Uncle Fester", and I have no idea how old they [his children] will be before they find out the content of daddy's literature. You just have to set the bar a little bit above the level that you will reasonably tolerate, because people have a way of living down to expectations.
Comparing sex and drugs, the long term consequences of sex can be a good deal more devastating than that of drugs. One can contract diseases such as hepatitis which will turn your liver to mush, or even the dreaded AIDS, although I doubt the ease which with it can be passed through standard heterosexual contact. A teenage pregnancy is just a ball buster, screwing up the lives of all three people involved. Resorting to the murder of the unborn innocent to make that problem disappear is such a shameful act that I am amazed it is accepted with such nonchalance. You can do some dope, and in the morning you wake up sober. The consequences of sex just linger on and on. I wonder why this point is never made.
As for my own history, I grew up in the 70's, and back then we had drive in movies. That was a great place to go and drink some underage beers (the drinking age was 18 then, and I started out at 16) and find some babes to hang out with. I lost my virginity at age 18, started smoking weed at 18, acid at 19, at meth at 21 when I began to learn the "cooking arts". A person attains full ownership of self when you turn legally adult at 18, and are out making a living on your own. That's not to say that your dad can't then step in and kick your butt if you are screwing up yourself and those around you by irresponsible actions such as wonton abuse of mind alterants.
REV: In the realm of clandestine cooking, do you feel that you have a good bit of competition from other authors (specifically the new breed - a guy by the name of "Strike", and another by the name of "Otto Snow")?
FESTER: I know Strike through correspondence, and have read his book Total Synthesis. I even hosted a web page at his site for a few months. I like Strike, and enjoyed reading his book. It's nice to have somebody else out there writing books on the topic that aren't total drivel.
That's not to say that I agree with everything he writes. In particular, the way he endorses the use of mercury in drug synthesis is alarming to me. The waste generated is intractable and dangerous just to share room space with. Using organ- mercurials to manufacture drugs is also just asking for disastrous mass poisoning events. The typical clandestine cooker will not have access to the nice fancy equipment required to assure that no mercury shows up in the product. Low skill levels further increase this danger. The use of mercury should be condemned.
Be that as it may, Strike has advanced the field, and I say there is plenty of room for both of us. The competition will benefit the reading public, and give me ammo to use on my publisher to needle them into allowing continued updating of my books to maintain the lead in the market. Advanced Techniques, and the new book...will assure that I retain the lead in the field for some time to come. Otto Snow, I have never heard of, nor seen anything about these new books.
REV: When you talk about the borders of this country, you, of course, are speaking of the in-coming flood of those dirty French-Canadians, right? Hehe.
FESTER: That sort of sneering reply is standard from the multiculturalists, and is calculated to bully into silence those who oppose their agenda rather than have to engage in a meaningful debate. The aim of radical leftists has always been to destroy this country, which they hate, and this multicultural movement is the perfect vehicle to accomplish that. To make this work, they have allied themselves with he fat cats who own the political prostitutes. The fat cats just love this tidal wave because they desire slaves. Labor follows the law of supply and demand, just like everything else. The fat cats live in gated communities, and send their kids to school at private academies, and so are immune to the pernicious effects of this flood for the time being. The rest of us aren't so isolated.
Let's talk about immigration in general. If you want to try to make the case that this country is underpopulated, go right ahead. If you want to make the case that there is something wrong with the previously largely European ethnic makeup of this country, and that it needs to be re-made in a third world image, go right ahead. I'd be interested in hearing these arguments. What we've had previously worked just fine. It was a united country. Hillary likes to say "it takes a village to raise a child". It takes an ethnically homogenous population to make a village. Cats run with cats, and dogs run with dogs. That's the way it has always been. I believe tribalism is genetically "hard wired" into the human mind by evolution, and can't be removed.
As to the French Canadians, they aren't storming the gates by the millions because they haven't swept over their corner of the earth like a swarm of locusts and stripped it bare, so they aren't looking for new land to repeat the process on. This is a horribly destructive process, and must be stopped.
REV: What country would be nice to visit, hang out and cook in?
FESTER: A trip to Holland would be a great adventure, but I hear they are knuckling under to foreign (mostly US and EU) pressure to change the laws which have worked just fine for them. As for any other countries, you certainly would want to pick a destination where the water is safe to drink, and disease isn't a constant companion. That rules out most of the world.
REV: Have you ever had the chance to chat with other well-known underground cookers, such as Owsley?
FESTER: I've never met, nor corresponded with any celebrity cookers.
REV: Care to share any particularly insightful psychedelic trips? Perhaps tales of bad trips?
FESTER: I've never had a bad trip, they've all been fun. As for profound insights, I've never had any of them while tripping either. It's been more like a roller coaster ride than anything else for me. Then again, I'm not a particularly spiritual person, so that's probably to be expected. I tend towards the analytical.
REV: Why do you think the USA is the only country in the world with a major crack cocaine epidemic?
FESTER: Actually, the USA didn't have a crack epidemic, it was a phenomena confined almost entirely to the black ghettos. Whether the CIA was to blame, or it was just a marketing phenomena, I can't really say. I do know from first hand experience that smoking free base cocaine was quite popular in black ghetto areas starting in the late 70's and into the early 80's. I used to hang out with some of those guys while I was in college. Crack took all the work out of free basing coke, as it was already based and ready to go. In that respect, it was quite convenient.
REV: And lastly, what type of music does Uncle Fester like?
FESTER: I like heavy metal, and I like it loud and rude! Bands like WASP, Danzig, Metallica, and so forth. I always used to watch the Headbanger's Ball when it was on MTV. The local college radio stations used to play some great stuff. Then the administrations of those colleges became embarrassed by the antics that went on. Now they pipe in NPR, and play weenie jazz. The Headbanger's Ball is history too, so I have no idea what new stuff is any good. My CD collection is rapidly getting old. It's a good thing they last forever, unlike the vinyl records they replaced.