Uncle Fester's book Practical LSD Manufacture is "only" 160 pages long
It's not particularly practical, no. Culturing ergot is probably harder than extracting ET from pills (which are unscheduled, while ET itself is a List I DEA precursor, I think) which is what I would do although if I were in a position to do it I could probably manage to source raw ET; I'm sure the same Orientals who you go to for tadalafil and ketamine could do it, and if you get to know them and make them money they will generally accomadate you beyond what they list publicly, sometimes even for things that are controlled.
This, which is absolutely not a newsworthy event in terms of being any kind of surprise, but provides me an opportunity to sperg out about the subject at hand, happened recently:
26 people arrested at Dead and Company show at Nassau Coliseum
> Nassau County police arrested 26 people at a concert at the Nassau Coliseum on Tuesday and into Wednesday, and also had to take some people to a hospital.
@eternal dog mongler knows that this was probably a colorful scene...
>According to police, drug enforcement efforts were conducted during the Dead And Company concert at the Coliseum. Three people were taken to the hospital for evaluation and treatment. Police say they arrested 16 people for illegal use/sale of nitrous oxide.
Good to know people are kicking it old school in a legendary venue.
> All 26 people were arraigned in First District Court in Hempstead.
Always an interesting scene in court when they have to mop up after a big show. But honestly, given the volume of drug use and sales going on, it always surprises me how
few people get indicted and arrested. They literally could just "hippie-profile" people and drag them off lot to make drug arrests. This is why it is actually relatively safe to do or sell drugs at shows or festivals. Strength in numbers. If anyone on lot is a potential drug arrest then your chances of being one are minimal unless you are an idiot. In the Burning Man culture, they are called "idiot tickets" (i think, something to that effect.) But Burning Man is gay and Dead lot is based.
> Sixteen people were arrested for illegal use or sale of nitrous oxide.
LOL Philly. (For the uninitiated, N2O for reasons is easier to obtain in PA than anywhere else in the area; you basically just need to pay a fee to get a license. Because of the first limb of this fact, the Philly-based 'Nitrous Mafia' holds down the trade at least out here and because of the second they are viciously territorial. These people for the most part are
not Deadheads and are definitely
not well-liked by many people in the scene. Nitrous
is ridiculously well-liked, though, but it is a pestilence due to obnoxious behavior both on the part of the people who sell it, who are stone gangsters and not averse to violence, and of the users, who get compulsive (it is called "hippie crack" for a reason, there is a strong urge to redose after a few minutes, people will spend ridiculous amounts of money.) The
hssst of the tanks is notorious at festivals. One might wonder how you smuggle a tank into a festival, if they are checking cars even perfunctorily. Well, the volume of stuff that goes in is huge. One of the traditional thing to do is in places that allow food vending disguise it as a tank of propane. The professionals also have their little ways, and won't have a problem cutting fences, bribing or intimidating staff, etc. At venues where it would be feasible it has even been known to be done to bury them in the earth.) There is a retarded amount of money in this hustle as the gas for all intents and purposes might be considered free on top of the fees and tank deposits, and it is sold at exorbitant amounts (and people will pay it. it gets ridiculous. $5, 3 for $20, sometimes even worse.) People sperg-rush the tanks so there will always be someone with the money in hand behind you, whereas with acid there will be a dozen people wandering around murmuring "doses, doses" and you'll be able to wait for someone else if somebody is trying to charge $10 a hit. Also the market is more vertically integrated--the commercial LSD market is, too, but not as badly, civilians still buy sheets and cut them up and sell them retail, whereas the Philly mob will beat your ass if you try to get in on their game. They have to because their hustle is just too good. Criminal penalties are minimal. The only tricky bit is getting the tank in and controlling the scene of very conspicuous and often unruly users. So they operate in quite disciplined crews with one running the tank, one taking money, others as lookouts and enforcers.
Honestly, fuck these people, but that doesn't mean I haven't sucked myself retarded off nitrous balloons many times. One time (actually it was following the story I told earlier, in an attempt to de-stress after almost getting in a violent confrontation with another crew) me and my boys just waved some fistfuls of bills at a kid and were like "keep 'em coming." I had no recollection but we spent several hundreds of dollars between ourselves and apparently had a tank of our own going.
So really, true and honest? The only reason I say "fuck these people" is because they act like utter shitheels but the story that I'm referring to is about LSD dealers acting like shitheels, so that's what's called a case of in-group bias. The Philly mob is actually really skilled at what they do and the reason they get to charge high prices is that other people are not, that and they know how to protect their business against people who try to get into that game on an amateur basis. Still shitheels though, every acid dealer at least makes a pretense of liking the music, and almost always actually in fact does. One who doesn't is tantamount to blasphemy.
> In addition, police say they arrested and charged the following 10 people for felonies:
Here's our boys...I'm redacting their names because they don't need to be doxed on Kiwi Farms in addition to on Patch:
> CM, 40, of Cobleskill, was charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance for allegedly being in possession of multiple ecstasy pills.
> DB 45, of Englewood, New Jersey, was charged with third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance for allegedly selling psilocybin mushrooms.
4th degree CDS = personal use amounts, 3rd degree CDS = low tier retail amounts. These dudes are approximately the age of a few of us posting here I suspect. They very likely have jobs and families and are functioning members of society (likely pot smokers though) who let their freak flag fly for a weekend. Even DB, 45, selling shrooms. It's very possible that he cultured them himself, and that he has a decent job, and is not a professional dealer, but was selling them kind of to supplement his income and kind of almost as an offering to the fact that the Dead are touring. Yes, people think this way. Unfortunately the consequences can be nasty. There are more of us than people think, often hiding amongst normalfags. It's funny how I used to run into, say, a colleague at work (
@eternal dog mongler and I are apparently both medfags!) who would have a 13-point lightning bolt pin on his ID, and we would talk about the Dead. Out of professional courtesy we wouldn't mention the fact that we were both probably involved in the subculture at least in the past (a lot of old heads have mellowed; I have, although I have to smile at the idea of being considered anything close to an "old head.") Not necessarily the supply side but we definitely both would've know what was up. No Deadhead, not even Ann (although maybe because work), is going to judge another for choosing to indulge. even if we don't anymore for personal or professional or whatever reasons. HOWEVER, they managed to get themselves arrested in a context where a MAJORITY of the people there are probably at least possible to be charged with constructive possession of marijuana. So in all likelihood they did something stupid. It's possible they were among those that got transported to the ER. It would really suck to buy bad E pills, go to the hospital, and then get charged for possession.
> TH, 54 of Maspeth, was charged with second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance for allegedly being in possession of LSD.
This guy very likely got fucked and I feel sorriest for him although it's possible, even probable, that he was being stupid as well. It's also possible that he got given something other than LSD and had to be hospitalized. He would still be charged with LSD. He could beat the charges later on probably, even though there are charges they could stick him with (counterfeit CDS, theoretically, the Analogue (not Analog) Act federally or if there is a state equivalent in PA, I'm not sure, there isn't everywhere, there probably is, but even the feds don't use it because it's probably "void for vagueness" legally speaking and has been taken to task by a judge at least once in a reasonably big case. The feds would basically only use it to go after someone who was blatantly producing stuff for massive sale and on top of that there were people hurt.)
And don't be mistaken, this is a serious charge. He is at least nominally facing some time although he wouldn't probably actually have to do any inside after all is said and done. If you're dealing you kind of take the risk but a Dead show is supposed to be a safespace if you just want to
possess some stuff (OK, at least
take, removing it from the premises is slightly riskier if you're gonna get pulled over or something. Some people feel like the drug dealing at shows brought (past tense because the scene is not the same) bad elements in who were only there to score drugs, and that is true, but given this guy's age he was probably an old school head who wanted to relive his youth in the glorious 80s. The charge is CDS two, which usually indicates fairly large distribution level amounts, only because it is LSD, and because the charge tiers in the law are calibrated to amounts of LSD that one might possess, rather than weights of blotter paper. This might seem insane but has actually been confirmed (in a case involving a deadhead) by no less an authority than the Supreme Court.
A sheet, by which I mean the paper, might weigh a couple grams, a vial of liquid I don't even want to think about. A gram of crystal LSD is 10,000 typical "hits" in contemporary style dosing (4,000 in 60s style dosing.) A gram is typically used to "lay" 10 tenpacks or 100 sheets or sometimes 10 "pages" or 90 sheets (that is nine pages of 3x3 sheets, which are either "unperforated", more common these days, which is just blotter or watercolor paper--"Blotter" paper is actually a term of art for a type of paper used in printing--or "perforated," divided into 10x10 squares. the usual size of a sheet is 2.5 inches square. Veterans can tear them off by hand by using a dollar bill as a ruler. Sheets that are unusually large or unusually thick have an unfortunate tendency to carry chemicals other than LSD. The paper has a history of being an art form in and of itself with beautiful patterns printed on. These days a lot of it is made without art, which for obvious reasons is more discrete. You can buy perforated and unperforated art paper with art online with a credit card although I wouldn't do that, at least not the latter part. I'm sure the guys who sell it would do cash-by-mail though I'd still be too paranoid to deal with them unless I knew them personally.) As for Liquid LSD, the usual method of distribution is in "Sweet Breath" mint droppers. They deliver a uniform 33 gtt ('drop rate') per milliliter, which means a tenpack is mg of LSD or a gram goes 3mg into a mL. Liquid is also sold in much stronger concentrations for use in laying sheets, depending on which method you use; the traditional method it will vary depending on how much you are doing and the quick and dirty method is usually 100mg/mL or one insulin syringe. The traditional method of laying sheets is to soak them in this solution, but it can be done in a quick and dirty manner using a syringe and saturating the thing after putting it on top of a piece of glass by squirting the liquid uniformly around the surface paper. This has to be done carefully or results in "hot spots" but the traditional method can only be done in larger amounts. The glass is necessary for the solution to properly soak in. When I first tried to do this I was such a newfag that I literally did not know to do this and wasted some acid and had a weak trip that weekend too. Fortunately I was only putting a few hits on paper for my head, not a whole sheet or to sell, otherwise I would've probably had an entirely different trajectory in the scene if I had developed a reputation, even inadvertently, for scamming people. (In fact, the first time I sold a strip (10 hits) to someone--I wasn't even old enough to buy my own cigarettes--his words to me were "if this is bunk I will throw you in yonder river.") This should be illustrative that you need to know what you are doing before doing it, but on the other hand the fastest way up is to fake it till you make it. If you want to rise fast basically your job is the same as that of an undercover cop: to pretend that you belong. If you want to rise the right way you have to basically attach yourself to people and be willing to humble yourself.
> JB, 22, of Uniondale, Christopher Slade, 40, a homeless man, and Jason Jarmacz, 37, also homeless, were all charged with second-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance for allegedly being in the possession of and selling LSD.
The last three were no doubt the most interesting people. If anyone here was hooked into the more interesting elements of the scene, the ones I've been talking about here and get into real detail in in the stuff I'm writing outside of here, it's them. "Homeless" here does not mean "homeless street person" as one might think, probably, but rather "permanent tour gypsy who couch surfs."
> TD, 47, and JC, 49, of Batavia, Illinois, were charged with second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance for allegedly being in possession of multiple Diazepam pills.
Dunno. CDS2 should be quite a few Valium if the laws are sane but as observed with LSD, they aren't always. People do sell "pharmies" on lot. But often it is often kind of junkie type younger people. On the other hand, those people grow up. Also, could be that they just had a bunch and were unfortunate to come into contact with police. There isn't mention of selling, though by reading this I'm guessing NJ lacks a "possession with intent" charge that many states have, because otherwise it would've been used in the cases mentioned above. Degrees of CDS charges are usually by amount, PWI charges either by amount or by "indicia of dealing" (scales, etc.) where applicable but aren't applicable either. Alternatively, the way the statute is written could just be retarded, and any amount could trigger a heavy charge.
> JM, 41 of Pompton Plains, New Jersey, and MB, 39, of Livingston, New Jersey, were both charged with second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance for allegedly being in possession of psilocybin mushrooms.
Again 2nd deg CDS would again indicate possession of a considerable amount. These dudes were drug dealers but were caught with their stash and not actively soliciting for sale. Very likely the shroom guys were local Deadheads and quite possibly culturers. I ran into a lot of people who did that. Alternatively they could be just buying and re-selling. This is a profitable endeavour. Boomer (not a generation, the hippie term for shrooms) culturing is growing money on rice cakes (heh), and even reselling them is a decent hustle. $200 is fairly expensive for an oz but you can sell it in eights to turn a profit of 50-100%, easy. Once more all these prices are not contemporary and have possibly been subject to inflation. I'm not going to speculate on what acid costs these days because it would probably just upset me. As an interesting aside, if you are charging polite prices for LSD your profit margins are actually possibly about the same or less unless you invest more money, and your criminal risks are much greater as we observe with our friend above. There is an urban myth though that the criminal penalties for mushrooms are equal to the criminal penalties for weed (actually, this was an urban myth when there used to be much more serious criminal penalties for weed, so I don't know if people still say this) but as you see here this is definitely not true.
A note added later: if it matters I don't even do drugs anymore. I got off Suboxone after quite an extended run, and I go to AA. If I'm being honest I've smoked weed since and enjoyed it but not as a lifestyle although I'm sure if I did it with any regularity I would go back to it like the dog to it's vomit. Drugs are fucking terrible and drug culture is mostly cancer, but it's fucking fascinating and talking about it makes me feel like Bradley Manning to the patchwork-pants army.
