msellers@mntgfx.UUCP (02/10/88)
In article <19665@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: > > >But seriously, folks, is there any real evidence for this? For that > >matter, LSD is a pretty big molecule... can it really be absorbed > >through the skin? Has anyone heard about it other than some NJ police? > >-- > >Charlie Martin (crm@cs.duke.edu,mcnc!duke!crm) > > I am quite sure it can absorbed thru the skin if dissolved. A common > way to distribute LSD purchased in pure form is to dissolve it in an > appropriate amount of ethanol (vodka was common) and use an eyedropper > to create doses on some substrate [...] > > People I knew years ago who did this sort of work often reported that > no matter how careful they were (about avoiding touching themselves > anywhere once they got some on their hands, as was inevitable) they > ended up with a dose when performing this procedure. Wearing rubber > gloves solved it. I do suspect that it's a lousy method of > administration and these people were working with thousands of doses. > I doubt you could get much of a dose from just handling a few dry > doses, so as usual the reports are based in some truth and then go > wild with exagerration. > > -Barry Shein, Boston University First, I agree that the report originally circulated in these groups ("New Drug Alert") was a hysterical exaggeration, though it may once have had some seeds of truth in it. Now on to our story: The following is quoted from _The Biological Basis of Mental Activity_ by John Hubbard, 1975, p150, without permission: "LSD was discovered by a Swiss chemist, Albert Hofman, in 1943, while investigating substances analogous to mescaline, the active substance in the plant hallucinogen, peyote. He later wrote of the strange experience which led him to its discovery (Hofman, 1968, pp.184-186). It appears that one Friday afternoon, as well as experiencing a lack of conecentration which affects most of us at that time, he felt giddy and, more alarmling, noticed that the shape of his laboratory assistants kept changing. Naturally enough he went home to bed, but instead of sleep he experienced fantastic dreams of intense color. Like a good Swiss, however, he recovered in time for dinner. Next day he awoke feeling tired but otherwise normal. Returning to the laboratory, he looked at the substance he had been synthesizing and decided he must have absorbed through his skin a small amount of a substance entered in his lab book as "LSD-25", an abbreviation for lyserigic acid diethylmide, plus the date. He therefore took by mouth 0.25mg, which he supposed to be a minimally small dose. He did not know the substance was a thousand times stronger than mescaline (160 times stronger than marihuana, Isbell and Jasinski, 1969), and he had actually taken several times the maximum dose. Before long he felt extreme sensations of unease, felt he was two people (depersonalization), had a pronounced disruption of his time sense, and was beset by strange visions. He was driven home where a series of fantastic hallucinations beset him, with some nausea. He felt sure that he had gone out of his mind, and that he would never be able to report his discovery. To his suprise, however, he was his usual self the next day. "It is now known that the minimal effective dose in humans is about 20 micro-grams, that is, as small as 0.5micro-g/kg"... -- Mike Sellers ...!tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!msellers Mentor Graphics Corp., EPAD msellers@mntgfx.MENTOR.COM "Never confuse motion with action." -- Ben Franklin