What is LSD? It once made Steve Jobs addicted

Lysergic acid diethylamide, also known as "lysergic acid diethylamide", is often referred to as "LSD". Because it is only the size of a stamp, it is referred to as "stamp". It is a strong semi-artificial hallucinogen. A typical dose of LSD is only 100 micrograms, which is only one-tenth the weight of a grain of sand. At present, LSD is generally regarded as a very harmful drug in countries around the world and is strictly prohibited.

A police officer from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau's cybersecurity system once told reporters that the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau cracked down on LSD drug cases as early as 2016. This type of LSD is very popular among "ecstasy lovers" and can be seen as a new type of ecstasy, not a new product. He believes that from the perspective of frontline drug enforcement, compared to drugs hidden in melon seeds, chewing gum, and peanuts, this type of LSD is relatively easy to seize.

Chat with yourself

In recent years, with the improvement of drug manufacturing technology, new drugs such as "red ice", "Arabic tea" and "bath salts" have emerged one after another. They are replacing traditional drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine, and LSD is one of them.

Yu Jian, an associate researcher at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told reporters that LSD is a semi-synthetic product. One of its raw materials is lysergic acid, which can be extracted from the natural crop ergot. After mixing with diacetylamine, LSD is synthesized. According to relevant laws and regulations of my country, lysergic acid is also a controlled chemical.

LSD is considered to be the most amazing and powerful psychedelic drug in contemporary times. Its toxicity is three times that of ordinary "ecstasy". A typical dose is only 100 micrograms (1 gram = 1000 milligrams = 1,000,000 micrograms), but this is enough to make people feel "body floating and soul wandering", and this "self-high" state can be maintained for about half a day.

Therefore, LSD can be processed and attached to ink paper, sugar cubes, gelatin, and stamps. When using it, you only need to put it in your mouth. Of course, it can also be taken through food or drinks, and it can even "infect" the human body through the skin. And because of its colorless and odorless characteristics, LSD is also very camouflaged. For example, when the Hangzhou police first seized LSD, they were faced with suspicious drugs and could not determine the specific ingredients, so they had to send it to a professional institution for testing.

▲Comparison between the brain injected with a placebo (above) and the brain injected with LSD (below); after taking LSD, under the effect of LSD, the brain's systems for processing vision, attention, movement, and hearing begin to connect closely, resulting in many hallucinations

However, what is intriguing is that unlike the so-called happiness brought by taking drugs, LSD brings more uncertainty: an Australian man thought he could fly after taking it and jumped off a building; some users said that after taking it, they could chat with themselves and play games without feeling bored at all; someone left a message online saying, "I saw the devil after taking it. I still remember the shadow. It's been half a year. It's really terrible."

In this regard, Zhang Rong, a member of the Industrial Toxicology Committee of the Chinese Society of Toxicology and a professor of toxicology at the School of Public Health of Hebei Medical University, believes that after taking LSD, under the effect of LSD, the brain's systems for processing vision, attention, movement and hearing begin to connect closely. It is normal for different people to have different physical conditions and to have different hallucinations, and it is impossible to unify the dosage.

The person who tied the bell must untie it

In the movie "Forrest Gump", the heroine converted to hippies for a while and swallowed sugar cubes on the way. Today, it seems that the main ingredient in the sugar cubes is LSD. For Americans, LSD directly influenced the hippie culture. Even Apple founder Steve Jobs was addicted to LSD and produced the "great meditation" because of LSD.

▲Speaking of LSD, it was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you the other side of the coin, and when it wears off you can't remember it, but you know there's another side. It reinforces my sense of importance - to create great things, not for the sake of making money, and to do my best to bring things back to the trend of history and human consciousness.

——Quoted from "Steve Jobs"

In fact, the boundary between drugs and medicines has never been very clear. Zhang Rong said that many drugs are actually medicines used by doctors for treatment. For example, morphine and pethidine, which are familiar to the public, and heroin, the "king of drugs" now wanted by the world, were actually stored in boxes in the warehouse of Bayer Pharmaceuticals in Germany when they were first invented. Women even used tampons containing heroin. "But the core of the problem lies in the dosage and purification, which is also an important reason why drugs and medicines began to separate."

▲LSD gave birth to the American hippie culture. The sugar cube on the tongue in the picture contains LSD, which is why it is abused and listed as a drug in most countries.

In 1935, Swiss biochemists extracted lysergic acid from ergot fungi and mixed it with another substance, diacetylamine, to obtain LSD. Until 1943, people did not understand its exact effect. In the following decades, scientists mainly used it to treat mental illnesses. It was also used by the CIA as a "control agent" for interrogating prisoners, but was eventually forced to abandon it because of its exaggerated effect. It was not until the 1960s that LSD was finally banned by the US authorities as a "psychedelic drug" after it gave birth to the hippie movement of hippies, but this gave rise to the underground market of LSD.

Taking China as an example, the reporter learned that from several LSD drug cases cracked by the domestic police, since this drug is easy to store, easy to carry and difficult to detect, and has a high production cost, dealers often use the Internet, or even the dark web, for cross-border marketing. For example, in the LSD drug trafficking case cracked in Beijing, drug dealers Yun and Zhang bought these drugs from Europe through foreigners, and then sold them in China through Weibo and other means; in the LSD drug trafficking case cracked in Jiangmen, Guangdong, the buyers even paid with Bitcoin through the dark web to transport drugs from abroad.

Of course, LSD is not completely useless. Researchers have found that due to its huge impact on the brain area, it is likely to change the brain's thinking mode under the influence of depression and addiction, which provides a good inspiration for the treatment of depression and addiction. As for depression, there is currently no definite and effective treatment drug.

As the saying goes, "The person who tied the bell must untie it." For LSD, which originated as a medicine, in the future, perhaps returning to its original medicinal effect will be its real contribution to human society.