================================================================= This file is a part of the 1999 Hyperreal Drug Archives Snapshot. This snapshot is hosted by Erowid and will not be updated after October 1999. The information in these files may be out of date. See Erowid's Psychoactive Vaults for more current info. ================================================================= Name Post Kaff posted 05-16-98 07:36 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- It just occurred to me that noone ever mentions acid. I have Fester's book Practical LSD Manufacture but that's about as practical as buying a wheat farm just to make acid. Yeah right Hawaiin Baby woodrose seeds and morning glory seeds have some lysergic acid, but why aren't there any new methods? drone 342 posted 05-16-98 07:50 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- I agree, Fester's LSD book was a major disappointment -- yet one more reason to loath the guy. There is an advancement, one which Fester didn't include, which is the use of POCl3 as a dehydrating reagent in the condensation of lysergic acid with diethylamine. Check out Rhodium's page, as well as hyperreal for more info on this new developement. The wierdest part about it is that it was developed by our friends over at the Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland during the mid-seventies -- the good people who lead the world in cutting-edge chemical warfare technology and supply the intelligence community with all the wierd shit they use. These are the same folks who stockpiled QNB in multi-kilo quantities right into the eighties, as well as the freaky things they don't tell anyone about. Some day, I want a tour of that place. Anyways, the important thing to keep in mind, which really shows yet again how much Fester talks out of his ass, is that all the seeds, fungi, and other biomass is NOT the way to allocate your lysergic compounds for this reaction. Anybody who makes it on a big scale is using most liekely ergot alkaloids from a commercial source -- foreign pharmacy companies, etc. Its not that hard to get your hands on an ounce or two of ergotamine or ergonovine if you put your noggin to it. Hell, even bromocryptine will work (remove the bromine by maing the grignard out of it, then hydrolyzing it. As long as its done gently, no funky additions, olgermizations or whatever, will happen.) I've been waiting for someone to bring this subject up. Ask and you shall recieve. -drone #342 KrZ posted 05-17-98 03:28 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Whats wrong with Hawaiin Baby Woodrose? When your making something where 1 dose=50 micrograms a pound of HWBR goes a long ways... Does fester talk about culturing as a source in an incubator? Fan of posted 05-17-98 03:24 PM CT (US) Shulgin ---------------------------------------------------------- IMHO culturing the ergot fungus in the best method by far for producing LSD. Even someone with absolutely no knowledge of microbiology can culture ergot. And as to obtaining the fungus, it can be found in most large fields of rye. This is no joke, wait just until harvest time and go out and have a look for the 'heads'. The beauty of growing the Claviceps is that you can keep it alive for ever if you are careful, and thus have an almost never ending supply of raw material. It is worth noting, that this is the method that most illegal acid labs operate (look up operation Julie in the UK!). Even producing acid on a small scale requires you to prepare shit loads of the precursors, because even working under red light at low temperatures and low humidity does not have that great an effect on keeping yields high (a 20% yield in LSD manufacture is considered a great success). Remember LSD is inherantly unstable! Anyway - LSD synthesis, Claviceps cultivation etc are one of the most talked about drug manufacturing methods on the net. Have a good long search around! Peace, Love and empathy Fan of Shulgin drone 342 posted 05-17-98 11:15 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- I'm telling you guys, mushroom cultivation IS NOT where its at! As far as I can tell, this is not as common of a procedure as people believe. Why? Ever look at the amount of solvents entailed in extracting the stuff? This is a way too involved process that uses far too many resources. MAYBE there's some lab that does this, but it's just not practical. Besides, this bioproduction entails the chemist mastering a whole bunch more skills than the tricky ones already required. I stand by my procedure as THE ONE TRUE WAY(tm), or at least the best of the one true ways. Think about it: Bromocryptine into bromolysergic acid. Bromolysergic acid into bromolysergic acid diethylamide. Bromolsyergic acid diethylamide into its respective grignard reagent. Grignard reagent decomposition into LSD. Add a dash of tartaric acid, and chromatograph it. All pretty simple procedures -- relatively speaking. Bromocryptine is easy to get in reasonable quantities. Other ergot alkaloids are also available, and would alow the chemist to skip a debromination step or two as well. While some believe that LSD is only worthwhile on a mega-huge scale of ounces at a time, I contend that using the sources I suggest, that a gram-size batch would still be a very attractive endevor. HBWR seeds might be a decent way to go, I agree, but I prefer pill extracting any day. Considering also the price and notriousness of this as a source, other sources should be investigated more thotoughly. How much does a kilo of seeds go for nowadays? Still, here's another source. Grain companies have a lot of fancy-shmancy equiptment I've been told, soley to remove claviceps from our food supply. This means that every harvest season, your local grain elevator has got pounds of ergot-ladden grain that they normally throw away. This I heard from a friend of mine who worked in a grain elevator -- lost contact with him since my chemical skills were upgraded. This is worth some investigating. Anyways, I agree that far too little research is being done into these matters, and I'd like to see more discussion of the chemistry of Hoffmann's baby. The chemistry IS above kitchen production conditions, but not out of reach for the semi-elite of The Hive's Chemical Guard. By eliminating the riduculous, over-complicated bullshit procedures out there, and replacing them with simpler, more practical means, the small circle of people willing-and-able to perform this most sacred of chemistry is widended considerably. May The Force be with you all, -drone #342 KrZ posted 05-18-98 12:40 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Drone, c'mon, we are not talking about mushrooms here, wake up son... Mushrooms growing right on top of rye plants, that would look prety silly.. All you need is a sample, some .2% agar plates and some sterile technique, not exactly skill-requiring stuff.. (don't mind the teasing D ;-) drone 342 posted 05-18-98 09:22 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- KrZ said: Drone, c'mon, we are not talking about mushrooms here, wake up son... Mushrooms growing right on top of rye plants, that would look prety silly.. All you need is a sample, some .2% agar plates and some sterile technique, not exactly skill-requiring stuff.. KrZ: Sorry, I suffer from a mild case of irony deficiency, and so its hard for me to tell when folks are pulling my leg. I wholeheartedly aprove of and endorse mushroom cultivation -- provided it is of my favorite basidiomycetes genus that starts with the letter "p". However, I think you'll discover claviceps is harder than you think. Ever try to get a pure culture of that stuff? If you go through any of the research collections or biotech companies, you're going to have to fill out more paperwork than you'd believe -- not because its laden with ergot goodness, but because its considered a agriculturally harmful organism. It's about as involved as filling out forms for the purchasing of an encapsulating machine. If you choose to isolate your own strain frm the field, good luck. You got a 2-month or so window of time to collect it, and then comes the isolation process. Then once you have pure claviceps, you're going to have to isolate a decent-producing heterokaryote from your collection, which you may or may not have. Once you manage THAT, then comes the perti dish phase, followed by the initial submerged culture for producing seed stock, then finally the large-scale submerged culture to yield a a sludge of filaments you gotta strain out, dry, then extract. Yuck. There are a lot of professional folks out there who's entire days, nay, entire *careers* relovle around ergot production. I rather rely on the fruits of their labor and save all the schmassle that this project would otherwise entail. Think about it. I honestly feel the main detractor from more people producing LSD is this ergot culturing myth. Yeah, everyone says "Boy, I sure wish I could make some good acid. All I gotta do is get a chemistry degree under my belt, get a good lab space, and on top of that, raise a culture of some fucked-up saprophytic fungus that'll give me gangreen in the process." This is obviously daunting. If you disagree and say its not too much of a bother, then why aren't more people kicking out kilos of "L"? What I'm proposing is that this fungus cultivation idea is more of a detriment to acid production than an advantage. Just extract the shit from pills, or go to the third world where the stuff is cheap, and you can buy it in its straight uncut powder form for pharmaceutical outlets (there are several countries where you can do this when you know a good pharmacist and have the cake to do some bribing; believe me, I've looked.) As simple as ergot cultivation sounds, there's plenty of reasons its not done commonly. -drone #342 drone 342 posted 05-18-98 09:25 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Oh yeah, and I almost forgot. With bromocriptine, you can do that grignard degredation process as your first couple steps; this wil cut down on the amounts of POCl3 and Et2N required in the amidation and save you precious resources. Grignards don't readily add to amides, so you can take advantage of that. -drone #342 drone 342 posted 05-20-98 09:24 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Okay, so of available precursors for acid, we got: *HBWR *Ipomoea sp. *Claviceps sp. *Ergot alkaloid pills (ergotamine, ergonovine, etc.) *bromocriptine *a few other misc. plants Seems to me the chemistry and methodology is pretty cut-and-dry -- the main problem is precursor aquisition. So what other exciting sources might be out there for the ergoloid ring? -drone #342 Commodium posted 05-20-98 11:56 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- For what it's worth, cheapest I've seen for HBWR on the 'Net is this place . . . Blue Ridge Garden P.O. Box 52 Mint Spring, VA 24463 no catalogue, free shipping $180/lb. ($396/key) drone 342 posted 05-20-98 12:25 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Y'know, it's been years since I looked at HBWR seeds, and I can't remember for the life of me a good reference source describing the alkaloid concentraion in these buggers. Yes, there are FAQ's, but what I want is a good, academic journal article listing the juicy details. There's a good list at paranoia describing a number of sources for these seeds -- there's a Hawaiian place selling them for $80/8 oz. So, considering the nightmarish pile of ref's I've listed lately for the Hive, I'm gonna let someone else this time get the goods. I just KNOW someone out there has a ref like the one I'm looking for hanging on their refridgerator door. -drone #342 drone 342 posted 05-20-98 01:30 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Actually, I just stumbled across the articles I was looking for: J of the AOAC vol 53:1 123-127 (1970) J. Pharm. Sci. 62:4 588-591 (1973) -drone #342 Commodium posted 05-20-98 02:17 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, looks like (according to that Journal of the AOAC article) Hawaiian Baby Wood Rose is 0.04 to 0.30 % LSA, by weight. drone 342 posted 05-20-98 06:56 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Incidentally, I looked into the possible utilization of sleepy grass, butit looked like it was full of all sorts of other alkaloid garbage aside from lisergic acid and its amides. Chanoclavines, Pyridines, etc. This might be a good source if anybody knows a good way of separating the wheat from the chaff in this case. What else besides HPLC will do the trick? (I have an HPLC machine for my amusement, but I can only do tiny volumes; besides, half the point of this research is figuring out ways of doing this kind of stuff successfully garage-style rather than just in the lab.) Also, does anybody else harbor the same loathing for Fester and his piece-o-shit-excuse-for-an-acid-book as I do? I mean, he completely missed the POCl3 method, and left "method X" a mystery (even though its probobly just as full of shit as the rest of the book.) In addition, he mistakenly thought propionic anhydride had something to do with acid chemistry, and then didn't even give a particularily meaningful synthesis for it. All his methods looked like rehashes of patents from the earlier part of this century (available in half a dozen other publications already,) and the only lysergic acid source he offers is buying a goddam wheat farm and raising a crop of moldy rye grain! Even his claviceps raising would take over a year to accomplish! So, his book only would be practical for a farmer with a couple years on his hands, a few 55-gallon barrels of tech-grade solvents, a lab full of large-scale equiptment for advanced organic chemical procedures, and some rather extensive training in organic chemistry. If a person had all those resources available to them at the same time, they'd be an idiot if they couldn't find a better way of going about things than that. -drone #342 buzzz posted 05-20-98 07:56 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- i have'nt looked over it a great deal but, the book PSYCHEDELIC CHEMISTRY by michael valentine smith gives detailed info on lysergic acid and extractions for ergot extraction from HBWS and states that the seeds yield 7mg alkaloids/100 g of seeds and that thru the usual steps to reach the end point of lsd that you get roughly 1g LSD / kg of seed .the book can be ordered from loompanics drone 342 posted 05-20-98 08:41 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Got a copy of that one already; what library would be complete without MVS's book? Nothing too earth-shattering, but still I like it; there's an aura of honesty to it that you don't see in many other underground drug books. MVS is sure no formally-trained chemist, but at least he knew how to operate a copying machine and give credit where it was due. Your numbers don't add up. (7mgergot/100gHBWR)X(1000g/1kg) does not equal even 1g of ergot, but I get the general gist of it. I'll give it a look-see. Thanks for the tip. Considering that a kilo can be boughten for around $300-$400 dollars, it looks like it would almost be a good investment (I prefer the chemistry of drugs where the profit margin is closer to 95-99% rather a mere 75-80%, but hey, its acid.) -drone #342 KrZ posted 05-21-98 02:26 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- LSD Manufacture Illegal LSD Production LSD has been manufactured illegally since the 1960?s. A limited number of chemists, probably less than a dozen, are believed to be manufacturing nearly all of the LSD available in the United States. Some of these manufacturers probably have been operating since the 1960's. LSD manufacturers and traffickers can be separated into two groups. The first, located in northern California, is composed of chemists (commonly referred to as 'cooks') and traffickers who work together in close association; typically, they are major producers capable of distributing LSD nationwide. The second group is made up of independent producers who, operating on a comparatively limited scale, can be found throughout the country. As a group, independent producers pose much less of a threat than the northern California group inasmuch as their production is intended for local consumption only. Drug law enforcement officials have surmised that LSD chemists and top echelon traffickers form an insider's fraternity of sorts. They successfully have remained at large because there are so few of them. Their exclusivity is not surprising given that LSD synthesis is a difficult process to master. Although cooks need not be formally trained chemists, they must adhere to precise and complex production procedures. In instances where the cook is not a chemist, the production recipe most likely was passed on by personal instruction from a formally trained chemist. Further supporting the premise that most LSD manufacture is the work of a small fraternity of chemists, virtually all the LSD seized during the 1980's was of consistently high purity and sold in relatively uniform dosages of 20 to 80 micrograms. LSD commonly is produced from lysergic acid, which is made from ergotamine tartrate, a substance derived from an ergot fungus on rye, or from lysergic acid amide, a chemical found in morning glory seeds. Although theoretically possible, manufacture of LSD from morning glory seeds is not economically feasible and these seeds never have been found to be a successful starting material for LSD production. Lysergic acid and lysergic acid amide are both classified in Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. Ergotamine tartrate is regulated under the Chemical Diversion and Trafficking Act. Ergotamine tartrate is not readily available in the United States, and its purchase by other than established pharmaceutical firms is suspect. Therefore, ergotamine tartrate used in clandestine LSD laboratories is believed to be acquired from sources located abroad, most likely Europe, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Africa.11 The difficulty in acquiring ergotamine tartrate may limit the number of independent LSD manufacturers. By contrast, illicit manufacture of methamphetamine and phencyclidine is comparatively more prevelant in the United States because, in part, precursor chemicals can be procured easily. Only a small amount of ergotamine tartrate is required to produce LSD in large batches. For example, 25 kilograms of ergotamine tartrate can produce 5 or 6 kilograms of pure LSD crystal that, under ideal circumstances, could be processed into 100 million dosage units, more than enough to meet what is believed to be the entire annual U.S. demand for the hallucinogen. LSD manufacturers need only import a small quantity of the substance and, thus, enjoy the advantages of ease of concealment and transport not available to traffickers of other illegal drugs, primarily marijuana and cocaine. Cooking LSD is time consuming; it takes from 2 to 3 days to produce 1 to 4 ounces of crystal. Consequently, it is believed that LSD usually is not produced in large quantities, but rather in a series of small batches. Production of LSD in small batches also minimizes the loss of precursor chemicals should they become contaminated during the synthesis process. LSD crystal produced clandestinely can be as much as 95- to 100-percent pure. At this purity-and assuming optimum conditions during dilution and application to paper-1 gram of crystal could produce 20,000 dosage units of LSD. However, analysis of LSD crystal seized in California over the past 3 years revealed an average purity of only 62 percent. Moreover, LSD degrades quickly when exposed to heat, light, and air and is most susceptible to degradation during the application process and once it is in paper form. As a result, under less than optimal, real-life conditions, actual yields are significantly below the theoretically possible yield: 1 gram of LSD crystal genarally yields 10,000 dosage units of LSD, or approximately 10 million dosage units per kilogram. Over the past 30 years, the traditional dilution factor for manufacturing LSD has been 10,000 doses per 1 gram of crystal. Therefore, dosage units yielded from high-purity (95- to 100-percent pure) LSD crystal would contain 100 micrograms. However, dosages currently seen contain closer to 50 micrograms. This discrepancy stems in part from production impurities: during the sythesis process, manufacturers generally fail to perform a final 'clean-up' step to remove by-products, thereby lowering the crystal's purity. Further, though average purity of tested LSD crystal samples is, as noted, 62 percent, the average potency of doses analyzed is approximately 50 micrograms rather than 62 micrograms, as would be expected. The diminished potency can be attributed to distributors who, when applying the crystal to paper, often 'cheat' by diluting 1 gram of crystal to produce up to 15,000 or more dosage units. Pure, high-potency LSD is a clear or white, odorless crystalline material that is soluble in water. It is mixed with binding agents, such as spray-dried skim milk, for producing tablets or is dissolved and diluted in a solvent for application onto paper or other materials. Variations in the manufacturing process or the presence of precursors or by-products can cause LSD to range in color from clear or white, in its purest form, to tan or even black, indicating poor quality or degradation. To mask product difficiencies, distributors often apply LSD to off-white, tan, or yellow paper to disguise discoloration. At the highest levels of the traffic, where LSD crystal is purchased in gram or multigram quantities from wholesale sources of supply, it rarely is diluted with adulterants, a common practice with cocaine, heroin, and other illicit drugs. However, to prepare the crystal for production in retail dosage units, it must be diluted with binding agents or dissolved and diluted in liquids. The dilution of LSD crystal typically follows a standard, predetermined recipe to ensure uniformity of the final product. Excessive dilution yields less potent dosage units that soon become unmarketable. LSD crystal usually is converted into tablet form ('microdots' that are 3/32 inch or smaller in diameter), thin squares of gelatin ('window panes'), or applied to sheets of prepared paper (blotter paper-initially used as a medium-has been replaced by a variety of paper types). LSD most frequently is encountered in paper form, still commonly referred to as blotter paper or blotter acid. It consists of sheets of paper soaked in or otherwise impregnated with LSD. Often these sheets are covered with colorful designs or artwork and are usually perforated into one-quarter inch square, individual dosage units. KrZ posted 05-21-98 02:48 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Michael Valentine Smith: Psychedelic Chemistry From pages 105-107: The Culture and Extraction of Ergot Alkaloids Make up a culture medium by combining the following ingredients in about 500 milliliters of distilled water in a 2 liter, small-neck flask: Sucrose .................................... 100 grams Chick pea meal .............................. 50 grams Calcium nitrate .............................. 1 gram Monopotassium phosphate ...................... 0.25 grams Magnesium sulphate ........................... 0.25 grams Potassium chloride ........................... 0.125 grams Ferrous sulphate heptahydrate ................ 8.34 milligrams Zinc sulphate heptahydrate ................... 3.44 milligrams Add water to make up one liter, adjust pH 4 with ammonia solution and citric acid. Sterile by autoclaving. Inoculate the sterilized medium with Claviceps purpurea under sterile conditions, stopper with sterilized cotton and incubate for two weeks periodically testing and maintaining pH 4. After two weeks a surface culture will be seen on the medium. Large-scale production of the fungus can now begin. Obtain several ordinary 1 gallon jugs. Place a two-hole stopper in the necks of the jugs. Fit a short (6 inch) glass tube in one hole, leaving 2 inches above the stopper. Fit a short rubber tube to this. Fill a small (500 milliliter) Erlenmeyer flask with a dilute solution of sodium hypochlorite, and extend a glass tube from the rubber tube so the end is immersed in the hypochlorite. Fit a long, glass tube in the other stopper hole. It must reach near the bottom of the jug and have about two inches showing above the stopper. Attach a rubber tube to the glass tube as short or as long as desired, and fit a short glass tube to the end of the rubber tube. Fill a large, glass tube (1 inch x 6 inches) with sterile cotton and fit 1-hole stoppers in the ends. Fit the small, glass tube in end of the rubber tube into 1 stopper of the large tube. Fit another small glass tube in the other stopper. A rubber tube is connected to this and attached to a small air pump obtained from a tropical fish supply store. You now have a set-up for pumping air from the pump, through the cotton filter, down the long glass tube in the jug, through the solution to the air space in the top of the jug, through the short glass tube, down to the bottom of the Erlenmeyer flask and up through the sodium hypochlorite solution into the atmosphere. With this aeration equipment you can assure a supply of clean air to the Claviceps purpurea fungus while maintaining a sterile atmosphere inside the solution. Dismantle the aerators. Place all the glass tubes, rubber tubes, stoppers and cotton in a paper bag, seal tight with wire staples and sterilize in an autoclave. Fill the 1-gallon jugs 2/3 to 3/4 full with the culture medium and autoclave. While these things are being sterilized, homogenize in a blender the culture already obtained and use it to inoculate the media in the gallon jugs. The blender must be sterile. Everything must be sterile. Assemble the aerators. Start the pumps. A slow bubbling in each jug will provide enough oxygen to the cultures. A single pump can, of course, be connected to several filters. Let everything sit a room temperature (25 C) in a fairly dark place (never expose ergot alkaloids to bright light - they decompose) for a period of ten days. After ten days adjust the culture to 1% ethanol using 95% ethanol under sterile conditions. Maintain growth for another two weeks. After total of 24 days growth period the culture should be considered mature. Make the culture acidic with tartaric acid and homogenize in a blender for one hour. Adjust to pH 9 with ammonium hydroxide and extract with benzene or chloroform/iso-butanol mixture. Extract again with alcoholic tartaric acid and evaporate in a vacuum to dryness. The dry material in the salt (i.e., the tartaric acid salt, the tartrate) of the ergot alkaloids, and is stored in this form because the free basic material is too unstable and decomposes readily in the presence of light, heat, moisture and air. To recover the free base for extraction of the amide of synthesis to LSD, make the tartrate basic with ammonia to pH 9, extract with chloroform and evaporate in vacuo. If no source of pure Claviceps purpurea fungus can be found, it may be necessary to make a field trip to obtain the ergot growths from rye or other cereal grasses. Rye grass is by far the best choice. The ergot will appear as a blackish growth on the tops of the rye where the seeds are and are referred to as "heads of ergot." From these heads of ergot sprout the Claviceps purpurea fungi. They have long steams with bulbous heads when seen under a strong glass or microscope. It is these that must be removed from the ergot, free from contamination, and used to inoculate the culture media. The need for absolute sterility cannot be overstressed. Consult any elementary text on bacteriology for the correct equipment and procedures. Avoid prolonged contact with ergot compounds, as they are poisonous and can be fatal. ---------------- The whole part with the pump is unecessary, you can get micropore 1-gallon jugs from www.fungi.com, and alot of the gear you would need, obtaining a pure strain sounds like the tricky part, culturing and selection of pure-looking samples a couple times should do it.. LSD must be synthesized, it's such a beautiful molecule... Piglet posted 05-21-98 12:30 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Fan of Shulgin: I checked out the 'Operation Julie' book and it says that the Ergot compounds were ALL bought. Initially by simply driving to Switzerland and paying cash (those were the days!) and later using fake companies and from underground sources (Brotherhood of Eternal Love with Leary et all). I have never read of any large LSD manufacturers making there own. It is quite a skill & is quite dangerous (ergot IS classed as a poison, do you like your extremeties? Do you want them to go black and drop off? Don't try growing ergot without knowing the safety rules) Someone I know was in prison with Kemp (the Julie main-man) and Kemp is a 1 in a million brainiac. Ergot compounds appear in certain prescription migraine medications (all made by Sandoz, fancy that!) The book 'Operation Julie' has a few pictures of the chemistry setup. It was pretty involved stuff. One small hilight was a brown bottle featured slap-bang in the middle of one picture. It said 'NaNO2'. Fester says that this 'might' be a replacement for acetyl-acetone. It is. THAT was the Method-X bit. It's not even a secret. drone 342 posted 05-21-98 04:54 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Here's a thought: What about using DCC as your dehydrating reagent for forming an amide bond? High yields and low temps means better product in larger quantities. Ref Encyclopedia for Organic Synthesis, Paquett,L.A., Ed; Wiley, 1995; vol. 3, p. 1731 also check your Merck (of course) Much of the fancy-schmancy technology devoted to peptide synthesis is equally applicable in this situation as well. There's a ton of ways to go from an acid to an amide, and its good to have as many as possible in one's repetoire. in a synthetic mood, -drone #342 drone 342 posted 05-21-98 05:31 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- oh yeah, DCC is "DiCyclohexylCarbodiimide". Structure: (C6H12)-N=C=N-(C6H12) Th reaction converts this to dicyclohexylurea. -drone #342 KrZ posted 05-22-98 12:47 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- JLF sells pure claviceps purpea 1 gm for 10.00. drone 342 posted 05-22-98 09:50 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Re: Claviceps. That doesn't sound like too good of a deal. Do they have better prices when you buy in bulk? Even at half the price, that really isn't too good a deal. Considering the tiny percentage of ergot alkaloids in a gram, then considering how much less you have after hydrolyzing off those useless peptides, and how much less you have still after the dehydration of the acid with ethylamine, ten dollars is way more than street prices. This isn't even counting in labor as a cost (most chemists I know like to get paid.) -drone #342 josh posted 05-22-98 02:07 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Hey drone,would you post a synth. for lsd using bromocryptine.This synthesis that you have briefly described is very interesting.This bee would greatly appreciate it. Ritter posted 05-22-98 08:40 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Drone, I'm no expert on Grignards, however do you really feel you could get the -Br to react w/ Mg to make the Grignard? My experience has been that its pretty freakin' difficult to make tender complicated multi-cyclic molecules such as bromocryptine undergo Grignard formation. I only skimmed your comments above and may be reiterating what you stated but I think the best way to go about this would be to hydrolyze off the peptide garbage leaving bromo lysergic acid and then subject this to Grignard's reaction. I think the appropriate time to form the amide is after the Grignard because a carboxyl group will probably be less reactive than an amide group towards the Grignard. Fan of posted 05-23-98 06:14 AM CT (US) Shulgin ---------------------------------------------------------- Sure, you may only get a small amount for $10 - but it is a living organism, and it reproduces quickly! Just drop some onto an agar plate, come back the next day and see what I mean! You only need a small amount to get started, the amount you finally grow is limited only by the space you can set aside for the cultures to grow! quirks posted 05-23-98 08:29 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- fyi - your local country vet will have a couple of boxes of egrotvine (or whatever it is that's used for birthing), amounting to a couple of grams. KrZ posted 05-24-98 01:36 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Like F.O.S. said it comes as a living sample on a dish, then you could use that procedure for culturing... drone 342 posted 05-24-98 01:06 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Ritter, Yes, Grignard will work wonders in this case, and no, it actually is easy to get it to do it. All that multicyclic studd simply doesn't appeal to the grignard substituent -- its looking for an electron-deficient site labile and with nowhere to run to. Amides are surpisingly sturdy to these condsitions, and will not readily react at all. As far as I see it, that would really be the only concern (regarding the carbonyls found therin.)The reason for this is that the nitrogen is electron donating, whereas in any other carbonyl, it doesn't have this luxury, and will react readliy with a Grignard. Conditions are a snap, just a nice dry ether soultion or Benzene solution (with light being thoroughly eliminatined from the envronment around the flask) of the free base of your ergot caompound in question will do. If you're still worried about that reaction affecting the peptide, just save it for the last step -- make bromo-LSD, then do it. I guaruntee that the amide will be safe. Quirks, Thank you. This is the useful type of information we need buckets of if we want to end the war on drugs (my strategy: an all-out assault; a psychedelic blitzkrieg. Hey, now that's a catchy phrase!) -drone #342 drone 342 posted 05-24-98 02:55 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Fan of Shulgin, Where can you get a living 1-gram clean specimen of claviceps purpurea? Are you sure its alive? How do you know this works, or is this strictly speculation? Josh, Tell you what; I'll give the ref's, and anybody with the resources to actually perform this should also have plenty of access to the library. Actually, all you need is a copy of a decent lab manual describing the synthesis of grignard reagents, and follow the general guidelines for producing a Grignard intermediate. Then, add water. You now have ergocriptine. Hydrolyze it and condense with diethylamine according to the proceedures listed in TiHKAL. Alternatively, one could use DCC. From the Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis: Typically, DCC (1.1 equiv) is added to a concentrated solution (0.1-1.0M) of the carboxylic acid (1.0 equiv), amine (1.0 equiv), and catalyst (when used) in methylene chloride or acetonitrile at 0 deg C. The hydrated DCC adduct, dicyclohexylurea (DCU), quickly precipitates and the reaction is generally complete within 1 h at rt..." Downsides: THF and DMF screw things up by slowing things down and ecouraging the production of side-products, as well as racemizing the carboxylic acid. The other downside is in some solvents, a trace of DCU can disolve in with your product, requiring purification (nothing flash chromatography wouldn't take care of quite easily, which you have to do anyways if you want to be a good person.) further refs: JACS 1955, 77, 1067 Chem & Ind (London) 1955, 1087 Badanszky, M. Peptide Chemistry: A Practical Textbook; Springer: NY, 1988 JOC 1971, 36,1909 -drone #342 Piglet posted 05-26-98 09:59 AM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Fan Of Shulgin: When I typed about the dangers of ergot, I meant to to guy producing it. The actual amount of ergot needed to produce 'St. Antonys Fire' immediately seem quite low. It was estimated from the last outbreaks (after WW2 when people were starving and would eat ANYTHING including infested rye) that about 30mg causes SEVERE reactions. I know you would never ingest such amounts of ANY substence in a lab, but growing your own ergot is not a lab technique. I did check out that old chestnut about growing in culture. Most of the researchers had little success. I think it CAN be produced in culture, but only by someone who REALLY knows there stuff. Sandoz grow rye to this day! drone 342 posted 06-10-98 09:29 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Piglet, where did you get this information about Sandoz? As far as I know, Claviceps is one of those organisms that researchers have spent a lot of time, money, and energy in getting it to grow in submerged culture on a large scale -- and have come up with a successful means of doing so. I've heard some similar things in publications from times past, but I suspect that in modern industry, the transition has been made. -drone #342 Cherrie posted 06-11-98 06:32 PM CT (US) Baby ---------------------------------------------------------- "Where can you get a living 1-gram clean specimen of claviceps purpurea?" During late summer have a look at the Rye grass in the local park. You'll notice a purple-brown "ear" growing on the rye seeds - this stuff is Claviceps purpurea. It grows in my back garden. If you have some experience with shrooms this is easy to grow. The big catch is that nearly all the LSA producing ergot has been from particular strains which you'll have to get from a lab that stocks pure cultures. I don't think wild ergot would work when making LSA's. I've been told that you can grow the ergot (easily) but it won't make LSA unless it's the right strain! Are there any biochemists out there who know the answer to this one way or another? Commodium posted 06-11-98 07:17 PM CT (US) ---------------------------------------------------------- Update...an even cheaper place for HBWR (LSA) is: Herben Shaman (via Lycaeum) 4 oz $42 8 oz $75 1 lb $135 1 kg $225