Legal highs/Research Chemicals 2

Before the UK legislation of 2015 each drug or substance was treated separately using a questionable class system. Heroin, cocaine etc being class A, cannabis I believe was then class B and an incredibly dangerous drug, Valium was class C. And each substance had to be specified with the legal consequences for possession and supply. Yet for example with the benzodiazepine family, during their development, numerous other similar drugs were created and never put in to production. Consequently flourazepam, diclazepam and all the others that were chemically very close were in fact legal.

Further to these already synthesised compounds chemists were now making subtle chemical modifications to MDMA producing another family of chemicals that were targeted at and sold to those who enjoyed taking ecstasy. Another substance that found wide popularity, and the first to be banned was mephadrone. Here was a drug cheaper and given the poor quality cocaine at the time that became very popular. Once this became illegal chemists began changing molecules to create a whole plethora of cathenones of varying quality. This race between the law makers and the chemists created something of a race to the bottom as with the safer substances becoming unavailable, chemists created less tested and more dangerous stimulants. Another family of stimulants were the phenidates from the same family as Ritalin, methylphenidate. Ethylphenidate was legal and incredibly powerful yet highly corrosive. The rush from it intravenously trumped even meth amphetamine but burned the veins from the inside. Some lost limbs, some died. More concentrated even were the 4f methyl and ethylphenidates. Experimenters used to poor quality cocaine could trigger a heart attack with a similar sized line to that they may have chopped out on a weekend. These research chemicals were often of such high purity they were dangerous from that alone.

Fortunately for some researchers online forums sprung up where people could anonymously report and share advice. A surprising number had a good knowledge of chemistry and were able to advise on dose. Any sensible person would try small tests before taking it further. Online vendors would often offer samples of new products to trusted researchers who gave their reports back. These online communities tended to be intelligent people from academic backgrounds.

Another source of ideas came from Alexander Shulgins books. A happily married chemist who is something of a legend published two books listing the many psychoactive substances that he created. His reviews were often brief but provided enough for any entrepreneurial chemist so motivated to recreate. Living out in the sticks Shulgins name stands up in history alongside Hoffman, Huxley, Kesey and Leary etc. If you were able to make love on a new substance by his reckoning it was of value.

Ketamine had become a popular recreational drug in the noughts and slight adjustments in molecular detail opened up the possibility for other, legal dissociatives. Methoxphenidine and other darker variants became available.

All these drugs were legal and available to anyone with a computer and a bank card. Customers were asked for their age though no one ever checked if these purveyors of research chemicals gave their buyers great thought. As for the high street 'head' shops, the shops that sell pipes and bongs to cannabis users were beginning to find that the student psychonaut most imagined were their clientele were not the only ones that bought their products. Stocked with powerful stimulants and downers homeless addicts had taken advantage of cheaper, more powerful and what's more, legal alternatives to the crack and heroin that had previously been their drugs of choice. Shops often had cues waiting long before they opened desperate for drugs. This clearly wasn't going to escape the notice of the authorities. Having failed to keep up with the chemists who were one step ahead in producing new, usually more dangerous alternatives; criminalising individual compounds wasn't working. Soon the UK banned all substances that could alter a user's consciousness. Across the board from the academic explorers exchanging experiences online to the homeless addicts seeking cheap highs, all now found themselves unable to score. Many of the biggest purveyors moved their operations to Europe where each country had different laws. Over the next few years fewer countries were allowing this type of activity.

Perhaps the most interesting subset of the movement was the various new and rediscovered lysergamides that perhaps under no other circumstances would have ever become available to the psychonaut. Initially Al lad blotters of 150mc were popular. To my mind the greatest psychedelic of all time. A shorter trip of around five hours to acids seven or so. It has none of the dark corners LSD psylocibin has. Most who trip will know of an element of caution fearing that dreaded 'bad trips' tabloids might occur. With Al lad I never felt any need for caution. I'd say that of mushroom and acid trips only a dozen of well over 500 that I took over the years found me properly breaking through. The ego loss many speak of just isn't possible while holding on to the safety rails. To swim, to ice skate you need to throw caution to the wind and embrace the danger. Al lad allows this. I won't describe any trips here as it rarely conveys well or just doesn't translate into language. To make Al lad you must first make LSD and four fifths is lost in its creation. So who would throw away four fifths of their profit in changing a well known and popular drug into something few have heard of. Of the family there is also pro lad and eth lad to join Al lad and, what in these layman terms would be called meth lad.

In early 2015 prior to the Al lad ban there was a frenzy as those who treasured this marvellous creation tried to source and buy the diminishing stock. Lizard labs were the maker of this and numerous other psychedelics played a blinder. A day or two after the Al lad ban they unveiled a creation they'd secretly being working on. But for me its new 1pLSD was just like good acid. They moved into Europe where they developed several other new lysergamides. I've not tried them all but the ones I have tried, whilst being great quality lysergamides, don't match up to the greatest of all, Al lad. Back in the early 2010s they seemed a bit like the evangelical LSD chemists of 60s and 70s legend. Orange sunshine, Hoffmans pure Sandoz, pre Operation Julie acid; all made with a view to cause a revolutionary rise in human consciousness and not for profit.

Now, though they continue to create new exciting lysergamides and tryptamines along the lines of DMT, they also sell numerous benzodiazepines that can cause terrible harm in powerful and dangerous addiction.

I had long ago given up doing trips which I had done mainly in my teens. But one night I saw a documentary on the dangers of these new research chemicals or legal highs. It triggered a curiosity in me despite then being close to fifty years old. To be honest it really was a Wild West. For sure there were some real gems that under any other circumstances I would never have known. But there were some horrible and dangerous drugs that were easy to access and cheap. An online order like an Amazon one would see a discreet envelope or parcel arrive. There was a thrill to this alone. But what if a lax postman had put it through a door where children played. I also regained for a while a benzo addiction I'd not long got over. I spent a month in hallucinatory psychosis after overdosing on a strange dissociative. I must have done some damage to my heart and brain. I guess it needed to be brought under control. However it seems ironic that the only two drugs that have entered and remained in common circulation are arguably the two most dangerous. Spice has changed prison life being incredibly powerful, cheap and easy to smuggle in. The homeless scene has found that relatively steady heroin addicts have become spice zombies and many have died and all seem to agree that withdrawal is worse than heroin. And in Stoke, oddly, monkey dust, a smokable stimulant, like a cheaper crack with psychosis thrown in for good measure.

It is crucial that drug policy changes soon. Are prisons are bursting with addicts who otherwise would not be criminals. People are dying as gangsters are who decides what is there and at what price. Drug use has never been stopped by its criminalisation. Only by seeing it as the health issue it is and not the moral choice that 1950s middle class sensationalism deemed drug use will continue to ruin lives and cause untold crime and societal damage.

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