From alt.drugs Nov 15, 1992 by "Adam Head".
For more recent information about ALD-52 sold as LSD, please see Ask Erowid: Was Orange Sunshine actually ALD-52?.Erowid Archived Document (Out of Date or Contains Known Errors)
This document is archived in the Erowid library for historical reference and scholarship purposes. The information it contains is either out of date or contains known errors.
With the interest recently in the drug ALD-52 on this group I thought the following extract from 'The Brotherhood of Eternal Love' by Stewart Tendler & David May, Panther Books, England 1984 might be useful: 'Windsor [US lab] was not producing lSD but ALD-52, similar but not illegal, or so [Tim] Scully believed. Scully found the ALD formula among scientific papers and books in the specialist library at Berkeley. It was a compound [Albert] Hofmann had tested years before. At the University of California Medical Center(sic), Scully uncovered the scientific paper Hofmann and a colleague had published on the drug. From the US Patent Office he drew patent number 2,810,723, lodged by Sandoz with production details. In The Hallucinogens co-authored by Osmond and Hofmann, Scully discovered a table comparing the effects of ALD and other drugs in the same family. The table suggested that ALD might actually have advantages over LSD, reducing any side effects but achieving a stronger trip. Measurements of brain waves while people were taking the two drugs showed that while LSD produced brain waves associated with intense concentration and anxiety, ALD produced brain waves showing a more relaxed mental state. There was one snag. Hofmann's formula meant making LSD first, then converting it into ALD. Although the finished product might be legal , at a crucial stage in its production it was illegal. The solution was a simple reversal in the order of production so that at no time was the drug illegal. Neither Hitchcock nor the Brothers were told of ALD. Hitchcock had been badly burned financially when STP had picked up a bad name on the streets. It was thought he would oppose ALD as yet another innovation that would prove difficult to sell. The drug was simply labelled 'acid', and he and the Brotherhood were none the wiser.' --------------------------------------------------------------- ALD-52: N-Acetyl-LSD. According to the _Psychedelics Encyclopedia_, ALD-52 is rather commonly found on the street sold as LSD-25. However, it also claims that ALD-52 is actually a smoother trip than LSD. Either way, ALD-52 tends to decompose into LSD-25 rather quickly, so I really doubt the quality is changed that much. And medium level dealers get whatever the hell the chemist makes. They're just as confused as you are as to the content.