
Review Erowid at GreatNonprofits.org
From alt.drugs Nov 15, 1992 by "Adam Head".

Erowid Archived Document (Out of Date or Contains Known Errors)
This document is archived in the Erowid library for historical reference and scholarship purposes. The information it contains is either out of date or contains known errors.
For more recent information about ALD-52 sold as LSD, please see Ask Erowid: Was Orange Sunshine actually ALD-52?.

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

  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.