MrEDuck
Well-Known Member
It wouldn't take hundreds of thousands of dollars to make LSD. And the research needed to start is limited to a few papers. Even if you have to buy the papers it's only going to cost ~$100-200. The most expensive thing you need is the lab. A glovebox is better than a hood because it keeps the reaction completely isolated from the atmosphere in the lab. The last thing you want is to be almost done working up like 10g of LSD and absorb a few mg of it. A suitable glovebox will run between $7k and $15k depending on what you want.
Now you need a decent vacuum pump for removing the atmosphere in the glovebox, and a source of inert gas to fill it. N2 will do if you're trying to minimize the costs, but Ar is better. A 1/2hp pump will do for removing the atmosphere, and is a few hundred bucks. I don't remember how much a T sized cylinder of Ar costs to fill but I'm pretty sure a full cylinder would run less than $500.
We're going to need a good balance for this, an analytical balance that can weigh 200g x 0.1mg can be found for about $1000. We need another vacuum pump for removing solvents and such, another 1/2hp pump should do. Now let's get some glassware. I'm assuming the synthetic route used will be ergotamine -> lysergic acid -> acid chloride -> LSD using the procedure given by Shulgin in TiHKAL. The reaction doesn't really need any fancy glassware, just beakers, roundbottoms, filter flasks, a sep funnel, a chromatogram column, and a reflux column. You also need things like a ring stand, clamps, stirbars, and a digital hotplate stirrer. You should be able to get everything you need for under $2k from Ace or Chemglass (I don't want to price out every piece of sundry lab equipment). You'll also need a pH meter (say about $250 for a really good one). Now to purchase the chemicals. I went to Sigma and looked up the costs of the chemicals used in the synthesis in the purest form Sigma sells. I added up the cost of everything but the ergotamine and came up with $2303 (this would be way cheaper if lower grade chemicals were used, those extra 9s after the decimal are quite expensive), and the ergotamine costs $180/g.
Now we need a way to make sure we have LSD at the end. Depending on your budget there are many ways to do this. The cheapest would be a reagent test (I know there is one, but I can't recall which one it is) and a melting point apparatus. The cheap old school ones where you have to keep looking at the temp and the sample can be had for like $300, I personally hate these. They make ones with video cameras that record both the sample and the temp. Find where it starts to melt and freeze frame and watch the temp as it melts. So worth a few hundred bucks more. The next option would be to add in an IR spectrometer, they can be found used for a few thousand, new they start at about $5k. The best way would be to get a GC/MS which will run you $25k+ for a used one or $80k+ new.
So a lab capable of making LSD on a very very large scale (say batches of 10-25g) can be made for under $25k. Say a batch of 10g would cost about $7000 in chemicals. Let's say the chemist wants to make $1k/day and takes three days to carry out the synth. That's $10000 for 100,000 doses. So 6 billion would cost $600,000,000 at that price. Realistically it would be much cheaper than that because you would use a bigger lab that could handle multi kg batches to make the needed 600kg of LSD. And you'd better have a bulk source for ergotamine for that. Because you'll need somewhere in the area of 2000kg of it.
Now you need a decent vacuum pump for removing the atmosphere in the glovebox, and a source of inert gas to fill it. N2 will do if you're trying to minimize the costs, but Ar is better. A 1/2hp pump will do for removing the atmosphere, and is a few hundred bucks. I don't remember how much a T sized cylinder of Ar costs to fill but I'm pretty sure a full cylinder would run less than $500.
We're going to need a good balance for this, an analytical balance that can weigh 200g x 0.1mg can be found for about $1000. We need another vacuum pump for removing solvents and such, another 1/2hp pump should do. Now let's get some glassware. I'm assuming the synthetic route used will be ergotamine -> lysergic acid -> acid chloride -> LSD using the procedure given by Shulgin in TiHKAL. The reaction doesn't really need any fancy glassware, just beakers, roundbottoms, filter flasks, a sep funnel, a chromatogram column, and a reflux column. You also need things like a ring stand, clamps, stirbars, and a digital hotplate stirrer. You should be able to get everything you need for under $2k from Ace or Chemglass (I don't want to price out every piece of sundry lab equipment). You'll also need a pH meter (say about $250 for a really good one). Now to purchase the chemicals. I went to Sigma and looked up the costs of the chemicals used in the synthesis in the purest form Sigma sells. I added up the cost of everything but the ergotamine and came up with $2303 (this would be way cheaper if lower grade chemicals were used, those extra 9s after the decimal are quite expensive), and the ergotamine costs $180/g.
Now we need a way to make sure we have LSD at the end. Depending on your budget there are many ways to do this. The cheapest would be a reagent test (I know there is one, but I can't recall which one it is) and a melting point apparatus. The cheap old school ones where you have to keep looking at the temp and the sample can be had for like $300, I personally hate these. They make ones with video cameras that record both the sample and the temp. Find where it starts to melt and freeze frame and watch the temp as it melts. So worth a few hundred bucks more. The next option would be to add in an IR spectrometer, they can be found used for a few thousand, new they start at about $5k. The best way would be to get a GC/MS which will run you $25k+ for a used one or $80k+ new.
So a lab capable of making LSD on a very very large scale (say batches of 10-25g) can be made for under $25k. Say a batch of 10g would cost about $7000 in chemicals. Let's say the chemist wants to make $1k/day and takes three days to carry out the synth. That's $10000 for 100,000 doses. So 6 billion would cost $600,000,000 at that price. Realistically it would be much cheaper than that because you would use a bigger lab that could handle multi kg batches to make the needed 600kg of LSD. And you'd better have a bulk source for ergotamine for that. Because you'll need somewhere in the area of 2000kg of it.
