The purpose of this report is to investigate the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on the brain and also the effect of LSD on driving. Driving has many benefits to society, such as transport and accessibility but it also has some downsides such as the amount of people dying per year from car accidents which is 1,209 (2015 Australia, this is a pretty large amount, and because of that, people are trying make it smaller each year. It is nowadays the norm to have a car and because of that you can never tell who is behind the wheel, they might be drunk or taken some other drug which can put you in harm and what they are capable of causing. If someone drives while on LSD, then they are a huge hazard to themselves and the people around them.

 The rest of this essay will expand on LSD and the effects on the brain. It will then touch on how LSD is synthesised, what happens to the brain after taking LSD and why LSD causes hallucinations and how all of that effects driving.



Background

To prepare LSD you would first have to make lysergic acid. Lysergic acid is formed by reacting N-benzoyl-3-(B-carboxyethyl)-dihydroindole with thionyl chloride. Then you would react those two with aluminium chloride which gives you 1-benzoyl-5-keto-1,2,2a,3,4,5-hexahydrobenzindole then you would brominate it which gives you 4-bromo-derivative. With that done you would then react it with methylamine acetone ethylene ketol to give you a ketol-ketone. This is then hydrolysed by acid which produces diketone and treated with sodium methoxide to convert it to the tetracyclic ketone. You would then acetylate it and reduce the ketone with sodium borohydride to get the alcohol which is converted to hydrochloride. This hydrochloride is then treated with thionyl chloride in liquid sulphur dioxide, to produce an amorphous chloride hydro chloride. This is converted to the nitrile with sodium cyanide in liquid hydrogen cyanide. Methanolysis then gives the ester of the nitrile. Alkaline hydrolysis of this last compound, followed by catalytic dehydrogenation in water using a deactivated Raney Nickel catalyst gives dl-lysergic acid (Lysergic acid).

From lysergic acid to LSD, these are the things you need to do: Dissolve lysergic acid in distilled phosphorous oxychloride then pour in some powdered phosphorous pentachloride. Then after that you react it with hexane which gives you lysergic acid chloride hydrochloride. After that you would then get diethylamine and put it in some methylene chloride then add hydrochloride to that mixture. Then add pyridine, mix both mixtures. Then after doing some heating and cooling you will have LSD. To produce LSD, you would have to be a highly skilled chemist, with great skill at being extrememly careful with deadly chemicals and also very accurate with measurements, otherwise the drug could not have the same effect or could be potentially fatal for the user.

Pure lysergic acid is in a crystalline form while LSD is a liquid but is soaked onto little 7cm x 7cm pieces of paper. LSD has a melting point of 80 oC and is chemical composition is C20H25N3O. LSD is colourless and odourless, LSD also can break down quickly when exposed to light and is sensitive to oxygen, ultraviolet light and chlorine. LSD is able to last for years if you store it away from light and away from moisture and at a low temperature.

Figure 1: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LSD_Structure.svg 10/05/16

Once you have taken LSD orally, it gets absorbed by the body very quickly and will only take about 20-45 minutes for it to start taking effect. After two hours the amount of LSD in the bloodstream and its effects are at a maximum. The effects usually last between eight to twelve hours. During this time many physical effects take place, heart beat accelerates, blood pressure and body temperature heightens and also blood sugar levels rise.

LSD, like most psychedelics is a serotonin receptor agonist. An agonist is a substance that binds to a cell and triggers a response. Serotonin is one of the human brain's primary neurotransmitters. The two primary affects (visual hallucinations, sense of existents) are believed to be caused by the modified patterns of serotonin release. Outside visual stimulus doesn't get processed in the same way, allowing other systems in the brain to influence your experience of visual perception. At the same time, because you're not processing the outside world in the same way, your brain stops doing such a good job of effectively differentiating between yourself and the world around you. 

The reason people get addicted to some drugs is because the drugs stimulate the “reward pathway”. The reward pathway is meant to make us feel good when we do things that are necessary for our survival such as, eating, drinking and sex. When you do these things you get a release of dopamine which makes you happy and want to do them again. This is why it is called ‘reward’ pathway because it is a reward and is pleasurable. That’s exactly what happens when you take an addictive drug, it causes a release of dopamine which makes you want to take it again and again. This, however, isn’t what LSD does, so that makes it a non-addictive drug. Saying that, however, people can get addicted to it if they keep taking it for entertainment.

Discussion

LSD has a massive impact on visual perception, combine that with driving and it is a huge hazard. LSD makes people see things that aren’t there and distort things that are, so if they are driving and have taken LSD they will see differently to what is really there, the cars will be blurred and their sense of speed will be effected and will not know how fast they are going. This increases the chance of crashing.

 When a person who is sober drives, they will be able to drive with no problems, but when a person drives on LSD their reaction time will be reduced and will not be able to react in time if a car pulls in front of the user or there is a traffic light up ahead. When someone takes LSD it alters their depth perception which means they won’t be able to tell if a car in front of them is really close or really far away. They will also think the cars that have stopped at the traffic lights are still moving and they will just drive straight into them. Another side effect of taking LSD is a sense of not being in control and anything they do will not change what is happening, so if this occurs while they are driving they will feel that anything thing they do will not affect the car. This can put the user and people around them in danger of being hurt or even being killed. 

Having a car gives people the ability to get to places easier and much faster. It is pretty easy to get a car as long as they have enough money they can just go to a car dealer and buy a car either upfront or overtime. After having a car for a while the person may think of themselves that they are pretty good drivers and may think it is ok to take LSD while driving because they will be able to drive properly, but they won’t, they will just increase the chances of them getting themselves killed.

Conclusion

LSD can have a massive impact on the users lives, they sometimes feel that they are a different person after they have taken LSD. It affects the people around them such as friends and family as they feel that that person who took LSD is detached from their lives. Because LSD is so powerful, it means that it can have long-term effects on the brain and cause severe depression or psychosis, flashbacks and panic attacks. All of those consequences just isn’t worth taken LSD, there are more disadvantages then advantages and because of those disadvantages it can ruin their life. So in conclusion, LSD does have a massive impact on the users driving capabilities and their brain.

Public Education Piece

My public education piece is a brochure to advise the general public of the information learned during this research assignment.

References

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Rhodium. (2016). Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) Syntheses. Retrieved from: https://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/lsd-buzz.html Date accessed: 11/05/16
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