From: [lamon t g] at [u.washington.edu]
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Re: acid myth, question about chiral centers
Date: 23 Jul 1993 23:48:33 GMT

[d--in--s] at [cs.tamu.edu] (David J Vinas) writes:
>Through some of my research, I found that when LSD is synthesized, an
>isotype is produced which is a mirror image of the LSD structure.
>This isotope (forgot the name, sorry) produces no psychoactive effect,
>but it does produce muscle cramps, as well as other discomfort
>(sometimes nausea).

do you have a good reference to this?  this has been hypothesized for a long
time as being responsible for the cramps.  that would explain why LSD is
thought to "break down into strychnine", since it would simply be breaking
down into the optical isomer. 

also, i'd be careful about calling the optical isomer a "mirror image".
what it is, is that you've got a carbon atom with four different chains
attatched to it, and there are two different ways of arranging these
chains ("chains" isn't correct terminology, hopefully someone will correct
me).  if you arrange them tetrahedrally, one arrangement will be one
isomer, and the other arrangement can be created by swapping two of the
corners on the tetrahedron.  LSD has two chiral centers, and therefore
2 * 2 = 4 different optical isomers.

now, i know of the following names for the optical isomers of LSD.  does
anyone know which of these are equivalent, and as a bonus, what the
physical configuration is for them?

d-LSD, l-LSD, dl-LSD, ld-LSD, iso-LSD, d-iso-LSD, l-iso-LSD.