Nicholas Sand

Nick Sand (born May 10, 1941)[1] is a cult figure known in the psychedelic community for his work as a clandestine chemist from 1966-1996 for the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.[2][3] Sand was also Chief Alchemist for the League for Spiritual Discovery at the Millbrook estate in New York and was credited as the "first underground chemist on record to have synthesized DMT".[4]

Background

Sand grew up in Brooklyn, New York and by his late teens he was already aware of the LSD scene developing around Greenwich Village. While attending Brooklyn College, Sand became interested in the teachings of Gurdjieff, the study of different cultures, and various Eastern philosophers.[5]

In 1961, he had his first mescaline experience.[1]

Graduating in 1966 with a degree in Anthropology and Sociology, Sand followed Leary and Alpert to Millbrook and became a guide to the psychedelic realm for many of the people who came to Millbrook. During this time Sand also began extracting DMT in his bathtub, and he is credited with being the first to discover that it was active when volatized (smoked).[5][6]

Sand later started a perfume company as a front for the production of Mescaline and DMT.[7]

In 1968 Sand was introduced to fellow chemist Tim Scully, who had been training under Owsley Stanley until Stanley's legal troubles in 1967.[8]

In December 1968 Sand purchased a farmhouse in Windsor, California, at that time a small town in rural Sonoma County. There he and Scully set up a large LSD lab. Here they produced over 3.6 million tablets of LSD that was distributed under the name "orange sunshine".[2]

Prosecution

In 1972 Sand was prosecuted along with several members of the Brotherhood for the manufacturing of LSD, who had been the focus of a lengthy investigation by federal narcotics agents in the early 1970s.[9] In 1976 Sand was found guilty partially due to the testimony of Billy Hitchcock and other "snitches" and was sentenced to 15 years in a federal penitentiary.[2]

Sand's attorney appealed his conviction, based on the fact that Sand never produced LSD-25, but a similar substance called ALD-52, which was not illegal at the time.[2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Erowid Nick Sand Vault
  2. 1 2 3 4 Nocenti, Annie. Baldwin, Ruth. Krassner, Paul. The High Times Reader. Nation Books. 2004
  3. ↑ Oroc, James. Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad. Park Street Press. 2010.
  4. ↑ Wilcock, David. The Source Field Investigations Penguin Group. 2011.
  5. 1 2 Lee, Martin A. Shlain, Bruce. Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of Lsd. Grove Press. 2007
  6. ↑ http://www.dmtsite.com/dmt/information/history_discovery.html
  7. ↑ The Brotherhood of Eternal Love Drug Library.net
  8. ↑ Schou, Nicholas. Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World. Thomas Dunne Books. 2010. p. 154-155
  9. ↑ New York Magazine. Feb 18, 1991. p. 37

External links

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