Near Complete Production

I just thought of something tonight, and I was wondering if it was legal... if chemical companies were to produce a drug, let's just use LSD as an example, and they sold us the LSD, but the LSD molecule was not completely formed, there was just one more step to ensure it's completeness. Would that be legal? There would be no LSD molecule... could that work?

 

No.

 

No, that's called a precursor or an intermediate. They are regulated just as well. A simple version is all of the bullshit that you have to go through to buy sudafed in many states b/c of meth.

 

There is a specific list of precursor chemicals...It would have to be on the list...


Well usually a precursor is a chemical that has a known step or steps to obtain the final product. But hell, if you extend the defition, any basic element can be a precursor if one has a technique to synthesize it to a final product.

Thus, IMO, if you have a chemcal that doesn't have a commonly known technique to achieve the final product, that chemical could potentially be legal because it would not normally be known as a precursor. Once word got out with the technique, there might be some attempt of regulation of the new "precursor" chemicals but until then, there is a specific list of precursor chemicals.

The problem in reality is most drugs have a simple step from a precursor to the final product. If someone used a different chemical, the step to the final product might be to complex and thus, cause the whole Idea to be impractical. IE, one might need a million dollars of complex equipment to sythensize it.

 

Lysergic acid, ergotamine, etc. are Schedule III, even though LSA is not a pharmaceutical per se.