Acid Jazz Age

What would you all prefer?


  • Total voters
    68
Awhile back I had the idea of LSD being around for the Roaring Twenties, causing changes. So the point of this thread is to see if people are

A) Interested in such a TL

B) Would find it to be too much of a stretch for both LSD and MDMA to be around for this age? I know MDMA was already invented but this TL would require it to be developed and distributed in America.
 
I order you to do this. Put my Hippie Louis Armstrong into context. Hell, go full out 1960's in the 20's and make him the first man on the moon.:D
 
I myself just experimented with a Louis Armstrong song. A Wah-wah effect on the trumpet just made it sound like a cartoon mosquito buzzing, but wah-wah with a delay effect made it very acid. Granted, it sounds like crap 'cause I didn't do any specific and put the effects on the entire song, but it could give an idea of what it would be like.

I could upload it to my crap account on youtube if anyone wants to see it.
 
To respecify,

Is the same company inventing and distributing LSD and MDMA within five years of each other in the mid- to late 1910s ASBish?
 
To respecify,

Is the same company inventing and distributing LSD and MDMA within five years of each other in the mid- to late 1910s ASBish?
I don't think so. From a quick wiki, MDMA was first synthesized in 1912. And since you're cramming LSD in there, all bets are off.

Two questions: are you going to play the TL tongue in cheek, somewhat tongue and cheek, or out and out straight. Secondly, when will LSD come into play if you're willing to share that info? Will it come from something having to do with drugs being engineered for WWI?
 
Yes, Yes, Yes. Acid-inspired art deco, anyone?

I can totally see jazz musicians embracing LSD, as well has occultists, and ics of that time period. I would expect acid to be somehow tied into Theosophy, Golden Dawn, etc.

What happens to prohibiton?Could we end of with a situation where Alcohol is illegal but LSD is not? :p Or even if they are both illegal, we can easily end with the latter being easier to find and consume.
 

The Vulture

Banned
I approve! This is far more original than the ten million Hitler TLs out there and could lead to some serious differences. I fully endorse this project.
 
Acid Dieselpunk?!? :eek:

Sign me up!


I approve! This is far more original than the ten million Hitler TLs out there and could lead to some serious differences. I fully endorse this project.

But what about Hitler on Acid? :p

"Duuude, my Heil arm is, like, so long, yea? It's stretching to the cosmos, man!"


On a side note, how freakin' crazy will Fritz Lang movies be ITTL?
 
Oh Dear!

Bumpitty-Bump-Bump-Whoaah!
Dali was weird enough and you want to give him, Luis Bunuel and the surrealists ACID?!?!
The mind reels and I drool at the possibilities!!!!
Of course, you could have dropouts embracing a big Native American fetish kick where taking peyote and mescaline become popular.
DH Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, et al were already on board with that IOTL, just make it more of a thing with American intelligentsia beyond the British expat set hanging out in New Mexico.
Imagine say Steinbeck writing Ghost Dancers (Dharma Bums for those going on their spiritual journey) during the Great Depression or any of a number of departures.
Imagine Carnivale with mescaline given as part of the Host, perfectly legitimately! I know the POD is Jazz Age acid/MDMA as part of the decadence, but I get some tasty vibes from a psychedelic Depression as well. Fatty Arbuckle would be the dead man after an MDMA-fueled rave. I can just channel James Ellroy's take on yellow journalism to think of the headlines in the scandal sheets.
Just think of the possibilities!!!
 
"Lucy...."[*Doo-di-doo*] "In the sky, with-a diamonds" [*Doo-di-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo*]"Luuuw-cay!..." [*Doo-di-doo*]"In the sky with those diamonds; Shoopity-dey-doop-dey-doop-dy!"
 
I think LSD would do wonders for the surrealist movement, and dramatically affect the emerging theories of psychoanalysis.

MDMA on the other-hand would most likely be market as a miracle drug for depression. It will have a smiler place in the American lexicon as amphetamines, and its popularity would come about later. The initial pools of users would be small, but it would gain great popularity amongst the beats.
 
Hold it. You're seriously proposing full-scale production of a couple of organic compounds whose synthesis is a multistep process, and carrying this out with early 20th century chemical manufacturing technology? I think not.

The pharmaceutical industry as we know it now barely existed back then (indeed, in 1920, aspirin was all of 25 years old, and until the Great War, was essentially a monopoly of a chemical company in Bavaria--or Bayern, as it's otherwise known).

Sorry, but I don't believe the organic synthesis, the control, the separation and/or the heat transfer technology existed then for either of these compounds to be more that milligram laboratory curiosities.
 
Hold it. You're seriously proposing full-scale production of a couple of organic compounds whose synthesis is a multistep process, and carrying this out with early 20th century chemical manufacturing technology? I think not.

The pharmaceutical industry as we know it now barely existed back then (indeed, in 1920, aspirin was all of 25 years old, and until the Great War, was essentially a monopoly of a chemical company in Bavaria--or Bayern, as it's otherwise known).

Sorry, but I don't believe the organic synthesis, the control, the separation and/or the heat transfer technology existed then for either of these compounds to be more that milligram laboratory curiosities.

LSD is quite easily synthesized from naturally occurring lysergic acid. LSA might actually be more likely though, as it is already found in many plants and has been used by Mesoamerican tribes for centuries. The extraction process is simple enough-no synthesis necessary.

MDMA would be less likely, but its precursors are common in nature and the synthesis isn't all that difficult. It would be difficult, however, for someone to realize the properties of MDMA even after they somehow invented it.
 
LSD is quite easily synthesized from naturally occurring lysergic acid. LSA might actually be more likely though, as it is already found in many plants and has been used by Mesoamerican tribes for centuries. The extraction process is simple enough-no synthesis necessary.

MDMA would be less likely, but its precursors are common in nature and the synthesis isn't all that difficult. It would be difficult, however, for someone to realize the properties of MDMA even after they somehow invented it.

For the record MDMA was developed in OTL at Merck in 1912. No one realized its 'other' abilities until much later though.
 
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