The Microdot Gang: The Rise and Fall of the LSD Network That Turned On the World

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As Dai Rees and Terry Stokes gathered crucial evidence of the production side of the LSD ring other officers were closing in on the distribution side. One of the challenges any writer presenting this history has to deal with is the age-old problem of participants offering differing accounts of the events and their interaction with each other. These accounts are often motivated by self-justification or simply the wish to tell a good story. It is necessary therefore to be sceptical on the one hand of the ‘official’ agenda which called to account those who broke the law and supposedly threatened public morality; and on the other hand the counter argument that the ‘acid adventure’ was a noble cause which just happened to be illegal – and lucrative. Corroboration – or rebuttal – has been employed whenever possible and in appropriate measure. Lee also instructed two undercover officers to infiltrate the small community of Llanddewi Brefi to target Alston Hughes. [4] London connection [ edit ] They must have had a great trip through the drainage systems of mid Wales!” Read More Related Articles

Kate goes on a journey to meet the man at the heart of the great LSD plot. What were his true motives? And was it all worth it? But our experience locally was dealing with young kids ending up in mental institutions through LSD use. We had incidents in Llandeilo and Tregaron of people tripping out and getting involved in all sorts of nasty situations. Surveillance of Kemp observed his regular 50-mile commutes between his home in Tregaron and Plas Llysyn, an old mansion owned by an American friend Paul Joseph Arnaboldi, in Carno near Llanidloes, mid-Wales. The mansion was watched by police and those arriving were monitored. Lee instructed police to break into the mansion. In the cellar, police took water samples which chemically matched LSD samples the police had.I let my hair grow, I had the most monstrous beard – we evolved from being grey-suited detectives to hippies over a period of time.” Episode four of the LSD saga about an attempt to spark a revolution of the mind, from a Welsh farmhouse. As the police surveillance operation grows, the noose tightens around Richard and Christine and their standards begin to slip. Can they hold onto the ‘good life’ they’ve built in Wales?

The Stones and Jimi Hendrix liked a wild Welsh weekend, and there are apocryphal anecdotes of Bob Dylan staying for six weeks and enjoying the mellifluous poetry of Welsh-speaking farmers’ conversations. How Green was the Psychedelic Revolution? Acid King Richard Kemp breaks his 45-year silence January 6, 2023Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures Two undercover officers were assigned to infiltrate the small community of Llanddewi Brefi to target Alston Hughes. Whilst on remand in Her Majesty’s Prison Bristol, in 1977, Leaf Fielding, LSD distribution manager, met LSD chemist, Richard Kemp:

Tabs bearing their logo were recovered as far away as Australia. James Wyllie tells the extraordinary story of how a middle-aged American academic, two idealistic British students, a public school cad and an American hustler formed the Microdot Gang and created an acid production line designed to turn on the world. In the 1970s it's estimated that around 60% of the world's LSD came from one place: Wales. This is the story of the Microdot Gang - a ragtag group of chemists, dealers, businessmen and hippy dreamers. They believed that acid had the power to save the world. Why another book? Simply because, whatever the merits (which are many) of the above published books, some of them suffer from factual inaccuracies which can now be corrected with what historians refer to as ‘updated scholarship’; and none of them present an adequate blow-by-blow account of the genesis, development and downfall of the LSD Underground in the years 1968 to 1978. Detective Inspector Richard Lee’s book Operation Julie, How the Undercover Police Team Smashed the World’s Greatest Drugs Gang attempts to make sense of the British LSD Underground as part of an international conspiracy rooted in the US Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which is described by Stewart Tendler and David May as a ‘hippie mafia’. The international dimension of the LSD producers needs to be explored further and more thoroughly. Here, I attempt to unravel and demythologise it. She accepted that some people had expressed concern about the company producing a play that focused on criminal activity. “But I think most local people are excited. Everyone has a story about Operation Julie. I spoke to someone the other day who said they were conceived on Julie LSD. Other people tell the tale of Bob Dylan coming here, though I haven’t met anyone who actually saw him.”

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Lee, Martin A. & Bruce Shlain (1992). Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, and Beyond. Grove Press. pp. 288. ISBN 978-0-8021-3062-4. Operation Julie was one of the biggest drugs investigations the world has ever seen. It involved 800 officers drawn from 11 police forces who went undercover for more than a year to break an LSD ring that spread through 100 countries, provided 60% of global supply and was worth – in today’s money – half a billion pounds. James Wylie's "brilliant" The Microdot Gang: The Rise and Fall of the LSD Network That Turned on the Worldhas been snapped by The History Press and optioned by ITV Studios. In 1973, the producers had a disagreement with the distributors (concerning the price and profit margin of the product, which Kemp wanted to maintain as low as possible) and production ceased for a time. Kemp and Solomon set about organising another distribution network and recommenced LSD production in west Wales.

While Dai Rees was grappling with the drug issues of west Wales in the early 70s, Richard Kemp had stumbled upon a method of creating the purest LSD the world had ever seen. In the 1970s it's estimated that around 60% of the world's LSD came from one place: Wales. This is the story of the Microdot Gang - a rag tag group of chemists, dealers, businessmen and hippy dreamers. They believed that acid had the power to save the world.A new six-part BBC Sounds podcast uncovers the gripping story behind Operation Julie, one of the world’s biggest ever drugs busts.