James Wyllie - The Microdot Gang: The Rise and Fall of the LSD Network That Turned on the World

First published 2022

The History Press

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Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

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James Wyllie, 2022

The right of James Wyllie to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 8039 9093 4

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

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(In Order of Appearance)

GERALD THOMAS: A scientist, LSD enthusiast and small-time hashish smuggler, THOMAS was both friend and foe of the Microdot Gang.

DAVID SOLOMON: The New Yorker SOLOMON was part of the Beat generation; a jazz critic and editor who compiled the first authoritative and accessible anthology about LSD before settling in the UK and forming the Microdot Gang.

BILLY HITCHCOCK: A member of the mighty Mellon family, HITCHCOCK was a Wall Street trader who helped acid entrepreneurs launder their money.

PAUL ARNABOLDI: A boat-sailing, college-educated hippy and part-time smuggler based in Majorca, ARNABOLDI was involved in several of the Microdot Gangs business ventures.

AUGUSTUS OWSLEY STANLEY THE THIRD: OWSLEY was a wayward polymath and the original acid alchemist; his LSD launched San Franciscos Summer of Love.

NICK SAND: A self-taught chemist who followed in OWSLEYS footsteps. Based in California, SAND created the legendary Orange Sunshine.

JOHN GRIGGS: GRIGGS was the leader of an LA motorbike gang before taking LSD and forming The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a hippy mafia that collaborated with the Microdot Gang.

RONALD STARK: Anarchist, con-man, alleged secret agent, the Brooklyn-born STARK was a major international LSD producer and distributor who worked with The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and the Microdot Gang.

TORD SVENSON: A trained chemist and psychedelic pioneer, SVENSON made huge quantities of acid for STARK in various European labs.

STEVE ABRAMS: A parapsychologist and legalise cannabis campaigner, ABRAMS moved in the same circles as members of the Microdot Gang.

RICHARD KEMP: A hugely talented chemist and political radical, KEMP was an LSD idealist who was determined to make the Microdot Gangs acid the purest ever.

CHRISTINE BOTT: A qualified doctor who worked as a GP and in hospitals, BOTT had been with KEMP since they met at university and shared his revolutionary beliefs.

HENRY BARCLAY TODD: A drop-out with a taste for fine living, TODD organised and ran the Microdot Gangs distribution network.

GEORGE ANDREWS: ANDREWS was an American acid poet who ended up in London, edited an anthology about Indian hashish culture and collaborated with SOLOMON on several books.

ALSTON SMILES HUGHES: One of the Microdot Gangs main dealers, SMILES ran his operation from a small village in Wales.

DICK LEE: Head of the Thames Valley Drug Squad, LEE spearheaded the massive police investigation into the Microdot Gangs activities.

MARTYN PRITCHARD: PRITCHARD was an undercover hippy cop who posed as a dealer and penetrated the Microdot Gangs distribution network.

ANDREW MUNRO: A gifted if eccentric chemist, MUNRO knew the Microdot Gangs key personnel and would turn his hand to LSD after observing KEMP at work.

BRIAN CUTHBERTSON: A Reading University drop-out, CUTHBERTSON oversaw the tableting of the Microdot Gangs LSD.

RUSSELL STEPHEN SPENCELEY: A bon viveur, SPENCELEY acted as a go-between in the Microdot Gangs supply chain connecting London to Wales.

Gerald Thomas had every reason to be nervous as he strolled through the terminal at Montreal airport on 3 June 1973. He was carrying 15 pounds of hashish in his luggage. He was a self-employed dope entrepreneur, a travelling salesman with a reputation for taking risks, or being sloppy, depending on your point of view. No major drug dealer or international player of any consequence would be caught dead in an airport transporting anything more suspicious than a change of clothes, toothbrush and shaving kit.

For the big-time smuggler, air travel was a necessary evil and airports a potential hazard. You were vulnerable entering and leaving countries, assuming you were always of interest to the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), the FBI, Interpol and every other law-enforcement agency engaged in the global war on drugs, and they were waiting for you every time you got off a plane. You never knew when your passport was going to be flagged or when youd be invited into a little room for a thorough examination. If you had to move product by air you did it by cargo, not in your hand luggage; if you could do it by boat, even better.

But Gerald Thomas was not a major trafficker. And he wasnt nervous. Sure, there was a certain amount of inevitable anxiety, but more satisfying was the feeling of sticking it to the Man, each time striking a blow against the system as he passed by undetected with his beloved marijuana. Risking a long prison sentence so he could get paid and the people get high. He was the rebel bandit, hero of the oppressed, defying tyranny wherever he went. He was Zorro. On one occasion he shipped a consignment of weed across the Atlantic concealed in a dead elephant.

When he first arrived at Montreal airport, Thomas stashed the dope in a locker and took a short flight to Boston to check out its customs and security arrangements in preparation for returning there with the marijuana. Satisfied with what he saw he hopped back to Montreal and retrieved the stuff, confident that hed complete the transfer successfully. That morning his luck ran out. As it happens they werent waiting for him; it was just some canny customs official with a hunch. Though Thomas appearance was smart and conventional not John Lennon glasses, faded flares and a flower in his hair something wasnt right. Why the quick trip to Boston and back? If that was his destination, why transit through Montreal? The answer was in his suitcase.

Thomas was not a hardened criminal. Hed not grown up on any mean streets or graduated from juvenile detention centres or committed any crime other than the import and export of controlled substances, which he did more out of faith than necessity. For over a decade hed been fully committed to an alternative lifestyle that involved the consumption of large quantities of cannabis and LSD. Given his hostility to work the soul destroyer to wage labour and the 95 hell, to paying taxes to support the hated system or being part of that system in any shape or form, it was a logical step to become a dealer. You got an income while remaining unemployed. You guaranteed your own supply. Your colleagues were usually friends or fellow believers, every customer a potential recruit to the cause. It was an open market and demand was consistently growing. It was the perfect job. Even though penalties were harsh and the law brutal in its application, this added to the attraction; not only did it bring drama, it meant you remained an outlaw and a revolutionary. For Thomas, and many like him, part of this image was wish-fulfilment, glamorising the inconvenient reality that they really were out to get you. But part of it was also a lingering conviction that they were on the right side of history.