Due to a legal loophole, a German businessman Carl Philip Trump was able to open Berlin’s very first LSD shop where he sells LSD analogue.
According to Vice, the shop has been open since March and the shop is offering an LSD analogue called 1CP-LSD, a “research chemical,” which is yet to be banned in a lot of countries, including Germany.
The paper reports that in the shop you can buy micro-dosing, mini-dosing, full-dosing and extra-dosing tabs in batches of five to 100.
Shop owner Carl Philip Trump, who claims that he is a distant relative of former U.S. President Donald Trump, told Vice that he tried psychedelics after a number of unfortunate events in his life and a trip to the Netherlands.
He said: “LSD allowed me to put everything in perspective, and I thought, ‘This is something I want to share.’
“I wanted somewhere you could meet other people and talk about this extraordinary experience.”
According to Vice, Trump was buying and using 1CP-LSD, which some claim is a prodrug that the “human body converts to LSD, and he then started selling it – right after he got an official paper from a lawyer that it is legal to do so.
He first set up an online shop and as coronavirus hit Germany and people were stuck at home, his business started to grow exponentially – as a result, he got enough money to open a real shop in Berlin in March.
While, as the paper reminds us, it is still unclear what sort of impacts psychedelics do have on us in the long run, an increasing number of people are trying the drugs for, as well as recreation, the treatment of a number of mental health disorders.
Mr Trump said he was aware of the risks he was taken and he always warns the customers about the potential consequences.
He said: “I give them guidelines, such as don’t drink alcohol or smoke weed, have a safe setting and control your dosage.
“But it’s hard to say, ‘Do A, B and C and everything will be fine.’ You might still have a bad experience.”
Vice reports that the German government is planning to ban 1CP-LSD as soon as the end of this week.
Mr Trump said if 1CP-LSD became illegal, the next LSD-like substance will be stronger, thus more dangerous. If he can’t sell 1CP-LSD anymore, he’s ready to move the shop to other countries, such as Poland or Russia, where the substance is still legal.