A student learnt the chemical formulae for hallucinogenic drugs and
set up a makeshift laboratory in his parents' home with the intention
of selling the class A substances, a court was told yesterday.

Michael Collins, 23, turned a bedroom into a "little factory",
Peterborough Crown Court was told.

"We are not talking about a boy with a chemistry set," Andrew Howarth,
for the prosecution, said. "We are talking about someone with the
facilities to manufacture large quantities of class A drugs that would
be sold. Officers found information indicating that he had sought to
purchase a tableting machine with a maximum load of four tonnes."

Mr Collins, a biology undergraduate at London University, denies nine
charges relating to supply, possession, conspiracy to supply and
production of controlled drugs.

The court was told that a raid on the house in the village of Buckden,
Cambridgeshire, uncovered enough chemicals and equipment to produce
7,500 tablets of a drug called 2CB or 47,000 of a drug called DOB,
both hallucinogenic.

Officers found recipes on how to make obscure drugs, gleaned from
scientific papers and books, correspondence with drug companies, and
two computers, holding e-mails indicating an intent to supply

The trial continues.