2 DECADES OF FREEDOM END FOR FUGITIVE LSD MAKER

An LSD manufacturer who fled the United States in the 1970s to avoid a
long federal sentence was arraigned on federal flight charges in San
Francisco yesterday.

Nicholas Sand, 57, pleaded not guilty yesterday to fleeing the country
in 1974 to avoid serving a 15-year prison sentence for manufacturing
LSD and laundering profits from sales of the potent hallucinogen. He
is being held without bail and will appear in court June 16 to face
U.S. District Judge Sam Conte, the jurist who originally gave him his
long prison sentence.

An associate of LSD pioneer Tim Leary and fellow LSD guru Stanley
Owsley, Sand was one of the leaders of the psychedelic drug movement
in the early 1970s. Sand headed an international acid distribution
network and produced huge quantities of the drug at labs in
California, Colorado, Missouri and Belgium. Much of the drug was
marketed through an organization known as the Brotherhood of Eternal
Love. Sand was released on bail while his case was appealed after his
conviction in 1974. When the appeal failed, he went underground, then
left the country. For more than two decades, authorities could find no
trace of him. Then in 1996, Canadian investigators raided a mammoth
drug lab near Vancouver and discovered enough LSD to make 45 million
doses.

Checked-by: (trikydik)