U.S. LSD FUGITIVE PLEADS GUILTY

VANCOUVER (CP) - A psychedelic drug maker wanted in the United States
for more than 20 years has pleaded guilty to trafficking LSD after a huge
drug lab bust in a Vancouver suburb in 1996.

Nicholas Sand, 58, was to go to trial next month but entered a surprise
guilty plea this week to four counts of possession for the purpose of
trafficking. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Sand is wanted in California, where he jumped bail in 1976 while appealing
a 15-year sentence for manufacturing LSD. He will face an extradition
hearing later this year.

He had been busted in 1974 and convicted of operating an LSD drug lab in
San Francisco.

Sand had links in the 1960s and '70s to the late psychedelic guru Timothy
Leary and the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.

He was arrested Sept. 26, 1996, when police raided a drug lab in Port
Coquitlam that was producing a number of drugs, including LSD, Ecstasy and
Nexus.

The lab also contained enough raw materials to make 45 million hits of LSD,
police said.

Also seized were guns, $500,000 cash and gold bullion.

Sand was living in the warehouse, which had been converted into an $800,000
lab-residence.

In 1990, Sand was arrested when police raided a lab making LSD and designer
drugs in B.C.'s Interior.

He disappeared while on bail, without police discovering his true identity.

When he was arrested Port Coquitlam, he had phoney identification and it
took two months for police to discover he was a U.S. fugitive.

LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide, was developed in the 1940s by the Sandoz
Pharmaceutical company in Switzerland.

It was originally used to mimic psychosis for research purposes.

Later, such writers as Allen Ginsberg and Alan Watts popularized LSD for
its hallucinogenic qualities.