In my opinion, if he was high he would have given himself away accidentally.

I don’t see drugs as a factor here.

I also do not see mental illness as a factor. There is no way that zodiac had a debilitating mental illness, aside from being a sociopath and a murderer I feel zodiac was probably mentally stable. Most mentally ill have a very poor grasp on reality, and if this were the case zodiac would not have been successful.

Zodiac is described as having a clear and calm cadence of speech, and is described as being "military or police like" in his actions and gestures. His actions appear to be quite calculated, and have managed to confound and stump experts of all types. I don’t see debilitating mental illness or drugs as a factor.

If you can find some evidence to the contrary I will change my views as the evidence dictates.

Please redirect if there is an existing thread about this. I’ve heard people mention the Zodiac may have been on psychedelic drugs while writing his letters. Just reread them and it certainly makes sense — they very much seem like the ramblings of someone tripping balls. Is there any serious writings on this or other thoughts people would like to share? Thanks!

Mental illness can often look very similar to somebody on a psychedelic trip, especially schizophrenia. And at least three of the well known POI’s have links with schizophrenia. It could be either drugs or mental illness and often it could be both. Plenty of people take psychedelics regularly and never hurt a fly. On the other hand it takes some sort of mental problem to murder people and make a game out of it…

The psychotomimetic theory regarding psychedelics has been long disproven. Psychedelics do not mimic psychosis and schizophrenia is not mediated by endogenous 5HT2a/c receptor agonists.

( All traditional psychedelics are agonists at 5HT2a/c receptor sites. )

There is something called Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder or "HPPD". With HPPD an individual may retain psychedelic symptoms long after the compound has metabolized and passed out of the system. These symptoms are generally visual distortions, like patterns, waves, tunnels, spirals, objects changing size, shape, and color, and so on. A psychedelic psychological state might also persist, however, HPPD is temporary, and subjects always recover.

Any trained psychologist should be easily able to differentiate HPPD from actual mental illness, though some features might appear quite similar, specially to the untrained eye.

Regardless, I do not see any of this as relating to zodiac.

I am a chemist by trade, but I specialize in the synthesis, pharmacology, and psychological effect of lysergamide, tryptamine, and phenethylamine compounds, and honestly, I do not see it as a factor here, but again, it’s just my opinion.

No. Nothing about the Zodiac’s communications indicate he was a drug user or was using drugs at the time each letter was written. I suppose one could make the argument that the Zodiac was drunk when he wrote the Belli letter but I think that was by the Zodiac’s design.

The Zodiac, in my opinion, didn’t have a mental illness either. He knew what he was doing every step of the way and every bit can be followed by any sane person.

Soze

While I don’t believe zodiac had a "debilitating" form of mental illness, I do suspect that there was some underlying problem.

LOL, ya’ think? The guy was obviously crazy as a shithouse rat. Crazy manifests itself in different ways in different people.

While I don’t believe zodiac had a "debilitating" form of mental illness, I do suspect that there was some underlying problem.

LOL, ya’ think? The guy was obviously crazy as a shithouse rat. Crazy manifests itself in different ways in different people.

What I was saying is that besides being "crazy as a shithouse rat" (awesome term btw) I still think there was some deeper mental problem at the root of it all, aside from general psychopathy. But we will never know, so it’s all just armchair speculation

Yeah, I think we’re saying the same thing, just had to rib you about that post. In my opinion, the guy was like a slow burn nutcase. He could keep it hid in everyday life, but it was there, it was deep seated, and it was serious.

Thanks for the responses. Sounds like there hasn’t been any particular research on this topic then. Can’t recall where I heard this theory — probably Greysmith’s first book, and that tome is "problematic" to say the least. Anyway, if anyone comes across someone who’s looked into this let me know.

While I don’t believe zodiac had a "debilitating" form of mental illness, I do suspect that there was some underlying problem. Kaczynski’s medical reports show multiple doctors listed him as having schizophrenia or a schizotypal disorder, and he managed to evade authorities for decades (though he claims he is NOT sick). Sullivan and Gaikowski also have links with mental illness.

I’m not a chemist by trade, but do know a little bit about chemistry, and have personal experience with compounds in all three of the families you’ve listed (most in the phenethylamine and tryptamine based compounds). I also have personal experience dealing with schizophrenic people, and can say that it can manifest in many varying degrees.

My main point was not to blame drugs for zodiac’s actions, but more so towards some degree of mental illness. From first-hand experience I can tell you some schizophrenic people can display behavior that is almost indistinguishable from the behavior I’ve seen while people are on psychedelics. Personally I have nothing against drugs in any form, as long as you’re not hurting anybody. These compounds are actually what pushed me in the direction of horticulture and biotechnology in school, before life got in the way…

While I don’t believe that zodiac was "tripping balls" during his run of terror, I also cannot definitively state that drugs didn’t play a part in the writings or cipher creations, as they were readily available during that time period.

As with everything else in this case, it seems there is no definitive proof of anything other than the fact that innocent people were murdered by a maniac.

Ok, I understand.

Obviously there was some "mental problem" with the guy, it’s just that I don’t see it as being debilitating, at least not in the traditional sense. Ted is a great example, though when I compare Ted to other schizophrenics there are obvious differences, which is probably why an exact diagnosis never stuck.

I’m not a chemist by trade, but do know a little bit about chemistry, and have personal experience with compounds in all three of the families you’ve listed (most in the phenethylamine and tryptamine based compounds). I also have personal experience dealing with schizophrenic people, and can say that it can manifest in many varying degrees.

I am not sure exactly what you meant in the quote above, if you can elaborate it would be helpful.

I understand that psychedelic states can at times resemble schizophrenic states, though there are key differences physiologically and psychologically between two, so while in certain instances they May resemble one another, they are actually quite different. However, I do understand, there are times when my psychedelic experiences had given me personal insight into schizophrenia, and I have often said that schizophrenics at times resemble an individual who has been given psychedelics without their knowledge or permission. Though one must be very careful in these comparisons as they are only accurate in a trivial manner.

The reason why I focus on tryptamine and phenethylamine (and lysergamide) compounds is because of mono-amine neurotransmitters. Serotonin is 5-hydroxy-tryptamine, dopamine is 3,4-dihydroxy-phenethylamine, melatonin is N-acetyl-5-methoxy-tryptamine, norepinephrine is beta,3,4-trimethoxy-phenethylamine, epinephrine is beta,3,4-trimethoxy-N-methyl-phenethylamine. Psychedelics are variations of these neurotransmitters, (not to mention that N,N-dimethyltryptamine is endogenously produced) let’s say we took dopamine and added two methyl groupings to position 3 and 4 and a methoxy grouping to position 5, we would have 3,4,5-trimeyhoxy-phenethylamine also known as mescaline. Or, let’s look at serotonin, move the hydroxy grouping from position 5 to position 4 and add two methyl groupings to the amine nitrogen and you go from serotonin to psilocin. Or, as an external compound serotonin would not be orally active for two reasons, the hydroxyl grouping at position 5 acts as a large hydrophilic lump and is too polar to allow passage beyond the blood brain barrier, and the exposed amine nitrogen at the end of the two carbon side chain makes the molecule amenable to oxidative deamination by monoamine-oxidase enzymes, however, if one were to place methyl groupings at these two positions one would have produced 5-methoxy-alpha-methyl-tryptamine, a psychedelic active at doses as low as 2mgs.
I see these psychedelics as exogenous neurotransmitters.

…I am getting off topic though, and believe it or not, very little of what I discussed actually involves the chemistry that I practice, which is primarily focused on synthesis of tryptamine, phenethylamine, and lysergamide compounds.

I have put a great deal of effort into trying to dispelling the myth that "psychedelics make you crazy", actually in most cases psychedelics seem to enhance cognition rather than diminish it*. (Though There is a condition called HPPD which I described in my last post)
*

Current research offers some tantalizing support for claims that psychedelics can be used to enhance cognition, improve intelligence, and strengthen cognitive studies.

A significant instance of problem solving resulted in a Nobel Prize for Kary Mullis. Until the invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a common problem in biology was that biological samples were often too small to analyze, but Mullis solved that and won a Nobel Prize. He described how LSD aided him in doing so.

"PCR’s another place where I was down there with the molecules when I discovered it and I wasn’t stoned on LSD, but my mind by then had learned how to get down there. I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch the [indistinct] go by. . . . I’ve learned that partially I would think, and this is again my opinion, through psychedelic drugs . . . if I had not taken LSD ever would I have still been in PCR? I don’t know, I doubt it, I seriously doubt it." (Mullis 1998; "Horizon: Psychedelic Science" 1997)

From the point of view of psychedelic cognitive studies, Mullis’s example is noteworthy because he did not have his insight while taking psychedelics but instead used psychedelics to increase his ability to visualize, then transferred that cognitive skill back to his ordinary mindbody state. This confirms the idea that some skills learned in one state can be transferred to another. Transference and nontransference between mindbody states is itself a cognitive process that deserves study — learning to remember dreams, for example. Learning to increase this flow, if it is possible, would increase access to stores of information and possibly to new cognitive skills.

Unlike Mullis’s experience of transferring a skill back to his ordinary state, most instances of psychedelic problem solving occur while the person’s cognitive processes are psychedelically augmented. This is most clearly illustrated by "Psychedelic Agents in Creative Problem Solving: A Pilot Study," by Willis Harman, a professor of engineering economic systems, and a team of researchers at Stanford Research Institute. Working with twenty-seven men who were "engaged in various professional occupations, i.e., engineers, physicists, mathematicians, architects, a furniture designer, and a commercial artist and had a total of 44 professional problems they wanted to work on," the Stanford Research Institute team divided them into groups of three or four and gave them 200 milligrams of mescaline, followed by a quiet period of listening to music. Then they had snacks and discussed their problems with their group. Following this they spent three or four hours working alone on their problems. As a result of psychedelic enhancement, the practical results were impressive.
http://realitysandwich.com/170866/expan … e_studies/

While you are right, it is impossible to say if zodiac used drugs or not, I was simply saying that personally I had not seen any indication of psychedelic drug use or psychedelic culture influencing zodiac.

…mental illness is harder to speculate on.