A Masked YouTuber Built a 14,500-Subscriber Business Teaching People to Synthesize LSD, DMT and Mescaline

A man who goes by Willy Myco spent roughly a decade posting videos that walk viewers through the actual chemistry of making illegal drugs, according to WIRED. Not tips. Not stories. Step-by-step synthesis instructions.

On Halloween 2024, Myco released what he called the most important video of his career: a tutorial claiming to show a full three-day process for producing what he described as "100 percent pure LSD." He told his audience it was the "world's first" video of its kind, according to WIRED's reporting.

There's a catch. WIRED reports that no test was conducted on camera to confirm the final liquid was actually LSD. Myco warned viewers that if the substance touched their skin or eyes they should "cancel your plans for a month." WIRED points out that's an exaggeration. Most LSD trips run their course in under a day, with rare exceptions.

That single video sits atop a library of more than 120 tutorials, per WIRED. Subjects range from growing psilocybin mushrooms to extracting mescaline from cacti to preparing DMT vape cartridges. This isn't a guy who stumbled into one viral video. It's a sustained content operation built around teaching people to make Schedule I controlled substances at home.

The Business Model

Myco didn't just give this away for free. WIRED reports his Patreon had more than 14,500 subscribers, with nearly 2,500 of them paying to access the detailed tutorials. He also sold mushroom genetics, branded merchandise, and consulting services to mushroom growers, according to WIRED.

One hoodie he wore in the LSD video carried the slogan "Love My Country But Fuck The Government." That's a fine sentiment to print on a sweatshirt. It's a different matter when the same person is selling paid access to instructions for synthesizing psychoactive drugs that are illegal under federal law in every state.

His YouTube channel, "Willy's World," had accumulated more than 96,000 followers before WIRED reached out to the platform for comment, at which point YouTube took it down. A YouTube spokesperson identified in WIRED's report as Boot Bullwinkle said the channel was removed "under our terms of service, which prohibit creating new channels after a termination" — meaning Myco had apparently been banned before and came back.

Myco pushed back on Instagram, according to WIRED, claiming the YouTube channel had "zero strikes whatsoever" and that he posted only "super censored and safe content there." He framed the takedown as YouTube being "back on their BS again."

Shortly after, Patreon pulled his account too. A Patreon spokesperson told WIRED the platform "prohibits works that provide" instructions of this kind, though the statement WIRED published was cut off before spelling out the exact policy language.

Where This Lands

Myco frames himself as an educator preserving "scientific knowledge." There's a real argument that harm-reduction information, like knowing what a drug actually is before ingesting it, saves lives. Fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills kill people every single day precisely because buyers don't know what they're taking.

But there's a wide gap between harm-reduction education and a paid tutorial series teaching viewers to synthesize LSD from raw precursors in their own kitchen. One is information about risk. The other is a manufacturing manual monetized behind a paywall. Federal law doesn't distinguish between the two, and neither should common sense. Manufacturing LSD, DMT or mescaline is a felony under the Controlled Substances Act regardless of whether the person doing it calls himself a scientist or wears a mask on camera.

WIRED's coverage treats Myco largely as a curiosity, a masked outlaw educator caught in a cat-and-mouse game with content moderators. What that framing leaves out is any indication that law enforcement has taken interest in his activities. No charges have been filed. No investigation has been publicly announced by the DEA or any other agency, based on what's in the reporting.

That's the open question. A person spent ten years building a subscriber base in the thousands around instructional content for producing controlled substances, collected money for it, and got kicked off two major platforms only after a journalist started asking questions. Whether that triggers any actual law enforcement response, or whether Myco simply migrates to another platform and rebuilds his following, remains to be seen.