The History of LSD

What is LSD

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is a psychedelic drug capable of producing vivid hallucinations from an oral dose as small as 25 micrograms. The amount is comparable to half a water droplet. Effects of LSD usually begin within half an hour of consumption and can last for up to 12 hours. Some users can experience flashbacks without consuming the drug again.

Photo above of crime scene in basement at 1050 South Elmira Street, Denver, credit to detective Jim Laurita.

Symptoms of an “acid trip” include dilated pupils, increased blood pressure, and increased body temperature, as well as vivid hallucinations and sensationalized perceptions. Since LSD is such a powerful and unpredictable hallucinogen, the trip can be pleasurable and enlightening or include terrifying thoughts and the sensation of a lack of control. Currently, the use or possession of any amount of LSD is a felony in the USA.

Photo above of crime scene in basement at 1050 South Elmira Street, Denver, credit to detective Jim Laurita.

Origin

Swedish Chemist, Albert Hofmann, synthesized LSD for the first time in 1938, while working for Sandoz Pharmaceutical on a program to purify and synthesize active constituents. The discovery was made when Hofmann was researching lysergic acid derivatives, with the main goal to obtain a respiratory and circulatory stimulant. However, its hallucinogenic effects remained undiscovered until 1943, when Hofmann accidentally ingested a small amount of LSD and had the world’s first acid trip.

Photo above of Albert Hoffman, credit unknown.

When researchers decided there was no medical use for LSD, Sandoz Pharmaceuticals broadly distributed free samples. LSD became more common in the 1960s, as use of the drug was popularized by poets and musicians. LSD became associated in the press and by politicians with antiwar protestations, sexual experimentation, and cultural upheaval. In 1967, the US officially banned LSD.

Photo above of scientist in a lab, credit unknown.

Project MK-Ultra

In the 1950s, the CIA began project MK-Ultra (also referred to as the CIA’s “mind-control program”) that lasted through the 1970s and consisted of clandestine experiments with LSD on a mix of volunteers and unsuspecting subjects. The experiments often focused on the most vulnerable members of society and took place in universities, hospitals, and prisons throughout the USA.

Photo above of CIA operative looking through one way glass, credit unknown.

MK-Ultra was formed in response to reports of mind-control in the Soviet Union and China, and the belief that LSD could be used as a psychological weapon. Hypnosis, shock therapy, interrogation and other dubious methods were enacted by MK-Ultra. Although MK-Ultra did not shut down until 1973, details of the program didn’t become public until 1975.

Photo above of man holding documents, credit unknown.

Experiments

Psychiatrist Dr. D. Ewen Cameron was one of the most notorious doctors working for the CIA. He had an extreme fascination with schizophrenia, leading him to put his patients into a prolonged sleep by injecting them with a daily mixture of drugs before awaking them with amphetamines to endure severe electro-shock treatments involving voltages forty times more intense than those considered safe and therapeutic at the time. People would be reduced to vegetative states as a result.

Photo above of man experiencing sensory deprivation, credit unknown.

Cameron was recorded locking a woman in a “box” for thirty-five days, where she was deprived of all light, smells and sounds. The CIA also funded a project at the Children’s International Summer Village, where children between the ages of seven and eleven were forcibly given large doses of LSD, and kept on the drugs for weeks at a time.

Photo above of human experimentation, credit unknown.