A Brief History of LSD

LSD is the psychoactive chemical lysergic acid diethylamide. It is a potent hallucinogenic drug colloquially known as acid. LSD is most often prepared as a liquid and is usually ingested, though it can take effect by being absorbed through the skin. A person under the influence of LSD is said to be "tripping." The duration of a trip is anywhere from 6 to 12 hours depending on the amount taken, during which "a wide variety of perceptual changes may occur; non-specific mental and physical stimulation, pupil dilation, closed and open eye patterning and visuals, changed thought patterns, feelings of insight, confusion, or paranoia, and quickly changing emotions (happiness, fear, giddiness, anxiety, anger, joy, irritation)" (Erowid). LSD is derived from lysergic acid, which is naturally made by the ergot fungus. Lysergic acid is legal to buy in the U.S. and can be illegally processed into lysergic acid diethylamide ("LSD").

LSD was created or, to be more accurate, discovered on April 16, 1943. One morning Dr. Albert Hofmann was working at his laboratory in Basel, Switzerland. He was employed by Sandoz, a large pharmaceutical company, and was in the midst of attempting to synthesize some of the chemicals present in ergot, a unique mold that grows on rye (Gahlinger 309). At the time, his main goal was to develop a circulatory and respiratory stimulant for use in medicine (Erowid). Five years earlier in 1938 he had completed the twenty-fifth compound in a series of compounds combining lysergic acid with diethylamide, and had logically called it LSD-25 after the German LyserSaure Diathylamid. On this day he had made a new batch of the compound for further testing, and sometime during his handling of the liquid Hofmann managed to spill a small amount on his bare hands. Shortly thereafter, he began to feel strange and somewhat disoriented. He went home, afraid he had been poisoned, and for several hours afterward experienced a host of spectacular visual and mental effects (Gahlinger 309).

According to common speculation this was considered to be the invention of LSD, though it is not the first instance of use in recorded history. A cult existed in ancient Greece surrounding the Athenian temple of Eleusis and listed among its members such prominent names as Aristotle, Sophocles, Plato, and the Roman emperors Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and Hadrian. Initiation into the cult included secret rites of passage that were known to produce extreme enlightenment and wonder in those who survived them. These rites remained a mystery for millennia until Hofmann later hypothesized that since ergot mold readily grew on grains native to Greece and since molded wheat was often depicted in Eleusian art, it is safe to assume that the cultists drank an ergot potion and therefore experienced LSD (Gahlinger 43-44).

On April 19, 1943, three days after his unintentional exposure to lysergic diethylamide and his subsequent intoxication, Hofmann intentionally took a measured dose of LSD-25. He could only assume that it was the cause of his altered state of mind a few days before and wanted to be sure. This essentially was the first time LSD was tested for its effects on the brain, and by taking it himself Hofmann was able to confirm that it was in fact a psychoactive chemical. In the following years, Hofmann and his co-workers conducted many experiments on themselves in order to note the drug's effects on the human body and mind (Lee and Shlain 21). In 1949, Dr. Max Rinkel, a representative of Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, brought LSD to the United States for further testing at laboratories in Boston and Los Angles. By May of 1950, sufficient research had been conducted that the first article on the effects of LSD was published in The American Psychiatric Journal (Lee and Shlain 23).

In the early 1950s, with the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union in full swing, both nations had stockpiled enough explosives that they began to branch out and experiment with less conventional chemical weaponry. Military intelligence reported that the Soviets had received 50 million doses of LSD from Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, which prompted the C.I.A. to explore LSD's incapacitating properties for use as a military weapon (Gahlinger 48). At this point the C.I.A. had already conducted experiments with several other drugs to see if they had any practical military purpose. In 1942 the C.I.A. had called together twelve American scientists and asked them to take part in a secret research project whose purpose was to find a drug that could be used during interrogations in order to make prisoners more apt to talk. When they first began experimenting with LSD in 1951, alcohol, barbiturates, caffeine, peyote, and marijuana had already been tried. These substances had been tested on the C.I.A. members themselves, co-workers, and soldiers enlisted in the U.S. Army. None of the drugs had proven useful (Lee and Shlain 20-26).

The C.I.A. first tested LSD on the military. Officers were given a reasonable dose and told a secret, then specifically told not to reveal that secret. They would then be interrogated, and each time they would consistently revealed whatever the secret was in its entirety and later have no recollection of doing so. This lead the C.I.A. to believe that LSD was the perfect interrogation stimulus, causing a person to first give the interrogator information and then have no memory of the incident a few hours later. However, they soon found that LSD also had significant negative effects. Sometimes a person would, instead of revealing information, lose track of reality and be of no real use. The C.I.A. also noted that the hallucinations caused by the drug were counterproductive and time-consuming during the interrogation. They eventually determined that although a person could not recall exactly what had been said, the memory had not truly been erased but instead was just distorted (Lee and Shlain 21-36).

Since its use as an interrogation tool was now sufficiently proven unreliable, the C.I.A. began to experiment with LSD as an offensive weapon. At the time, officials were already worried that the Soviets would try something such as that, perhaps introducing a large amount of LSD into a city's water supply. This paranoia led to a method of experimentation even less scrupulous than the previous instances. A secret branch of the C.I.A. named MK-ULTRA purchased 10 kilos of the drug for testing, enough LSD for 100 million doses (Lee and Shlain 37). They commissioned the American drug company Eli Lilly, who had synthesized LSD by this time, to satisfy their order (Gahlinger 48). Instead of conducting experiments with knowing test subjects, MK-ULTRA was content to test LSD on unwitting American citizens without their consent or even their knowledge. Agents would sometimes dose a random person on the street, presumably by bringing the person's exposed skin in contact with an amount of liquid LSD, and then follow them for hours to watch their behavior. Other times an agent would pay prostitutes to take the drug while they witnessed its effects. Occasionally, members of MK-ULTRA would even dose each other without consent. Eventually the higher-ranking officials of the C.I.A. became aware of what had been going on and began to have serious doubts about the program. The experimentation came to an end when the officials got word that a few members of MK-ULTRA had plans to put LSD in the punch at the annual office Christmas party (Lee and Shlain 37-41).

In the 1960s other professions began to take interest in what LSD could be used for. Psychiatrists would administer the drug to patients as a type of therapy for those with mental illness such as schizophrenia ("LSD"). Today the cause of schizophrenia is still not completely understood, and in the late 1950s all psychiatric medications were nothing more than tranquilizers, used to supress the patient's disorder rather than cure it. LSD offered the possibility that patients could resolve their conflicts rather than merely supress them because it increased awareness instead of hindering it (Gahlinger 49). Some doctors believed LSD was such a strong psychoactive drug that it could be a cure-all for any person with severe mental illness (Stanislav 13). Unfortunately, the many experiments conducted had various degrees of success and overall the treatment was not well accepted amongst professionals (Lee and Shlain 35).

During this time, the paranoia amongst the public regarding strange and "dangerous" drugs was growing. LSD was specifically demonized, most likely due to the strange nature of its effects and the fact that its level of abuse had grown significantly. A Harvard psychologist named Timothy Leary liked LSD so much that he set out on a crusade to promote its use, traveling around the country with a fellow Harvard psychologist named Richard Alpert and encouraging the use of LSD wherever he went. Leary was eventually arrested, but then escaped, fled to Africa, was arrested again, and served three years in prison. After he was released he toured the country giving joint lectures with the FBI agent who had arrested him, a man named G. Gordon Liddy, who would later become famous as a criminal in the Watergate scandal (Gahlinger 51-52).

Military, medical, and recreational uses for LSD soon became a moot point when, in 1968, Congress passed a bill proposed by President Johnson banning all hallucinogenic drugs. The Sandoz plant in New Jersey was forced to turn over all of its product (Gahlinger 53). The use of LSD waned slightly but the drug was never unavailable, and in recent times use is said to be on the uprise. A survey taken in 1975 found that 7.2% of seniors in high school admitted to using LSD in the last year (Lee and Shlain 40). Today, it is estimated that around ten underground laboratories in northern California are responsible for the bulk of LSD available in the United States due to the difficult process involved in making it. The process requires and advanced knowledge of chemistry and several rare compounds that are difficult to obtain and are illegal in the U.S (Gahlinger 311).

"LSD." Cool Nurse. 2000. n.pag. 25 May 2005

Erowid. "The discovery of LSD and LSD use on the Rise." Erowid. 1996. n.pag. 25 May 2005

Lee, Martin and Bruce Shlain. Acid Dreams. New York: Grove Press, 1985.

Stanislav, Grof. LSD Psychotherapy. California: Hunter House Publishers, 1980.

Gahlinger, Paul. Illegal Drugs. New York: Penguin Group, 2001