History of LSD
In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.
On the way, Hofmann's condition rapidly deteriorated as he struggled with feelings of anxiety, alternating in his beliefs that the next-door neighbor was a malevolent witch, that he was going insane, and that the LSD had poisoned him.
Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux ...The events of this first LSD trip, now known as "Bicycle Day", after the bicycle ride home, proved to Hofmann that he had indeed made a significant discovery: a psychoactive substance with extraordinary potency, capable of causing significant shifts of consciousness in incredibly low doses.
By the end of the 20th century, there were few authorized researchers left, and their efforts were mostly directed towards establishing approved protocols for further work with LSD in easing the suffering of the dying and with drug addicts and alcoholics.
Rick Doblin, an American drug researcher, described the work as "a proof of concept" that he hoped would "break these substances out of the mold of the counterculture and bring them back to the lab as part of a psychedelic renaissance.
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration claimed: Although the initial observations on the benefits of LSD were highly optimistic, empirical data developed subsequently proved less promising ... Its use in scientific research has been extensive and its use has been widespread.
Although he had no medical training, Hubbard collaborated on running psychedelic sessions with LSD with Ross McLean at Vancouver's Hollywood Hospital, with psychiatrists Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond; with Myron Stolaroff at the International Federation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park, California; and with Willis Harman at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI).
In 1955, Time magazine reported: "In Manhattan, Psychiatrist Harold A. Abramson of the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratory has developed a technique of serving dinner to a group of subjects, topping off the meal with a liqueur glass containing 40 micrograms of LSD.
Leary began conducting experiments with psilocybin in 1960 on himself and a number of Harvard graduate students after trying hallucinogenic mushrooms used in Native American religious rituals while visiting Mexico.
[citation needed] Later reexamination of Leary's data reveals his results to be skewed, whether intentionally or not; the percent of men in the study who ended up back in prison later in life was approximately 2% lower than the usual rate.
They then set up at a large private mansion owned by William Hitchcock, named after the small town in New York State where it is located, Millbrook, where they continued their experiments.
Leary refocused his efforts towards countering the tremendous amount of anti-LSD propaganda then being issued by the United States government, popularizing the slogan "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
[42] He also had close social connections with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and The Holding Company, regularly supplying them with LSD and working as their live sound engineer, creating many tapes of these groups in concert.
Announcing Owsley's first bust in 1966, The San Francisco Chronicle's headline "LSD Millionaire Arrested" inspired the rare Grateful Dead song "Alice D.
He frequently entertained friends and many others with parties he called "Acid Tests" involving music (such as Kesey's favorite band, The Warlocks, later known as the Grateful Dead), black lights, fluorescent paint, strobes and other "psychedelic" effects, and, of course, LSD.
[50] William Leonard Pickard earned a scholarship to Princeton University but dropped out after one term, instead preferring to hang out at Greenwich Village jazz clubs in New York City.
[51] The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) became interested in LSD when they read reports alleging that American prisoners during the Korean War were being brainwashed with the use of some sort of drug or "lie serum".
LSD was the original centerpiece of the top secret MKULTRA project, an ambitious undertaking conducted from the 1950s through the 70s designed to explore the possibilities of pharmaceutical mind control.
Hundreds of participants, including CIA agents, government employees, military personnel, prostitutes, members of the general public, and mental patients were given LSD, many without their knowledge or consent.
Looking to replicate the effects of nerve gas created by the Germans during World War II without the toxicity, LSD was sought for use under the pretense that it could induce hysteria and psychoses, or at least an inability to fight without wholesale destruction of the enemy and their properties.
The first group, which was essentially conservative and exemplified by Aldous Huxley, felt that LSD was too powerful and too dangerous to allow its immediate and widespread introduction, and that its use ought to be restricted to the 'elite' members of society—artists, writers, scientists—who could mediate its gradual distribution throughout society.
The second and more radical group, typified by Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary, felt that LSD had the power to revolutionize society and that it should be spread as widely as possible and be available to all.
During the 1960s, this second 'group' of casual LSD users evolved and expanded into a subculture that extolled the mystical and religious symbolism often engendered by the drug's powerful effects, and advocated its use as a method of raising consciousness.
The personalities associated with the subculture included spiritual gurus such as Leary and psychedelic rock musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane and the Beatles, and soon attracted a great deal of publicity, generating further interest in LSD.
Earlier in the year, British tabloid News of the World ran a sensational three-week series on "drug parties" hosted by rock group the Moody Blues and attended by leading stars including Donovan, the Who's Pete Townshend and Cream drummer Ginger Baker.
These free-form parties introduced many people on the West Coast to LSD for the first time, as documented in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Phil Lesh's Searching for the Sound.
Acid historian Jesse Jarnow describes how Grateful Dead concerts served as the United States' primary distribution network for LSD in the second half of the twentieth century.
In an interview, Green Day lead singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong recalled that he arrived at their house and saw Mike sitting on the floor with highly dilated pupils, holding his bass guitar.
This decline was due to negative publicity centred on side-effects of LSD use, its criminalization, and the increasing effectiveness of drug law enforcement efforts, rather than new medical information.
[65] In November 2015, Rolling Stone magazine reported on an increasing number of young professionals, particularly in the San Francisco area, who were using "microdosing" (around 10 micrograms) of LSD in an effort to "work through technical problems and become more innovative.
