LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) - Overview

Overview

LSD was first synthesized, or made in a lab, in 1938. It was created from a mold called ergotPronounced URH-got; a fungus that grows on grains, particularly rye, and contains lysergic acid, a chemical used to make LSD. that infests rye and other grains. Drug researchers initially hoped that this new substance would be useful in treating severe headaches. Because of its similarity to chemicals that occur in the human brain, it was later used in the study of mental illness.

History Dates Back to World War II

The hallucinogenic effects of LSD were discovered in 1943 in Basel, Switzerland. Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann (1906–), a researcher at Sandoz Laboratories, had produced the first batch of the drug five years earlier. One day in April of 1943, Hofmann accidentally ingested some of the compound while experimenting with various ergot-based products. He soon experienced extraordinary visual symptoms similar to the mosaic pattern seen through a kaleidoscope.

Official Drug Name: Lysergic acid diethylamide (lih-SERJ-ik AH-sid die-ETH-uhl-AH-mide), LSD 25, Delysid (brand name); almost always referred to as LSD

Also Known As: More than eighty street names, including acid, backbreaker, battery acid, blotter, boomers, brown acid, cid, contact lenses, doses, dots, electric kool-aid, looney tunes, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, microdots, panes, purple haze, sunshine, windowpanes, yellow sunshine, zen

Drug Classifications: Schedule I, hallucinogen

When Hofmann's vision returned to normal, he deliberately took a larger second dose to see if the same effects would occur. The bizarre sensations returned but proved to be even more intense. Soon after taking this second dose, Hofmann began feeling dizzy and disoriented. While bicycling home from his laboratory, he developed distortions of his senses. They included profound changes in his hearing, the perception of fantastically vivid colors, and an inability to judge distance. In his account of this first LSD experience, included in his book LSD: My Problem Child, Hofmann wrote: "A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind, and soul."

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered LSD and tried it on himself. He described his first experience with the drug in his book LSD: My Problem Child: A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind, and soul. Photo by Keystone/G
Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered LSD and tried it on himself. He described his first experience with the drug in his book LSD: My Problem Child: "A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind, and soul." Photo by Keystone/Getty Images.

Suspecting that the new drug might be a useful tool in the advancement of psychotherapyThe treatment of emotional problems by a trained therapist using a variety of techniques to improve a patient's outlook on life., Sandoz Laboratories produced it as Delysid. According to Edward M. Brecher in The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs, the company supplied Delysid in "experimental quantities" to psychiatrists at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. These psychiatrists soon determined that even microgramsA millionth of a gram; there are 28 grams in 1 ounce. of the drug prompted extreme reactions. Brecher noted that "an amount of LSD weighing as little as the aspirin in a five-grain tablet is enough to produce effects in 3,000 people."

LSD Comes to America

Hofmann and his fellow experimenters published their initial findings on LSD in 1947. Two years later, doctors at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital (which became the Massachusetts Mental Health Center) learned about LSD from the Austrian physician Otto Kauders. The American doctors obtained some of the drug from Sandoz Laboratories and undertook their own experiments. For the next several years in the United States, LSD was largely restricted to the scientific and medical communities. It showed promise as a breakthrough in the treatment of psychological disorders. "This was an extraordinary substance," wrote Antonio Escohotado in A Brief History of Drugs: From the Stone Age to the Stoned Age.

In the early 1960s, before LSD became an illegal drug, various scientists conducted experiments with volunteers. Here, a homemaker experiences the effects of LSD while others observe her. Photo by John Loengard/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.
In the early 1960s, before LSD became an illegal drug, various scientists conducted experiments with volunteers. Here, a homemaker experiences the effects of LSD while others observe her. Photo by John Loengard/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

By 1951 news of LSD had reached the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), an organization responsible for American security. Agency officials wanted to investigate the use of LSD as a truth serum and, possibly, a form of nonviolent warfare that would incapacitate the enemy. The CIA began a government-funded research program to examine the effects of the drug. Initially, the operation was centered at Boston Psychopathic Hospital. There, LSD was administered to students and soldiers to test its effects. But experimentation led to disaster when one of the test subjects jumped out of a window and fell to his death.

LSD Experimentation Studies

Even though LSD was discovered in the late 1930s, its use was most widespread in the 1960s. At that time, it was viewed by members of the counterculture as a way to alter and intensify virtually all experiences. Many people used it to stimulate the creative process. The drug influenced everything from the tie-dyed clothing styles to the art, music, and motion pictures of the era.

The reputation of LSD as a mind-altering drug caught the interest of psychiatrists and researchers at various universities. Soon such institutions began sponsoring widespread studies of the drug. They even paid college students and others to take the drug and be observed under its effects.

The 1960s: The LSD Era

LSD use was high in the 1960s—a time of political and social turmoil in the United States. The quest for social justice was one of the key concerns among young Americans during the era. Antiwar sentiment had grown in the United States against the war in Vietnam (1954–1975). Protests against America's role in the conflict marked the decade.

The era was also an important time for civil rights in the United States. However, the civil rights movement was dealt a major blow with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), the leader of the peaceful protest movement, in the late 1960s. Presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy (1925–1968), the brother of murdered U.S. president John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), was also assassinated. In the midst of America's grief and social upheaval, other causes started gaining momentum. Notable among these were the call for women's rights and a more responsible attitude toward the environment.

As youth around the country rallied together in support of these causes, many took an antiestablishment attitude. This means that they wanted to do things differently than their parents had. Many rejected mainstream society's ideas and instead experimented with new ways of doing things, such as living together and wearing bell-bottoms and tie-dyed t-shirts with psychedelic colors. They also started experimenting with drugs, such as LSD. For some, the dangers of such experimentation were soon revealed.

The use of LSD and other drugs eventually influenced the arts. One of the people who experimented with LSD was Ken Kesey (1935–2001). He first tried the drug in the early 1960s when he volunteered to be observed under the effects of the drug at Boston Psychopathic Hospital. Kesey enjoyed the sensory experience he received taking LSD. He later worked at the hospital as a psychiatric aide. He used his experiences and observations for his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Released as a film in 1975, the story won many Academy Awards that year.

LSD also influenced various musicians. Songs by The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, and The Beatles are reportedly inspired by the acid culture. In fact, The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" has become a street name for the drug LSD.

The Influence of Timothy Leary

The rate of LSD experimentation was particularly high at Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It drew the attention of Timothy Leary (1920–1996), a psychologist who had joined the university's faculty in 1960. Leary had already experimented with other hallucinogenic substances and soon became a key promoter of LSD use.

Timothy Leary believed that LSD was a liberating and mind-expanding drug. He became famous for telling people to use LSD to turn on, tune in, [and] drop out. AP/Wide World Photos.
Timothy Leary believed that LSD was a liberating and mind-expanding drug. He became famous for telling people to use LSD to "turn on, tune in, [and] drop out." AP/Wide World Photos.

"By this time we had become aware of an international network of scientists and scholars experimenting with psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, LSD, and mescaline," Leary wrote in his autobiography Flashbacks (1983). "They varied widely in age and temperament and held widely differing ideas about how the drugs should be used. One powerful [idea] was common to all: these plants and drugs, as expanders of human consciousness, could revolutionize psychology and philosophy."

With the encouragement of novelist Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), Leary launched a public campaign recommending LSD as a liberating and mind-expanding drug. Huxley had gained fame decades earlier with his futuristic novel Brave New World (1932), and he championed psychedelic drug use in a later work called The Doors of Perception (1954). Word of LSD's hallucinogenic properties rapidly spread across the country. By the mid-1960s, the drug had become an undeniable part of American culture.

However, Leary's experiments with and ideas about LSD were controversial, especially at Harvard. Parents of many of his students were upset to hear that their children were using drugs, no matter if the drugs were being administered in a clinic setting. These parents were concerned because they had sent their children to Harvard to get an education and become leaders, not become drug users. Ultimately Leary was fired from Harvard in 1963 amid the controversy. He went on to conduct experiments elsewhere and sometimes ran into legal trouble. Nevertheless, he gave lectures throughout the country urging people to "turn on, tune in, [and] drop out."

Psychedelics, Flower Power, and the City of Love

Augustus Owsley Stanley III, more commonly known as Owsley, supplied much of the LSD that circulated in the United States in the late 1960s. His lab was located in San Francisco, California—the center of America's acid culture. The Haight-Ashbury district within the city became a gathering place for young men and women arriving from around the country.

Soon, San Francisco gained a reputation as the "City of Love." Its radical residents were termed "hippies." Their philosophy of peace, love, drugs, rock 'n' roll, and psychedelic experiences gave birth to the "flower power" movement. However, the movement in San Francisco lasted only a few years. By 1969, the end of the era was evident when violence erupted near the city at a free concert given by the Rolling Stones and other bands. One fan was stabbed to death and several others died at the event. The chaos of the music festival is chronicled in the documentary film Gimme Shelter.

After the Sixties

LSD was made illegal in the United States in 1967. By the early 1970s, LSD use had declined in the nation. Owsley and Leary had both been arrested, and the drug seemed to lose its appeal. Then, in the late 1980s, the rave culture hit the United States. A new generation of young American drug users was firmly established by the mid-1990s. LSD was one of the drugs they began taking.

Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary died at his Beverly Hills, California, home on May 31, 1996. The last word he spoke was reported to have been "Beautiful." Leary's body was cremated according to his wishes. The February after his death, a portion of his ashes was launched into space.

Most of the LSD distributed in the United States and Europe from 1996 to 2000 was made in illegal labs operated by two California men, William Leonard Pickard and Clyde Apperson. The pair had set up labs in California, Oregon, New Mexico, and Kansas, where they manufactured nearly $100 million worth of LSD each month. Both men were arrested in November of 2000. Over the next two years, the availability of the illicitUnlawful. drug decreased by 95 percent in the United States. In 2003, three years after their arrests, Pickard and Apperson were found guilty of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute LSD. Pickard was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Apperson received a thirty-year sentence in prison without parole. According to a DEA press release, "this was the single largest seizure of an operable LSD lab in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration."

Combining drugs and dancing is not a new trend that began with raves. The combination was popular back in the 1960s when many people experimented with hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD. Ted Streshinsky/Corbis.
Combining drugs and dancing is not a new trend that began with raves. The combination was popular back in the 1960s when many people experimented with hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD. © Ted Streshinsky/Corbis.