The Psychedelic Drug LSD on This Day in History

 

Today in History: LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergotamine at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel on this day in 1938. "Hofmann was experimenting with different compounds in search of a cure for migraines. While LSD didn’t provide it, it did capture his attention when some spilled on his hand. Within the hour, he felt dreamy and dizzy. A deliberate experiment with the drug a few days later had him giggling uncontrollably. He needed an assistant to escort him home—a path, he later said, that made him feel as though he were inside a Salvador Dali painting." Mental Floss

LSD does not appear to be addictive, and death as a result of LSD overdose is virtually unknown; on extremely rare occasions, however, death can be the result of accidents or reckless behavior.

As of 2017, about 10 percent of people in the United States have used LSD at some point in their lives, while 0.7 percent have used it in the last year. It was most popular in the 1960s to 1980s. The use of LSD among US adults increased 56.4% from 2015 to 2018. LSD is typically either swallowed or held under the tongue. It is most often sold on blotter paper and less commonly as tablets or in gelatin squares. 

LSD can catalyze intense spiritual experiences and is thus considered an entheogen. Some users have reported out of body experiences. In 1966, Timothy Leary established the League for Spiritual Discovery with LSD as its sacrament. Stanislav Grof has written that religious and mystical experiences observed during LSD sessions appear to be phenomenologically indistinguishable from similar descriptions in the sacred scriptures of the great religions of the world and the texts of ancient civilizations.

In the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believed that the drug might be useful for mind control, so they tested it on people, some without their knowledge, in a program called MKUltra. LSD was sold as a medication for research purposes under the trade-name Delysid in the 1950s and 1960s. It was listed as a schedule 1 controlled substance by the United Nations in 1971. It currently has no approved medical use. In 2020, it would be decriminalized in the U.S. state of Oregon.

The Beatles have denied that their song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a reference to LSD. However, the songs "She Said She Said" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" from the Beatles' Revolver album explicitly reference LSD trips, and many lines of "Tomorrow Never Knows" were borrowed from Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience. Around the same time, bands such as Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, and The Grateful Dead helped give birth to a genre known as "psychedelic rock" or acid rock. In 1965, The Pretty Things released an album called Get the Picture? which included a track titled "L.S.D."

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, "Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life" and Kary Mullis credited LSD with helping him develop DNA amplification technology, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993.