Re: =>Albert Hofmann, Inventor of LSD, Embarks on Final Trip <=

"Sean Carroll" <seanc130@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:481c75ce$0$4045$bbae4d71@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "_ Prof. Jonez _" <theprof@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
>
>> He re****ts in his 1979 autobiography LSD, My Problem Child, that he 
>> became restless and dizzy when he accidentally ingested the compound 
>> while making it-and "perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic 
>> pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of 
>> colors" for about two hours.
>
> I don't think 'ingested' is the proper term. He absorbed it through his 
> fingertips, if I'm not mistaken.
>
>> The very next day (April 19, 1943), he swallowed 0.25 milligram of the 
>> acid to confirm that it had caused his odd symptoms.
>
> I thought it was more like 400 micrograms. Since no known compound at
the 
> time was so powerfully active in such small doses, he planned to start
out 
> small and gradually raise the dose, only to find that he had actually 
> taken enough to launch him on a fully intense trip about as powerful as 
> almost any trip gets. Since 250 micrograms is a relatively moderate
dose,


Street level doses are estimated to be 100 mics .

> it was my impression that it was closer to 400, which is about where the

> law of dimini****ng returns kicks in and any additional increases in dose

> only lengthen the trip without making it any more intense. But I could
be 
> wrong.

Experiment on yourself and re****t back to us.


>
>> Overcome by dizziness and anxiety, he asked an assistant to bicycle him

>> home; once there, he writes that he was overcome by feelings that he 
>> might die (prompting a later call to his physician), along with
delusions 
>> that included perceiving a kindly neighbor transformed into a
malevolent 
>> witch.
>
> It's im****tant to note that this is an incomplete and unbalanced account

> of the experience. It started out as frightening and terrible, yes. But 
> later on he regained his equilibrium and began to actually enjoy it.

That's what *she* said ...

>
>> Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, his employer at the time, tried to promote LSD
as 
>> a drug to treat psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia under the 
>> trade name Delysid by sending samples to psychiatrists-and the compound

>> was briefly used as the treatment du jour in conjunction with 
>> psychoanalysis.
>
> It wasn't just 'briefly used as the treatment du jour'. In fact, by the 
> early Sixties there were hundreds of formal papers being published a
year 
> by scientists about the powerful therapeutic potential it was showing,
as 
> well as the potential it demonstrated for teaching us a great deal about

> how the human brain actually works. It was only when the political
climate 
> became too hostile, with the government passing laws against it and 
> strongarming the scientific community into going along with its party
line 
> that it was 'a dangerous drug with no legitimate medical uses', that
this 
> promising research was abandoned.

In the prudish U$A ...