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

On Sat, 3 May 2008 10:25:18 -0400, "Sean Carroll"
<seanc130@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>"_ 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, 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.

The minute size of an LSD dose is a real problem - it's pretty much
impossible for most people who encounter the drug to make more than an
educated guess about how much they're taking - one compares the
effects to those re****ted by people who apparently did know the
amount, which is hardly an accurate technique.

In the case of Hofmann, unless there's evidence to the contrary, I'd
tend to trust his abilities as a scientist, and say that he got the
weight right. It might be that he was more sensitive to the drug than
most people (Aldous Huxley also seems to have been very sensitive to
it - the dosages he mentions are very small).

>> 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.

It's a pretty good example of the "set and setting" principle. He had
very odd effects for which he wasn't prepared - so they were
frightening. It's a testament to his character that he appears to
have, at some point, realised that despite the magnitude of the
subjective effects, he wasn't actually about to die of some exotic
poisoning.

I wonder whether the decision to ban the drug was partly based on the
results of the US government's research, which, as it involved giving
people LSD in completely inappropriate environments, and in some
cases, without them even knowing they were being dosed, was an almost
(but not quite) certain way of producing a bad trip./

>
>> 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.

As ****ing criminal an act as that of the catholic church with regard
to Galileo's telescope. 

pj