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From 'problem child' to 'prodigy'? LSD turns 75
Lysergic acid diethylamide was labelled a "problem child" by the man who discovered its hallucinogenic properties in 1943: as it turns 75, the drug known as LSD may now be changing its image.
The late Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann famously learned of LSD's psychedelic effects when he inadvertently took a small dose while doing lab work for pharmaceutical company Sandoz.
He wanted the drug to be medically researched, convinced it could be a valuable psychiatric tool and lead to a deeper understanding of human consciousness.
But through the 1960s, LSD became synonymous with counterculture and anti-authority protests.
By the early 1970s, it had been widely criminalised in the West, prompting Hofmann to publish his 1979 memoir, "LSD: My Problem Child".
Related Stories
Study shows how LSD interferes with brain's signalling
A group of volunteers who took a trip in the name of science have helped researchers uncover how LSD messes with activity in the brain to induce an altered state of consciousness.
Brain scans of individuals high on the drug revealed that the chemical allows parts of the cortex to become flooded with signals that are normally filtered out to prevent information overload.
The drug allowed more information to flow from the thalamus, a kind of neural gatekeeper, to a region called the posterior cingulate cortex, and it stemmed the flow of information to another part known as the temporal cortex. [...] The scientists wanted to test a hypothesis first put forward more than a decade ago. It states LSD causes the thalamus to stop filtering information it relays to other parts of the brain. It is the breakdown of this filter that gives rise to the weird effects the drug induces, or so the thinking goes.
Effective connectivity changes in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness in humans (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1815129116) (DX)
Related: Research into Psychedelics, Shut Down for Decades, is Now Yielding Exciting Results
Research Into Psychedelics Continues
Lucy in the Sky With Protein: Key to LSD's Psychoactive Potency Possibly Found
From 'problem Child' to 'prodigy'? LSD Turns 75
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @05:13PM (5 children)
Drugs are bad, mkay?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:17PM (2 children)
The Truth is the reverse of every governmental mantra/slogan/program.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:35PM (1 child)
Don't do acid.
Else, you will end up like the Blue Boy [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:28PM
Don't tell @acidandy
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:34PM (1 child)
So declared Nixon when he established the War on
Blacks and HippiesDrugs. If you can't trust a US president, who can you trust, right? /s(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @04:05AM
Russia?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday October 14 2018, @05:46PM (3 children)
Abolish the DEA.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:21PM (2 children)
Abolish prohibition entirely. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, and all the parasitic government operations that exist to feed off them. Tax these things instead of destroying the lives and families of those who wish to engage in such pursuits any point in the economic chain.
This would save us a ton of currently spent tax money, generate considerable non-black-market economic activity generating new tax money, while at the same time actually respecting personal liberty and freeing families from the huge damage government has been inflicting on them.
Who loses? Only government and pulpit parasites.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:20PM (1 child)
"new tax money,"
My state made $319 million last year in new tax money, Cannabis Retailers are nearly as ubiquitous as espresso stands, and those are damn near on every corner.
(I pass 11 espresso stands and 8 weed stores in a ten mile drive to work.)
They won't give that up easily or willingly. Plus cops are more effective as they don't waste their time with weed smokers anymore. Crime is down, tax revenue is up, employment is up (most budtenders start at $12 to $13 per hour and $20 isn't unheard of for the best budtenders and trimmers), the black market is nearly extinct as the prices are the same or better than the street was. It's a regular liberal hellhole.
Too late to put the genie back in the bottle.
And we have mountains, lakes galore, forests everywhere and open carry.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:31PM
lol
Well, that one, anyway. The idiots have bottled up a lot more genies that still need to be let loose.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)
... Switzerland, and the company that acquired Sandoz still makes it.
Hofmann was disappointed that LSD was so widely abused; he felt that for most it should be just a once in a lifetime thing.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:22PM
Even the exalted Hofmann doesn't get to decide how people enjoy LSD.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:38PM (23 children)
Timothy Leary, Tom Wolfe and the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test with the Merry Pranksters and the Psychedelic bus....In-a-gadda-da-vida...The White Album...Hendrix...
Magical times.......
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:51PM (5 children)
Magical times of rampant rape and misogyny!
Smash the Patriarchy. Ban drugs and alcohol.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:25PM
Sounds like someone needs to get laid!
Although you make a good point, psychadelics were used by some to manipulate and abuse others. But that is just humans being shitty, the methods are not the source of the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:50PM (3 children)
According to feminists, anything psychoactive from magic mushrooms to LSD to cannabis to DMT species, you name it, has no other use than date rape.
I have never met a more miserable group of people scared shitless of female sexuality and spirituality outside of the Calvinist religions and Christian Identity movement. Disclaimer: maybe my opinion is tainted by extensive involvement of money from families such as the Van Andels and DeVoses. Those feminists claim to worship Diane, but as far as I can tell, that "goddess" is just Yahweh in drag, otherwise known as MAMMON.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:43PM (2 children)
Yyyyyyeah, I've never heard a feminist lump all of those together. You're talking about one specific group of early third-wavers and second-wave fringe elements who, as you said, worship Yahweh in drag. The irony has not escaped me. THIS feminist says avoid drugs on principle just because they reduce your mindfulness, but there may be applications for mild psychedelics and possibly purified, standardized extracts of cannabis. If it can help people, use it. Just use it properly and respect it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:31PM (1 child)
I strongly disagree. Cannabis has greatly helped me to get away from PTSD and exercise more mindfulness.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:36PM
> ...Cannabis has greatly helped me ...
Point I take away from this is that everyone is different, what works for you may not work for me. Do your own thinking!
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:08PM (15 children)
Some of my closest friends were pals with Timothy Leary, and they still think he was right about acid, MDMA, and quite a few other drugs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:47PM (14 children)
I think he was right about LSD and MDMA too.
The only other drug I have experience with is pot, and I do not understand why that isn't also legal.
Somewhere, someone is having fun, and that annoys the shit out of some people.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:00PM (4 children)
"Somewhere, someone is having fun, and that annoys the shit out of some people."
Yep, now to go annoy those people, Sunday is one of seven different sales days at the local pot shop! (err, Cannabis Retailer that is...)
Mmmm, extracts on sale today at Green Nugget, Satori has a sale on high end bud and Royal Cannabis has selected growers day... choices, choices....
Doing my part to give Jeff Sessions a stroke.....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:39PM (3 children)
So, how do employers deal with legal pot, and insurance mandated drug testing? Have they come up with some bullshit method to determine whether you smoked the stuff three weeks ago, or that you smoked it ten minutes before arriving to pee in the bottle? Do bonehead managers still fire people for having pot in their system?
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:39PM (2 children)
People still do get fired for failing drug tests. A very good software developer and a friend just got burned.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 15 2018, @05:32AM (1 child)
A few of those cases should be wending their way through the courts by now. If it's not against the law to indulge, then what business is it of the boss? The test is illegal, in and of itself, unless a judge issues a warrant. No one has the right to pry into my private life, or to force or coerce me into supplying a urine or blood sample.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday October 16 2018, @12:33AM
Certain occupations have stricter requirements; say medical or financial personal. In fact there are very few professions of upper middle class level without that kind of restrictions.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:37PM (7 children)
Because Nixon hated hippies but wasn't allowed to target them directly. Nobody since has had the backbone to point out the emperor's state undress.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:22PM (6 children)
Not exactly "nobody": Right now a majority of the US supports full legalization of pot. Those with power, however, continue to ignore those pleas on the federal level.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:09PM
Its more profitable being illegal.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:53PM (4 children)
Particularly stupid: the Democratic politicians.
The issue could be portrayed as one of States' rights: make it legal in those states that have chosen to legalize and regulate it. States can choose to make it legal or not. Everyone wins. Why the Dems don't jump on this bandwagon, I really don't understand.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @04:45AM (1 child)
Because the Dems don't want to decentralize power. If they could, they would revoke the 10th Amendment and leave the states with nothing more than the ability to organize trash pickup, and that only while supervised.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday October 15 2018, @05:08PM
While true, it abstracts incorrectly. Those in power at the Federal level don't want those at the lower levels to have power. This is also true at the state level, where state laws override city laws.
To some extent this is necessary for a workable civilization. But in every case it needs to be limited. Unfortunately, there's no decent way to enforce the limitations at the upper levels.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday October 15 2018, @05:51PM (1 child)
Why the Dems don't jump on this bandwagon, I really don't understand.
Dems did. Most of the states that have legalized it are blue states.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday October 16 2018, @03:10AM
Yes, but the Feds still consider it to be illegal. That has lots of knock-on effects, such as high prices.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:51PM
Because, unlike alcohol, it's the drug of choice for blacks.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:41PM
It's probably what caused "Smoke on the water".
Burn, baby, burn.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:48PM (1 child)
Is not half of Silicon Valley micro dosing on this to improve creativity? Seems that is another use case to study and you'll have no shortage of volunteers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:45PM
http://beckleyfoundation.org/microdosing-lsd/ [beckleyfoundation.org]
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-are-starting-to-test-claims-about-microdosing/ [scientificamerican.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/01/first-ever-trials-on-the-effects-of-microdosing-lsd-set-to-begin [theguardian.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by corey on Monday October 15 2018, @02:53AM (7 children)
How does a lab worker"inadvertently" consume a sample of the stuff they're working on?
"Hmmmm, this white powder sure looks tasty, uugglllpp"
I wonder how often this happens. Maybe he had a joke witha co-worker to try some while drunk.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @03:10AM (5 children)
> How does a lab worker"inadvertently" consume a sample of the stuff they're working on?
It's easy when you have no idea of the potency. Typical dose is 100 micrograms (1/10000 of a gram -- almost "nothing") and it can get into your body through skin contact. From:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Lysergide#section=Absorption-Distribution-and-Excretion [nih.gov]
Primary route of administration /for LSD/ is oral but /it/ can be inhaled, injected, and transdermally applied.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mykl on Monday October 15 2018, @05:39AM (4 children)
From memory, he inhaled some. The drug he was actually trying to create was to help with labour contractions (he was synthesising compounds similar to the active component in a native American plant used for that purpose), so he wasn't treating the chemical as potentially dangerous and so wasn't 'suited up'.
When he came down from his high, he set about trying to identify the effective dosage level, as he copped what he thought would be much too low a dose to have an effect (based on other drug levels). It turned out that his initial hit was more than 10 times that needed to be affected - the amount needed is incredibly small.
Personally, I've never touched the stuff - I've seen a few friends get very messed up on it, including one who went completely MIA for 3 months when taking a mix of LSD and Ecstasy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @07:58PM (1 child)
> Personally, I've never touched the stuff - ...
Sorry to hear about your friends. I wouldn't touch it now, for just the reason you mentioned, street sources aren't pure, or "trace-able".
I feel fortunate that I was able to try some windowpane acid (a ~2mm square of gelatin, paper thin) when that was still available (early 1970s). Don't have any friends from that era that had long term problems with it, even relatively large doses (like 10 of these tiny 'panes at a time). The delivery system was so small that it's hard to imagine any impurities in a quantity to be dangerous. Maybe the latest high potency opioids (iirc, designed for skin-patch delivery) are in the same class of dose-size?
We can only hope for a day when good sources will be available again(??)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 15 2018, @10:58PM
You'd want a "drug printer" or something, so that you actually know what you're getting. Alternatively, you could use a test kit [tripsafe.org] to rule out some substances.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 15 2018, @11:06PM (1 child)
Both substances (taken to mean genuine lysergic acid diethylamide and pure MDMA [soylentnews.org]) are easy to fake. For example, the NBOMe family of substances for "acid" blotters, which have similar effects but could be more dangerous, and any number of substances + adulterants can and do stand in [testkitplus.com] for MDMA.
So unless your friend got both substances tested or really knew where the stuff was coming from, nobody on the planet could tell you what your friend was actually on. The anecdotes are essentially worthless.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday October 16 2018, @12:16AM
OK. How about instead I say "I would never touch something obtained from a drug dealer no matter what they claimed it was"?
Though, to be honest, recreational drugs are not my thing anyway even if 'safe'. I did come to this conclusion watching many friends get messed up on various drugs, and lost the desire to drink alcohol at the same time. It doesn't bother me at all when others have a drink around me - I just have no interest in it any more and never really liked the taste anyway.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday October 15 2018, @04:54PM
Otherwise, same way that the first researchers of Radiation and it's effects, "inadvertently died from exposure". Research can be dangerous stuff.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"