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Voodoo Child Registered: 06/22/06 Posts: 79 Loc: A point in space Last seen: 8 years, 2 months |
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Hello folks! Little bit of background about myself... I first discovered this website about a decade ago before taking my first trip ever. Devoured every bit of knowledge I could gleam from this website & Erowid, among other sources for a long time because I've always found psychedelics fascinating. Since then I've tripped 50+ times, they've had a profound impact on my mental well-being, friendships, and choice of career direction. For the last few years I am only an occasional lurker (Looking at you Chem & Pharm forum!) but I've never forgot what this community helped me to learn
Anyways, went to college for Psychology and ended up graduating with a Bio degree but along the way I managed to write several persuasive papers about psychedelics and drugs in general. I'm making this thread so that I may share them with you. Please note the tone and writing style changes from paper to paper: "The War on Drugs"(2007) was meant to be read aloud as a convincing argument for a writing class. "Psychedelics as a viable Psychological treatment"(2008) was written for a somewhat close-minded writing professor. You may note a change in tone and wording that I chose with this in mind. "LSD: Rise and fall of the 1960's Counterculture"(2009) was written for a History class with the intended purpose of arguing that LSD had a tremendous impact on the decade and it's culture. Anyways, the following three posts I make will be these papers. I hope someone enjoys reading them, repost elsewhere if you like but please credit me with their creation...and please don't anyone try and hand these in and as if they are yours. These papers were handed in and are in school databases that schools check against each other called SafeAssign, so you'll only be screwing yourself. I learned a tremendous amount from this site in my youth, so this is my attempt at giving a little bit of that back. I'm not sure if the works cited info for these papers has made it through all the hard drive jumps over the years but if anyone is really interested in the references I can probably find them. Also some of the info concerning the drug war and more recent psychotherapy research, the first two papers are somewhat dated. Regardless, I feel they do a decent job of making their point. -------------------- It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. - Hunter S. Thompson Edited by Psilopsychedelic (09/08/14 10:16 PM)
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Voodoo Child Registered: 06/22/06 Posts: 79 Loc: A point in space Last seen: 8 years, 2 months |
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The War on Drugs
`Many have fallen prey to the downward spiral of addiction. Be it alcohol, cigarettes, uppers, downers, gambling; pick your poison, it’s all the same in the end. Our society as a whole has chosen to make a sharp distinction for those vices which are not quite so deeply engrained into our western culture, so much as to condemn and imprison those who partake. Anyone who has witnessed the battle of addiction can understand the rising concern over drugs in general. It is also easy to emphasize with those who wonder why they are treated as criminals instead of someone who needs support, love, and guidance. A jail cell provides none of these things. As divided as these opinions may be, the intentions are good on both sides. The fact of the matter is that nobody wants to see a loved one waste away due to drugs. It is reasoning such as this that has spawned a compassionate and certainly more radical model of dealing with drug abuse. What this model of dealing with drug abuse tries to accomplish is to separate the dangers of drug abuse from the problems that are caused by drug prohibition. This is a fine line that has been blurred by misinformation and a fear of that which we do not truly yet understand. What many radical thinkers are beginning to suggest is an end to drug prohibition. While this may sound like a terrible idea, it is surprising how much trouble has arisen from the war on drugs itself. There certainly is no limit to the frightening facts about drug abuse in America that one could find. Eighty million Americans have admitted to experimenting with illegal drugs at some point in their lifetime.(McCaffrey) It has been said that they claim as many as 17,000 lives (Mokdad, Ali H., PhD et al) and sixty seven billion dollars a year in America alone.(The Office of National Drug Control Policy) With statements like these, it is seemingly difficult to take a lenient stance on drug abuse. However, what makes statements like these so powerful is that they do not provide a reference point with which to compare these claims to. For a little comparison, tobacco and alcohol claim as many as 435,000 and 85,000 lives a year respectively ( Mokdad, Ali H., PhD et al). While it would be ideal to see no lives lost to illicit drugs, the statistics show that comparatively, illicit drugs do not seem to be as large of a problem as they are made out to be. Prohibitionists may argue that these statistics are skewed because many more Americans use tobacco and alcohol then illicit substances, and that this more than makes up for the difference in statistics. 34.9% of Americans admit to using tobacco in the past year, as opposed to 14.4% who admit to illict drug use (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration). Even with the population of users taken into consideration, it seems that tobacco alone is a much more dangerous problem than all illicit drugs combined. Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy would like us to think that prohibition can and will work, and that we simply need more time and resources. He states that "Our current national drug policy is basically sound and features many successful programs." He goes on to tout that due to law enforcement crackdowns cocaine is fifteen times as expensive as if it were legal, and "The number of cocaine users has dropped 30 percent since 1993." However, he then goes on to say that despite all this, "300 metric tons of Latin American cocaine are being smuggled into the U.S. every year." (McCaffrey) In 1996, the year McCaffrey addressed the senate with these facts, the average wholesale price of a kilogram of cocaine was $35,700, an estimate made by the ONDCP themselves. (World Drug Report 2006). That’s 300,000 kilograms of cocaine at $35,000 per, which by their own estimates would make the total contribution to the criminal drug market of Latin America an astonishing 9.5 billion dollars in cocaine sales alone. The result of this is the funding of criminal organizations which will only reinvest this money, both overseas and at home. Obviously the drug lords of Latin America are not too concerned. It seems that business on the street corner is not any worse. In an essay written by Jack A. Cole, a member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) he describes some of his undercover efforts in testing purity. "In 1970, we purchased "tre-bags" of heroin so called because they cost three dollars per bag. We bought them in multiples of two, because a heroin user needed to shoot two of those bags to get high. Two bags at $3 each, so in 1970 it cost $6 to get high... and after thirty years of "drug war" the price to "get off" on heroin had plummeted to 80 cents in 1980 equivalent dollars because the purity of heroin had increased by 25 times its original level - then registering over 38 percent pure in street buys." (Cole) As of the year 2000, it was not uncommon to find heroin in Newark at over 70% purity (US Drug Enforcement Administration). This is clear cut evidence of a policy that is failing miserably. So at this point the only issue with the repeal of drug prohibition that comes to mind is the millions who would become drug users once the threat of arrest disappears. However, this does not seem to be the case. One of the only models we have clear cut information from in this case is that of The Netherlands. They have adopted a drug policy which allows adults to purchase small quantities of cannabis in coffee shops, separating cannabis from the market of harder drugs. One would assume that this would lead to naturally higher levels of marijuana use. Surprisingly, The percentage of citizens who have tried marijuana in their lifetime is considerably lower, 17 percent compared to the United States’ 36.9% lifetime prevalence (US Department of Health and Human Services). It seems that some of the appeal is lost when one is no longer breaking any of the rules. Without even considering the statistics of drug usage, legalization would surely save lives. If illicit drugs were to be legalized they would most likely be regulated and produced by large, professional companies, just like all prescription and non-prescription drugs, as well as alcohol and cigarettes. They are regulated, and when one reads the label on a bottle of vodka and sees that it is eighty proof, or later nurses his headache with a Tylenol containing 100 milligrams of acetaminophen, he can be relatively sure these labels are accurate. This is because they have to be, as these legal, legitimate businesses would surely go under if people began to overdose on their product. A lot of care goes into making sure their product is consistently the same. This is not true for illicit drugs, and is largely the reason why overdoses are as common as they are. Typically, overdoses are caused by a lack of regulation. Purity levels for drugs that are cut such as cocaine and heroin vary drastically from place to place and from dealer to dealer. Occasionally a dealer might accidently mix up his math and cut his product drastically different than usual, resulting in a dangerously pure final product. Synthetic opiates such as fentanyl are becoming common additives to batches of heroin around the nation. While heroin, as well as most opiates are active in the range of milligrams, fentanyl and other synthetic opiates are capable of delivering a powerful high in the range of micrograms (1 one millionth of a gram.) With such powerful additives, a heroin dealer who cuts this into his product can evenly distribute the fentanyl as best he can, and still be unable to prevent possible overdoses as a result of the fentanyl settling. Because of this scenario it is not uncommon for a group of local users to all overdose on the same day. (Cole) This simply would not occur in a legal market for fear of repercussion from the government. Illicit drug dealers already have that concern in mind, so their care for the customer base is slim to none. While purity levels are probably the most dangerous element of this lack of regulation, other detrimental problems also occur. This lack of oversight has led to the underground ecstasy tablet, a popular method of ingestion that has found its way into drug culture around the world. When these pills first hit the market, MDMA (the chemical name for ecstasy) was legal and as a result was the only drug commonly found in these tablets. Since the scheduling of MDMA however, cheaper, more dangerous drugs such as methamphetamine, BZP, and other adulterants are often cut into these pills. Unlike MDMA, the drug users are attempting to ingest, methamphetamine has been proven to be much more dangerous. The drug has a higher addiction potential, proven neurotoxicity, and a much lower LD50. (LD50 is a term used to approximate the dosage one would overdose on.)Many ecstasy tablets today do not even contain any MDMA, as methamphetamine and other speed based drugs are easier and cheaper to manufacture. There is no doubt that some illicit drugs simply are a danger and a detriment to society. Crack has ravaged our urban areas, and our rural Midwest has been devastated by the abuse of methamphetamine. In a perfect world these drugs simply would not exist. Unfortunately they do, and when there is a demand it will be supplied. It all boils down to a matter of economics. In some instances cocaine can have up to a 17 thousand percent profit rate. Heroin is in some cases more expensive per gram then uranium. (Cole). The profit motivation is overwhelming, and as a result, there will always be someone there to replace the last drug lord arrested all the way down to the petty street corner crack dealer. These people are always replaceable, no matter how many are behind bars. It seems to me that legalization could even help to keep dangerous drugs out of the hands of children. When Jack Cole spoke of his undercover work as a narcotics officer, he specifically mentioned one group of underage kids he had infiltrated. These kids could consistently purchase illicit drugs. What surprised him however, was that they often asked him to buy beer and cigarettes. The fact of the matter was that honest, law abiding store clerks would refuse to sell them to minors. This is something a street dealer would never even consider. The sad truth is in these crime ravaged urban areas, it’s pretty easy to find someone who wouldn’t think twice about selling dangerous narcotics to teens. Legalization would takes drugs, as well as money out of the pockets of criminals and place them behind store counters of educated and informed store clerks. (Cole) While this certainly won’t eradicate the issue, it can help to curb it. The push for policy reform is something that is only getting stronger. Widespread legalization is still only an idea to be entertained and is something society is far from ready for. It will take massive change, comprehensive drug education, and a total upheaval of political and social views on the matter. No one is claiming to have all the answers, but one thing certainly is for sure. Change must be made. -------------------- It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. - Hunter S. Thompson
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Voodoo Child Registered: 06/22/06 Posts: 79 Loc: A point in space Last seen: 8 years, 2 months |
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Psychedelics as a Viable Psychological Treatment
When people think of powerful psychedelic drugs such as LSD, they typically do not think of them as a drug with potential therapeutic benefits. They tend to be thought of as the spark that ignited the sixties, a period of cultural rebellion and significant change in the United States. What people fail to realize though, is that LSD was used for many years before Timothy Leary and his lot started preaching its benefits to the youth culture. Before LSD was a street drug it was a therapeutic tool for the liberal minded Psychiatric community. Throughout the fifties many different therapists and scientists used LSD in a clinical setting, administering doses to patients who were undergoing psychotherapy for a whole host of problems. The results proved to be quite remarkable, and the excitement surrounding LSD and its potential for therapy snowballed among the educated community. Unfortunately this excitement was short lived as researcher’s soon found their new tool outlawed, and placed under schedule 1. This strict placement left the therapeutic community neutered and essentially unable to perform research of any kind to further their cause, and with no new data to plead their case. However, a growing interest in reviving this kind of research has evolved within the last decade, and researchers worldwide are doing their best to educate people about the benefits of LSD psychotherapy. I feel that LSD research needs to be legitimized to allow the Psychiatric community to demonstrate that this is a safe, effective form of treatment. D-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide was first synthesized in 1938 by Albert Hofman, a chemist for the Swiss company Sandoz Labs. However, its psychedelic properties were not realized until 1943, when an accidental ingestion produced “an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.” Shortly thereafter intentional experimentation with LSD led to an intense amount of interest among the scientific community. (Hofman, 253-256) The 1950’s were a period of intense research into LSD, especially for the United States government. The FDA imported LSD from Sandoz Laboratories for the CIA, as well as individual researchers. While the CIA’s initial interest in using LSD as a truth serum proved ineffective, researchers inadvertently discovered many interesting properties. (Lee, Shlain 30-35) Among them were psychiatrist Dr. Humphrey Osmond. He had been doing work with mescaline, a hallucinogenic substance found in certain species of cactus. His interest was based primarily on the fact that mescaline was capable of producing a psychosis quite similar to schizophrenia. He felt that by studying the psychedelic experience, researchers could better understand the mind of the mentally ill. One of his best known guinea pigs was none other than famous author Aldous Huxley. Huxley once explained that psychedelics had the potential to “open up a host of philosophical problems, throws intense light and raises all manner of questions in the field of aesthetics, religion, theory of knowledge." The fact that he was an articulate writer made his experience that much more interesting, as he was able to explain the state of mind much better than many previous subjects. It was quotes such as these that stirred an intense amount of interest in certain scholarly circles. (Lee, Shlain 46-48) Some of his most interesting work however, was Osmond’s work with alcoholics. Osmond believed that the profound nature of the LSD experience could have a powerful impact on the recovery of alcoholics. Large doses of LSD were administered under careful circumstances to almost a thousand alcoholics. The theory behind it was that high doses of LSD would cause either one of two circumstances. Dosed patients were more open to contemplating their own alcoholism, as well as the potential sources of their troubles. Alternatively individuals reported religious, spiritual experiences and cited these as their cause for sobriety. Regardless of the logic behind it, the results were astounding. Thirteen years of LSD therapy caused Osmond to conclude that “When psychedelic therapy is given to alcoholics, about one-third will remain sober after the therapy is completed and another one-third will be benefited.” Osmond’s treatment boasted higher sobriety rates than the much more traditional methods. (Lee, Shlain 46-48) Among the many individuals who praised this research was Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson, who had experimented with LSD in the fifties (Hartigan 177-179). Wilson, who had struggled with alcoholism himself, felt that a religious experience was a key part of the recovery from addiction, and that LSD was a potential path to this. Osmond, astounded by the results that he had achieved with alcoholics applied his method to a whole host of psychological problems such as adolescent criminals and severe emotional issues. “Numerous patients claimed that a few LSD trips proved more fruitful than years of psychoanalysis-at considerably less expense.” (Lee, Shlain 52) Research on LSD continued into the early sixties with such studies as the Harvard Psychedelic Research Project, run by the infamous Timothy Leary. Leary’s research with Psilocybin mushrooms and LSD proved to be too radical for the university. After a short while he had begun dosing students and faculty in and out of the research setting, and was quickly fired. (Lee, Shlain 65-70) Within this same year LSD found its way out onto the streets of the United States, and all hopes of psychedelics in the laboratory were ended. On October 24, 1968 the possession of LSD was banned across the country. Two years later the scheduling system was designed, rating drugs according to their danger as well as their currently accepted medical value. Placed in schedule 1 (Which indicates that they have no accepted medical value) was LSD, Psilocybin, and Mescaline, effectively putting an end to all psychedelic research. Ironically, much more dangerous drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine were placed in schedule II. (“Drug Law & Policy”) The fact of the matter was that these drugs were banned as a result of counterculture explosion that came with them. These powerful psychedelic drugs could be kept under close and careful watch in the laboratory, but when in the hands of rebellious youth it proved an altogether different story. Suddenly what was a safe practice had a real element of danger. Inexperienced and uneducated people taking powerful psychedelic drugs they don’t truly understand in an unsupervised environment can prove a danger to themselves as well as those around them, and because of this it was thought reasonable to keep LSD off the streets. What was quite unreasonable though, was to keep LSD out of the laboratories as well. The media helped to fuel the fire by spreading ungrounded claims of danger. Ridiculous myths were spread around. It was claimed by some that LSD stayed lodged in your central nervous system, and at times could dislodge and cause flashbacks. Such stories were based on nothing but fear. LSD is highly soluble in water, and any trace is quickly expelled from one’s system in a matter of days. Claims that LSD could cause permanent psychosis and longstanding psychological problems were completely ungrounded. Despite the protests from scholarly communities, the ban on psychedelic research in the United States continued for many decades. (“LSD Basics”) Luckily the push for legitimizing psychedelics in Psychotherapy continues to be fought. It is often difficult to find contributors for such projects, as pilot studies can take hundreds of thousands of dollars to get up and off the ground. MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Associatiom for Psychedelic Studies continues to be a pioneer in the field, and have provided considerable funding for a study involving LSD assisted Psychotherapy for advanced stage cancer patients. This study is the first of it’s kind in almost thirty five years. It has been accepted in Switzerland and is currently underway. Patients of such a study are typically administered a dose of LSD under the supervision of trained Psychiatrists, who then attempt to help the patients delve into their own mind. Patients are often encouraged to accept their condition, think about the source of their fears and problems, and learn to overcome them. (“LSD and Psilocybin Research”) One more modern discovery is the remarkable effect that LSD and psilocybin appear to have for those who suffer cluster headaches. Cluster headaches are extremely painful headaches somewhat akin to migraines, so strong that the condition has been known to drive people to suicide. People who suffer from cluster headaches get them in cycles of varying frequency, and their intense nature makes them quite debilitating. Oddly enough however, both LSD and psilocybin appear to be extremely effective at interrupting the cycle of cluster headaches. A single small dose of either of these two substances appears to make these cluster headaches cease altogether for as much as a year at a time. Unfortunately for those who suffer from this condition this is still not a lawfully accepted solution to the problem. People who wish to attempt this method of medication must do so at their own risk. No LSD or Psilocybin will be supplied to these people, and should they find it they may face prosecution in the face of the law. (“Cluster Headache Treatment”) The core principlals of science and psychology is to pursue a deeper level of understanding. For many years this was no longer possible, but the current research being performed is a big step in the right direction. LSD has come a long way since its start in a Swiss laboratory. The sixties were a long time ago, and now that the negative connotations behind these substances are beginning to lift, people can once again take a serious look at the possibilities behind them. Despite all of this it is still a lack of understanding and a vague memory of the complications that this drug has caused in the past that keeps it from moving forward. LSD therapy has become much closer to being recognized as a legitimate way to help the mentally ill, and hopefully this trend will continue as more positive data pointing toward it’s benefits begin to trickle in. Edited by Psilopsychedelic (09/08/14 09:51 PM)
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Voodoo Child Registered: 06/22/06 Posts: 79 Loc: A point in space Last seen: 8 years, 2 months |
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LSD and the Rise and Fall of the 1960’s Counterculture
The 1960’s was arguably one of the most tumultuous and complicated decades in American history. Times were changing, and there were elements of social reconstruction to be found anywhere. With such turbulent issues such as black power, women’s rights, and Vietnam, there was something for everyone to be riled up over, regardless of which side of the fence one was on. It seemed that at times all it took was a spark to start a wildfire of protest and social reform. LSD proved to be more than just a spark in the grand scheme of the sixties. Lysergic Acid Diethylamide influenced some of the biggest names in American politics and popular culture, and it’s controversial, polarizing nature ultimately helped to shape the complicated course of events that played out over America’s longest decade. Regardless of whether you turned on, tuned in, and dropped out, one would be hard pressed to argue that LSD did not have a tremendous impact on the counterculture of this decade. LSD was first synthesized in 1938 in Sandoz Pharmaceutical’s Swiss laboratory by Albert Hoffman. Ironically its psychoactive properties were not discovered until the substance was revisited again several years later, in 1943, when Mr. Hoffman accidently came into physical contact with the LSD, presumably through his fingertips.(Lee, Shlain, 6-9) Although this first experience was purely accidental, Hoffman recognized its potential for science and psychology, and by the early 1950’s, LSD was being regularly worked with in both government, and civilian laboratories. (Lee, Shlain,40-50) By the mid 1950’s, LSD was being used in laboratories in such varied applications as treating depression, understanding schizophrenia, and even as a potential truth serum, a dead end which the CIA pursued relentlessly through testing projects such as MK-Ultra. It was through this government funded program that Ken Kesey first experienced LSD, in a laboratory setting at the Stanford run Memorial Park Veteran’s Hospital. Kesey was intrigued by the nature of the substance, and shortly after acquiring an overnight janitorial job at the hospital, he was bringing LSD home and taking it on his own time. His own observations of the psychiatric patients while under its influence were the inspiration for his classic novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The profits Ken Kesey made off the tremendous success of his book allowed him the fiscal liberty to purchase his home in La Honda,(Lee, Shlain, 100-102) home of the famous “Acid Tests” that attracted such varied crowds as the beat generation’s Allen Ginsberg, Harvard’s former professor Richard Alpert and the infamous biker gang the Hell’s Angels.(Thompson, 230) Civilian research in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s with LSD led to even more leaks into society. Early research by psychologists and scientists alike sparked intense excitement surrounding these substances. Eager doctors shared the substance in certain intellectual circles. Famous Hollywood actor Cary Grant was given LSD by psychiatrist Oscar Janiger, alongside Jack Nicholson.(Lee, Shlain, 56) Nicholson was inspired by his experiences with LSD to eventually produce his 1967 cult phenomenon, The Trip. (The Internet Movie Database) This movie was Hollywood’s first fully devoted attempt at portraying the LSD experience, allowing an even broader audience to be exposed to its influence. Even renowned novelist Aldous Huxley eagerly experimented with the drug. His previous experiences with mescaline (A hallucinogen with similar qualities) had piqued his interest, and after trying LSD he was left with “The realization- not the knowledge, for this wasn’t verbal or abstract- but the direct, total awareness, from the inside, so to say, of Love as the primacy and fundamental cosmic fact.”(Lee, Shlain, 47) This early revelation epitomizes one of the most fundamental principles of hippy counterculture, that love will conquer all. By 1960 LSD had found its way into the Harvard University Psychedelic Research project, pioneered by none other than Timothy Leary, and his colleague Richard Alpert. Although his research originally involved psilocybin (the closely related active chemical in psychedelic mushrooms) the potency and relative abundance of research LSD caused them to shift their focus. His own experiences with psilocybin and LSD led him to believe that the sober state of mind was “a static, repetitive circuit.” His most notable work involved the “Good Friday” experiment, in which patients were given psychedelic drugs during a Good Friday church service. His results claimed that nine out of ten of the subjects who were dosed had a profound religious experience, as opposed to one in ten in the control group. While Leary and his academic circle felt that they had made a groundbreaking discovery, many religious groups met such claims with open hostility. They felt that the ease of achieving a “mystical experience” with LSD was evidence in itself that it lacked true spiritual merit, and that such claims undermined the power and rarity of true religious revelation.(Lee, Shlain, 66-68) Unconvinced, Timothy Leary spent the better part of his life trying to spread this very notion. By the end of 1960 he had an open invitation among graduate students of the university to experiment with LSD in a non clinical setting, attempting to turn on anyone and everyone that he could to psychedelic drugs. His research continued to become more unorthodox, and ever increasingly subject to criticism. In 1962, Leary made the outlandish claim that the Soviets could easily placate the population of an entire city by tainting the water supply with copious amounts of LSD. The suggested solution to this biological attack was to preemptively taint our own water supplies, so that our civilian population would know what to expect. Not surprisingly, this was met with sharp criticism by nearly everyone among the university. Colleagues and critics alike began to feel that Leary had lost touch with any sort of academic reality. While Leary had started with unbiased, double blind studies, his more recent pursuits had more of an idealistic, philosophical approach than a scientific one. In this manner, his overzealous approach allowed critics to attack his entire body of work, including earlier studies grounded in good science.(Lee, Shlain, 74-76) In 1963, amid rumors that LSD laced sugar cubes had found its way into the student body, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were fired from Harvard University. Claiming that “LSD was more important than Harvard”, Leary coined his famous psychedelic mantra “Tune In, Turn on, Drop Out” this time bringing his message to the public, instead of the former circles of academia.(Lee, Shlain, 76-79) Leary’s departure from official LSD research occurred at a time where crackdowns on its regulation were quickly underway. A 1962 congressional act created more stringent regulation of the substance, and a similar act in 1965 effectively shut the door on any new LSD research, as well as its use in clinical psychiatry. In 1966, Senator Robert Kennedy defended its research value, claiming that “I think we have given too much emphasis and so much attention to the fact that it can be dangerous and that it can hurt an individual who uses it … that perhaps to some extent we have lost sight of the fact that it can be very, very, helpful in our society if used properly."(Lee, Shlain 76-79) Senator Robert Kennedy’s defense may have been too little, too late, as the mainstream news media had already started to jump all over the LSD horror stories that were becoming increasingly prevalent. Newspaper articles detailing murder, suicide, and other violent, irrational acts all committed by those under the influence of LSD were quite popular. (Weinraub, 26) In April of 1966, a thirty year old ex medical student was arrested for the murder of his mother in law. Allegedly upon arrest, he replied to the police “Man, I’ve been flying for three days on LSD. Did I kill my wife? Did I rape anybody? What have I done?” Within a week of this incident, Sandoz laboratories, officially recalled its entire supply of LSD, ending all legal research. (Schumach, 1) LSD hysteria was in full swing. Newspapers quickly realized that fear of LSD made for good news, and were quick to hop on the bandwagon of terrifying stories. One such article titled “GENETIC DAMAGE IS LINKED TO LSD” written entirely in capital letters suggests that LSD causes chromosomal mutations. Though the article meticulously uses such phrases as “could lead to”, “might be”, and even admits that the “type and extent of changes had yet to be proven in humans”, the subtitle states (in all capital letters) “EFFECT WIDELY STUDIED.” As a side note the chromosomal mutations and hideous birth defects in these articles have never been proven, reflecting a willingness to jump to conclusions in an attempt to stem the tide of ever growing popularity among Americans. (Lyons, 43) Conversely, one popular source of information in America regularly spoke quite highly of LSD throughout the sixties. Under the helm of publisher Henry Luce, Time and Life magazines respectively hosted more articles about LSD than any other major news publication of that time. What was more surprising was the fact that many of these articles portrayed LSD under quite a positive light. In 1963, an article called “Instant Mysticism” claimed that “In every age, men have struggled to perceive God directly rather than as a tenuously grasped abstraction. Few succeed, and the visions of the world's rare mystics have normally come only after hard spiritual work-prayer, meditation, acetic practice. Now, a number of psychologists and theologians are exploring such hallucinogenic drugs as mescaline, psilocybin and LSD-25 as an easy way to instant mysticism.”(Time, 86)Although Time magazine did become increasingly skeptical of LSD’s therapeutic benefits as the controversy surrounding it grew, it did continue to release articles touting its positive side, alongside the somewhat more traditionally cynical articles commonly found in the news. At a time where most news media was focusing on murders and temporary insanity as the ultimate result of taking LSD, Time magazine was highlighting its possibility for religious experience. One such article, released in 1966, entitled “Mysticism in the Lab” claimed that “Most experiences of mystical consciousness have come only after hard work-Spartan prayers, mediation, fasting, mortification of the flesh. Now it is possible, through the use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs, to induce something like mystical consciousness in a controlled laboratory environment.” To think that this article was released the same year as the newspaper articles claiming insanity and chromosomal damage makes one wonder if they are even talking about the same substance.(Siff, 126-135) The astounding interest that Time and Life magazines had with LSD was undoubtedly a result of their publisher’s own enthusiasm. Through both private letters and public proclamation at staff dinner parties, it became increasingly obvious that not only did Henry Luce and his wife Clare take acid, they were quite enthusiastic about its practical applications. Clare, a former congresswoman credited LSD with helping rid her of crippling depression. It’s interesting to note that after Henry Luce’s death in 1967, LSD coverage fell in line with the rest of the news media, in terms of its amount of coverage, as well as the light in which it was portrayed in. (Siff, 126-135) The LSD coverage in Time and Life magazines caught the interest of at least one very prominent figure in sixties counterculture, the famous Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman claims that a Life magazine article about LSD inspired him to take his first trip in 1965.(Siff, 126-135) Hoffman’s early involvement with SNCC, coupled with his far out theatrical style of protest led to many memorable demonstrations. Abbie Hoffman helped to organize the famed demonstration in which fifty thousand people attempted to use their combined psychic energy to levitate the Pentagon in an effort to end the Vietnam War. While it is quite doubtful most of the attendees of such an attempt really felt that it would work, such an outlandish approach brought a slew of media attention. However, the media, and in turn the American public failed to see the humor in this event, simply denouncing it as crazy. When Hoffman was put on trial alongside the rest of the “Chicago Eight” for inciting the riots of the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention, he did everything in his power to turn the courtroom into a mockery. He showed up dressed in judge’s robes one day, referred to the judge as his “illegitimate father”, and on sentencing day attempted to prescribe him LSD.(Gates, 42) Attempting to levitate the Pentagon and turning a courtroom into a complete circus certainly led to a tremendous amount of exposure for the protest movements that Abbie Hoffman was involved in. However, such exposure undoubtedly turned off as many people as it intrigued. Opposing the Vietnam War was not such an unbelievably radical notion, but when Vietnam protestors began to become paired hand in hand with these more extreme activists, the scene began to look increasingly chaotic. After all, LSD did not always equal political activism, a mistake quickly realized by the organizers of the Berkley Vietnam Day rally in October of 1965. The organizers had managed to line up Ken Kesey, countercultural icon to give a speech. What they had failed to realize however, was that political rallies were not really Kesey’s forte. When it was his time to speak, he got up to the podium and said “You know you’re not going to stop this war with this rally, by marching…That’s what they do… And that’s the same game you’re playing… their game…There’s only one thing gonna to do any good at all…And that’s everybody just look at it, look at the war, and turn your backs and say…Fuck it.” Kesey’s speech effectively deflated any momentum that the protestors had felt. (Lytle, 201-202) By 1968, America, or at least congress as a whole seemed to have made up its mind on LSD. On October 24, 1968 an amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act federally banned possession of LSD. The unapologetic antics of a counterculture absolutely infatuated with its own new ideals and substances proved entirely too much for the American public. While it was impossible to jail them for their train of thought, it was now possible to jail them for their substance of choice. It seems that LSD had just as much a hand at jailing the counterculture, as it did getting it off the ground. In the twenty years that LSD existed legally in the United States, a metamorphosis of culture occurred. New ideals were fostered, and new cultural icons were born. It was an era of open minded enlightenment that was met by some with eagerness, and by others with hostility. While in the long run it’s difficult to effectively conclude whether LSD helped or harmed the counterculture’s politics and media image, one thing is certain. If that infamous bottle of LSD-25 had remained undisturbed on Albert Hoffman’s shelf, the 1960’s, and in turn the present as we know it, would be a very different place. -------------------- It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. - Hunter S. Thompson Edited by Psilopsychedelic (09/09/14 12:04 AM)
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Registered: 09/06/14 Posts: 81 Loc: State of Flux Last seen: 7 years, 1 month |
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Thank you for posting these. I found them very readable and concise historical overviews.
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