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STP May Have Been Stolen From Dow Firm

  WASHINGTON (UPI) —The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) believes the formula for the newest hippie mind-expanding drug, STP, may have been stolen from a pharmaceutical company.
  A spokesman for the agency said yesterday [August 2nd, 1967] the drug, said to be four times stronger than LSD, is the same as an experimental substance called DOM manufactured by Dow Chemical Co. The company does not know how its formula got into the hands of unauthorized persons.
  The FDA warned that use of STP, a hippie acronym for "Serenity - Tranquility - Peace.' may be "extremely hazardous". It is chemically similar to mescaline, the Mexican hallucinatory drug, and amphetamine, known to teen-age hipsters as "goof-balls," the agency said in a statement.


(Daily Independent Journal (San Rafael, California), 03 Aug 1967, Thu, Page 24)

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The Powder Ridge Rock Festival was scheduled to be held July 31, August 1 and August 2, 1970 at Powder Ridge Ski Area in Middlefield, Connecticut. A legal injunction forced the event to be canceled, keeping the musicians away; but a crowd of 30,000 attendees[1] arrived anyway, to find no food, no entertainment, no adequate plumbing, and at least seventy drug dealers. William Manchester wrote: "Powder Ridge was an accident waiting to happen, and it happened." Volunteer doctor William Abruzzi declared a drug "crisis" on 1 August and said "Woodstock was a pale pot scene. This is a heavy hallucinogens scene."


(https://en.wikipedia.org)




DRUG PERIL EASES AT POWDER RIDGE

THOUSANDS LEAVING SITE OF BANNED ROCK FESTIVAL

Special To The New York Times

MIDDLEFIELD, Conn., Sunday August 2 – A physician serving as medical director of the aborted rock music festival near here said early this morning that the drug situation that he had described yesterday as approaching crisis stage was no longer so serious.

The physician, Dr. William Abruzzi, declared early today that "there was no drug crisis tonight." He said numbers of young persons being treated for "bad acid trips" at the temporary medical facility had dropped from 50 an hour Friday evening and Saturday to a total of 20 to 30 over four hours late last night and early today.

He said the drop in the number of bad trips was due to the appearance of several local rock bands on the main stage here. He said this had shifted the preoccupation of the young people from drugs to music.

Earlier Dr. Abruzzi had said that frustration and boredom which had developed among the young people camping on the grassy slopes when a court order prevented the appearance of all but a few rock band were responsible for the heavy use of drugs.

The youths "had nothing else to do," he said.

Worse Than Woodstock

There were more "bad trips" among the young people at Powder Ridge, Dr. Abruzzi said, than he encountered among the hundreds of thousands at the Woodstock festival last August in Bethel, New York. Dr. Abruzzi has served as medical director at that at other festivals.

"Woodstock was a pale pot scene," he said. "This is a heavy hallucinogens scene."

Late last night only about 12,000 young people remained. Most of them sat on the main slope during a light rain, waiting for a local rock group called Sawn to begin playing

Earlier, a 20-year-old Rita Katzman of Dumont, N.J. was hospitalized after a traffic accident on Route 147 about two miles from here during which she was knocked from the roof of one car and fell beneath the wheels of another. She was in critical condition late tonight at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Earlier in the day bedraggled and weary young men and women were leaving the area, whose portable toilets were overflowing and whose lakes had been declared polluted and unfit for swimming.

"It's getting a bit too grubby back there," said Dan O'Keefe, 18 years old from Johnston, R.I., as he trudged away from Powder Ridge. "You can't get clean, the dope is bad. I can't hack it."

At least 30 youths have been arrested on narcotics charges outside the area gates.

However, along the main road to Powder Ridge and inside the garbage-laden grounds, drug sellers were still openly peddling their wares, including LSD, mescaline, and other powerful hallucinogens.

Observers witnessed youths apparently on "bad trips," screaming and shaking among the tents and blanket shelters that had sprung up during the last week.

One young man, hitchhiking home to East Haven, about 20 miles away, said he had been unable to sleep last night because a girl on drugs was shrieking at the first aid station.

Dr. Abruzzi, the college physician at the State University at New Paltz, N.Y., said the medical station had handled as many as 4,500 patients with a variety of problems, most of them not serious.

The injunction that halted the festival frightened away many of the physicians who have planned to assist him, he said.

Herman Zemel, one of the owners of Powder Ridge, walked along this morning waning youths "there's lots of bad stuff going around. Smoke marijuana if you have to use something. But don't buy the stuff."

Mr. Zemel's attorney, Jacob Belford, was stricken with what was termed "a mild heart attack" at the area today. He was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was listed in good condition.

The owners of Powder Ridge are scheduled Monday to answer contempt if court charges apparently brought because the youths refused to leave the area after the music was barred.

There was little to do at Powder Ridge today except loll in the humid heat or leave. Long lines of youths, including many shirtless men and women, waited patiently at half a dozen water taps to fill canteens and bottles. An improvised kitchen continued to serve a free vegetarian stew.

Some of those shambling out of the ski resort said they were disappointed because they found Powder Ridge so different than Woodstock.

The most obvious differences were music and size. Woodstock featured dozens of the nation's top rock groups, and the stage provided a focus for the attention of the crowd, which was estimated at from 300,000 to 500,000.

Whatever the number at Bethel, it was crowded and the people were pressed close together on blankets covering hundreds of acres. At Powder Ridge, clusters of youngsters were self-contained a discreet few feet apart like bathers on an uncrowded beach.

What struck observers that had been both places, however, was not the visible differences but the contrasting mood or spirit of the two festivals. The gentle euphoria – the grins, the small smiles and exchanged "V" signals – of people milling though muddy fields of Bethel seemed to be missing at Powder Ridge.

Instead, last night and this morning, the major pastime here was shuffling walks along paved roads by grim-faced young men and women who looked remarkably similar to old people moving slowly along the boardwalks of the Rockaways or Atlantic City.


(New York Times: August 3, 1970)

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RELEASE OF MKULTRA DOCUMENTS ON 2 AUGUST 1977


(https://archive.org)




Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra), also called the CIA mind control program, is the code name given to a program of experiments on human subjects that were designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, some of which were illegal. Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations in order to weaken the individual and force confessions through mind control. The project was organized through the Office of Scientific Intelligence of the CIA and coordinated with the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories. Code names for drug-related experiments were Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke.

The operation was officially sanctioned in 1953, reduced in scope in 1964 and further curtailed in 1967. It was officially halted in 1973. The program engaged in many illegal activities, including the use of U.S. and Canadian citizens as its unwitting test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects' mental states and brain functions. Techniques included the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as other forms of torture.

The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at more than 80 institutions, including colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies. The CIA operated using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.

Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the United States Congress and Gerald Ford's United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States (also known as the Rockefeller Commission).

Investigative efforts were hampered by CIA Director Richard Helms' order that all MKUltra files be destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms's destruction order. In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to project MKUltra which led to Senate hearings later that year. Some surviving information regarding MKUltra was declassified in July 2001. In December 2018, declassified documents included a letter to an unidentified doctor discussing work on six dogs made to run, turn and stop via remote control and brain implants.


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

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Quote:

JOHN BERNARD SPELZ
Register Number: 90558-011
Age:  80
Race: White
Sex: Male
Released On: 08/02/1991


(https://www.bop.gov)




Two Held On Drug Charges

  COVINGTON, Ky. (UPI) —John B. Spelz. 30, Covington, and Clark Moore, 22. Columbus, Ohio, are held under $10,000 bond pending court appearance Monday on federal charges concerning operation of a laboratory for illegal manufacture of DMT, and hallucinogenic drug.
  Also arrested Sunday[March 31, 1968] by federal and local officers at a four-room modern laboratory here, which operated under the name of Southern Scientific Co., was Charles H. Reinking, 18, a University of Cincinnati freshman chemistry major. He was released on his own recognizance in the custody of his parents.
  An estimated $250,000 worth of DMT, as well as a large quantity of TNT and chemicals used for explosives, was confiscated along with a cache of weapons and ammunition.
  Federal agents said in a three week investigation they traced the drug here from Chicago, where Moore allegedly was seen buying chemicals. When the lab was raided, the officers found two of the suspects mixing about 30 gallons of DMT, described as "dangerous but not as potent as LSD." DMT is used for "mind-expanding psychedelic trips."


(Lancaster Eagle-Gazette (Lancaster, Ohio), 02 Apr 1968, Tue, Page 12)




$250,000 Drug Cache Seized; Believed LSD

BY BOB GRONEMAN Of The Enquirer Staff

  A cache of "hallucinogenic drugs" estimated worth "at least $250.000" was uncovered by Federal agents, assisted by Covington detectives, in a raid on a secret laboratory in Covington Sunday night.
  Three persons were arrested In the raid at the Southern Scientific Co., 413 E. 17th St. The raid was conducted by eight agents from the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control of the Food and Drug Administration and Covington Detectives Robert Owens and Emmett Ireland. ,
  Arrested on federal warrants charging manufacture of an hallucinogenic drug and taken to the Newport jail were John B. Spelz, 30. 206 E. Fourth St., Cincinnati: Charles H. Reinking, 18, 5672 Lauderdale Dr.. Cincinnati. and Clark R. Moore 22, of Columbia, Ohio.
  A Federal agent said that the operation was "one of the largest and most sophisticated" setups in the country for the manufacture of illegal drugs.
  The agent said that a field check of some of the drugs found at the lab showed "positive" as an hallucinogenic drug, but declined to say whether it was LSD until receiving a report from an FDA chemist in Cincinnati.
  Conviction on the charge of manufacturing LSD is a misdemeanor, carrying a penalty of one year imprisonment and or a $1,000 fine for each count.
  Authorities confiscated at least ten pounds of a drug in finished crystalline form. A large quantity of an unknown drug also was found brewing In large vat.
  In addition to the drugs, the agents found several hundred rounds of military-issue rifle ammunition. A spokesman said that no action has yet been taken concerning that discovery. Spelz, who told agents that he was the owner of the company, claimed that he was a gun collector and that the ammunition belonged to him.
  A spokesman at the Newport jail, the Federal prison for Northern Kentucky, said that the suspects are to appear before U. S. Commissioner Robert C. Cetrulo this morning.
  A FEDERAL agent said that the raid was launched at 5:45 p. m. Sunday.  He said the suspects were observed In the act of manufacturing some of the confiscated drugs. They offered no resistance, he added.
  He added that agents from the Cincinnati, Louisville and Chicago offices of the FDA took part In the raid. He said that Federal authorities had been working on the case for several months with Detective Chief Jesse Sanders of Covington.
  The five-room laboratory in a residential section of Covington's East End was described as "a front operation." A Federal spokesman contended that the company had "no legitimate business as far as we know." He said the company had been in operation at that location for several months.
  The agent said that the authorities had no information about distribution of the drugs manufactured by the lab.
  But Judging by the quantity of drugs confiscated, he said, "this place might possibly have outlets throughout the nation."


(The Cincinnati Enquirer Cincinnati Ohio 1 Apr 1968 Mon Page 1)




SANTA CRUZ

Fugitive for 18 Years Captured

  A Kentucky drug fugitive, whose 18-year flight was aided by a family member who declared him legally dead, was captured in Santa Cruz, the U.S. Marshals Service announced Friday, Two marshals, accompanied by local officers, raided the home of John Spelz on Thursday and arrested him after a struggle. Spelz evaded his Kentucky prison term in 1972 on a drug conviction. During Spelz's arrest, federal officers seized a suspected mobile drug lab parked in front of his home and recovered $250,000 in cash. Spelz's brother, his only living relative, had him declared legally dead in 1985, said Deputy U.S. Marshal David lliebert. But federal officers traced Spelz to Santa Cruz, where he was living under the alias Robert Parker.


(The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California), 17 Feb 1990, Sat, Page 47)

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She and my mom, Marjorie Beers King, went to Asilomar to hear two young professors from Harvard speak about a new way to expand Consciousness— LSD. These were Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. My mom and Jean bought their latest book, and they ordered peyote buttons from Texas when it was legal and we dried them on the roof. Later, Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) dropped by with the book he had just written called, "Be Here Now." Bear Owsley came and gave out LSD. Mom could always get us in backstage at Grateful Dead concerts after that.

She made a prize-winning movie in 1965 called "The Psychedelic Experience," narrated by her friend Timothy Leary, with custom music by Ravi Shankar. It won the Film as Art Award at the SF International Film Festival that year. Wavy Gravy hailed my aunt has the inventor of the Color and Light show, which she created at the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test when the Grateful Dead played. She had a hand-crank strobe light that I got to crank.

Jean conducted the first bicoastal ESP experiments, in which images were successfully transmitted from California to a receiver in New York. Jean was always ahead of her time!

She worked in biofeedback creating a light box with color sensors that lit up with the waves from your brain, (alpha, beta, theta, and delta). The brain wave analyzers were designed and built by her life-long friend, Tim Scully. She exhibited her work at the New York Museum of Modern Art. She was a shaman and traveled the world leading groups in healing work and guided imagery. She was an accomplished author, a pioneer in the field of parapsychology research and the use of psychedelics for therapeutic and spiritual enrichment.

She published several books, still available on Amazon. Her most recent, (she completed when she turned 85), "Radiant Minds—Scientists Explore the Dimensions of Consciouses." Jean reported the amazing contributions of fifty-five scientists (all personal friends of hers as well), detailing their years of research in Parapsychology.

Jean was so happy to find out, mere weeks before she died, that her book "Multidimensional Mind: Remote Viewing in Hyperspace," had been selected for use as a college textbook!

Also at age 87 she was included in a television show where clips of her famous movie, "The Psychedelic Experience," were shown, along with a wonderful profile of her long-time partner Darrell Lemaire. (Vice.com Hamilton's Pharmacopeia)

Jean was also a matchmaker, preformed marriages for friends, and did messages too. She led many on guided meditations, helping to solve long-standing issues. She was incredibly intuitive. She was also terrific at making new friends. I endeavor to be more like her.

She finished her days out with another brilliant man, her partner Darrell Lemaire. For 25 years they lived together in a small mountain cabin on a property fed by a spring and run on solar power. They named it "Birdsong Meadow." I watched them sit together in their gorgeous front yard, holding hands for hours, enjoying a 50 mile unobstructed view across the Great Basin.

They didn't need to talk, they were totally in love, enjoying being in the moment, admiring mother nature. Jean's big joy was all the little animals that came into their yard to nipple at the salt lick, or peck at the seeds she threw out. All manor of dear, birds, squirrels, chipmunks and lizards danced around their yard, it was like a Disney movie every day. This is where Jean has requested to have her ashes scattered. My brother Forrest actually found this property for Darrell, and his ashes are scattered there too, as will be Darrel's someday.


(https://ballardfamilymortuaries.frontrunnerpro.com)




Dates

    Existence: June 14, 1929 - August 02, 2017


(https://archives.lib.purdue.edu)

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Fullcircle1 said:

Haha!

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What's so funny? Anyway, today is the 55th anniversary of the last day of the Powder Ridge Rock Festival.