What is LSD?

History of Use

LSD was synthesized in 1938 by Albert Hoffman, of Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, as part of a research program seeking new medicines. LSD did not seem to offer such promise, but in 1943 Hoffman accidentally ingested a dose, experienced its psychoactive effects, and described these effects as being surprisingly transformational.

For the next twenty years, Sandoz Laboratories marketed LSD for research purposes. Among early research was that by the US Central Intelligence Agency from the 1950s through the 1970s, in an attempt to discover whether LSD could be used for mind-control purposes. Mostly, however, psychiatry and psychology became involved, initially because LSD seemed to simulate a “model psychosis.”

The perceptual distortions induced by LSD, however, are not experienced as hallucinations in the sense of something that is not there; rather, they transform what is given in the perceptual field. This distinction led Canadian psychiatrists Humphry Osmond, Abram Hoffer, and Duncan Blewett to use LSD as a treatment for psychosis. LSD was also studied as an adjunct in psychotherapy, especially by Stanislav Grof in Czechoslovakia. Before its criminalization, more than forty thousand patients were treated with LSD psychotherapy. Notable results occurred in alcoholics, felons, and the terminally ill, persons who normally are resistant to successful therapeutic outcomes.

In the United States, research was conducted at Harvard University by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert (who later became Ram Dass). The trio’s 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience popularized the view that LSD could be useful in enhancing human potential. Leary, in particular, became a public advocate for LSD with his slogan to “turn on, tune in, drop out.”

Soon writers such as Aldous Huxley and Ken Kesey and musicians, most famously the Beatles, also reflected a view of LSD’s possibilities. Cary Grant, a major film star, attributed a “new assessment of life” to his experience on LSD. By the 1960s, LSD had become a common drug for American youth, especially in California, where it spread among the burgeoning counterculture. Owsley Stanley, who made and distributed a large amount of LSD in San Francisco in the mid-1960s, is known for fueling the upsurge of interest there. Largely because of this sense that LSD contributed to a rejection of mainstream values, the drug became intensely controversial and the subject of much negative publicity. The manufacture and sale of LSD was made a crime in 1965 and possession was criminalized in 1966.

According to the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, LSD use peaked in the early 1970s, fell slowly to a low in 2003, and has been increasing since. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse indicated that 20.2 million Americans age twelve years and older used LSD at least once in their lifetime. The most common age of first-time users is eighteen years.

Effects and Potential Risks

The effects of LSD become noticeable within thirty to sixty minutes and last six to eight hours or more. The threshold dose is 25 micrograms (mcg), and 100 to 250 mcg is typical; beyond 400 mcg no further change seems to occur. A feature of LSD is how widely its effects vary. Researchers quickly realized the keys to this variability are the mental set (or state) of the user and the setting in which the drug is used.

The physiological effects of LSD include changes to the pulse rate, muscular tension, blood pressure, constriction of arteries in the periphery, and pupil dilation. These effects tend to be mild and do not last beyond the psychoactive period. Longer term effects have been reported, most spectacularly chromosome breakage, but these claims have not survived rigorous research.

Negative experiential effects of LSD are cognitive and emotional. Judgment is impaired such that the user is not as concerned with safety. Emotionally, a user can become so disoriented as to feel anxiety or panic, a reaction augmented if the setting were conducive to disorientation. A rare longer-term negative effect is the unwelcome vivid memory of an emotionally charged moment from the LSD event, known as a flashback.

The experiential effects of LSD include positive aesthetic, psychological, and spiritual transformations. Aesthetically, the effects center on perceptual changes, especially to the visual field, which is intensely enhanced with greater mobility, colorfulness, transiency, luminosity, energy, swelling, vividness, and synesthesia. Psychologically, the effects of LSD include mood changes, particularly feelings of well-being and euphoria; a new and greater awareness of the world and of self; a deeper understanding of human relationships; a transcendence of time and space; and a sense of ineffability. Spiritually, the effects of LSD include a sense of rebirth; a sense of encounters with divinity; a sense of the world as sacred; and a sense of communion, unity, and nonduality.

These effects tend to be experienced as an inward journey; they are remembered and are felt by the user to be of lasting benefit. The effects are so unmistakable that blinded research studies are impossible. For this reason too, substances other than LSD are rarely sold as LSD.

LSD is not addictive. A tolerance is built up after a few days if used daily, but the tolerance is diminished quickly following cessation of use. Studies of lethal overdose levels in animals indicate it would require an extremely huge amount for humans, and no lethal overdoses have been shown in humans.

Bibliography

Dobkin de Rios, Marlene, and Oscar Janiger. LSD, Spirituality, and the Creative Process. Rochester, VT: Park Street, 2003. A research collection examining the impact of LSD on creativity before LSD was made illegal.

Grof, Stanislav. LSD: Doorway to the Numinous. Rochester, VT: Park Street, 2009. A good summary of the clinical research on LSD up to the point it was made illegal. Originally published in 1975.

Hoffman, Albert. LSD: My Problem Child. San Francisco: MAPS, 2005. The synthesizer of LSD reflects on its science and mysticism.

Websites of Interest

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Research

http://www.maps.org

National Institute on Drug Abuse

http://www.drugabuse.gov/infofacts/hallucinogens.html