The Rise, Decline, and Fall of LSD

THE RISE, DECLINE, AND FALL OF LSD ROBERT F. ULRICH and BERNARD M. PATTEN* The urge to transcend self-conscious selfhood is ... a principal appetite of the soul. When, for whatever reason, men and women fail to transcend themselves by means of worship, good worh and spiritual exercises, they are apt to resort to religion's chemical surrogates.—Aldous Huxley. [1] On April 16, 1943, a fascinating chapter in the history of neurology, psychopharmacology, and humanity began when Albert Hofmann unwittingly discovered the incredibly potent and profound effects of d-lysergic acid diethylamide—LSD—upon the mind. What makes the history of LSD so enthralling is not simply its overwhelming psychological effects but the various responses of those who explored the strange mental terrain hidden behind the veil of ordinary perception. Discovered in an era of scientific adventurousness, LSD was closely associated with self-experimentation from the beginning. For a scientist to dose himself with an unknown, unpredictable, extremely powerful drug would be unheard of today; yet this approach was not considered unprofessional by early LSD researchers. This emphasis on subjective experience , particularly in psychiatry, led to the eventual widespread use of LSD that temporarily changed the brainscape of America during the late 1960s. The history of LSD has been characterized by a range of high expectations for its potential applications. Within the medical world, researchers attempted to harness its powers as an agent to reveal the pathogenesis of schizophrenia, facilitate psychoanalysis, and cure alcoholism. However , it was impossible to keep a mental probe of such magnitude solely within the realm of science. The CIA, in conjunction with many psychiaPresented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Miami, 1990. Supported by a gift from George Lindler. *Department of Neurology, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030.© 1991 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 0031-5982/91/3404-0734101.00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 34, 4 ¦ Summer 1991 | 561 trists, explored its possibilities as a chemical weapon for mental and behavioral control. As LSD drifted from private circles into the public domain, it became a means to transcend conventional customs of thought and to provide an instant, enlightening spiritual experience. This stage culminated with LSD being banned in 1965, at which time a counterculture based on ritual use of LSD had developed amid horror stories of LSD-induced chromosomal damage and "trips" gone awry resulting in LSD psychosis. However, to understand how Hofmann's strange discovery could have led to such an impact on our society, we must start at the beginning. Pre-LSD Psychedelics Different cultures have used a variety of naturally occurring psychoactive agents since the dawn of civilization, most often as an integral part of their religious practices. The earliest mention was recorded by the Aryans of ancient India in the Rig-Veda, a 3,500-year-old collection of hymns praising soma. Soma has the distinction ofbeing the only drug to be venerated as a deity and has been convincingly proposed by Wasson to be Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) [2], a mushroom containing the psychoactive muscimol. More recently, the Aztecs were known to have incorporated a variety of hallucinogenic substances into their religion and society. These included the psilocybin-containing teonanacatl or "flesh of the gods" (mushrooms of the genus Psilocybe), ololiuqui (morning-glory seeds, which have a number of psychotropic ergot alkaloids ), and the drug which indirectly begat the psychedelic revolution: peyote [3]. However, Western civilization was largely unaware of these activities until science turned its attention to the peculiar chemical properties of these plants and fungi and the field of pharmacology was born. The modern-day study of pharmacology began in 1855 with the publication of Die Narkotischen Genusmitteel unde der Mensch [4]. In this volume , Von Bibra identified a number of different mind-altering plants and encouraged others to examine this overlooked branch of botany. In 1886 toxicologist Louis Lewin carried on this line of exploration with an in-depth study of peyote. Lewin collected different cactus specimens and isolated four different peyote alkaloids. Unwilling to selfexperiment , he persuaded a colleague named Arthur Hefter to isolate the psychoactive constituent, which he called mezcal [5]. Ten...