LSD is an illegal drug with a long and checkered history. Lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD-25, was first made by the Swiss drug manufacturer Sandoz in 1938. On Nov. 16 of that year, a young chemist named Albert Hofmann was working on finding medically useful ergot derivatives from fungus that grew on rye and tried 24 derivatives before getting to LSD-25, which he hoped would help stimulate the respiratory and circulatory systems. Nothing came of it, however, and Hofmann shelved the project until 1943, when, on April 16, he made the drug again. This time, he also ingested 250 micrograms (millionths of a gram), a dose that he believed was barely enough to note any effects. Little did Hofmann realize that LSD was extremely active at those tiny dosages. What happened next is now a part of LSD history--Hofmann felt a bit dizzy and decided to leave work. He got on his bicycle and began the first LSD "trip," as the drug sessions are called.
Hofmann was fascinated with the experience, which seemed to mimic certain psychotic mental states and proceeded to take more LSD over the years, introducing the drug to psychologists and scientists all over the world. The drug state was disorienting, often included hallucinations, sensations of time stopping and of overabundant joy or terror, and in general offered a kaleidoscopic experience unlike any other. It was initially thought of as a way to understand and treat schizophrenia.
In the 1960s, Timothy Leary, a Harvard psychologist, caused quite a stir when he gave LSD, which was legal at the time, to undergraduate students as part of his belief that the drug opened the "doors of perception," a phrase used by the English novelist Aldous Huxley, an early proponent of LSD. All hell broke loose afterward, and the media reaction was swift and often negative, as it showcased the "bad trips" that sometimes resulted when immature, mentally unbalanced people or people with emotional difficulties tried LSD. Following the bad press, LSD was made illegal, but underground labs continued to produce it.
Leary and other "LSD Prophets" continued to give the drug to artists, philosophers, writers, scientists, musicians and other culturally creative people, and the massive cultural shift of the late 1960s can be at least partially attributed to the drug's effects, because it can lead to a more flexible mindset and alternative ways of seeing the world--whether good or bad (the murderer and cult leader Charles Manson was a heavy LSD user, as was Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers).
While legal research in the United States was stopped after the negative media exposure in the late 1960s, LSD is now shedding some of its negative image, and there are several scientific studies under way, largely supported by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (maps.org), though the drug's potential is still not clearly understood.
