Posted on 01/11/2006 4:16:29 AM PST by beyond the sea
http://wjz.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_010144726.html
Father Of LSD Celebrating 100th Birthday
(AP) GENEVA LSD is an unlikely subject for a 100th birthday party. Yet the Swiss chemist who discovered the mind-altering drug and was its first human guinea pig is celebrating his centenary Wednesday — in good health and with plans to attend an international seminar on the hallucinogenic.
"I had wonderful visions," Albert Hofmann said, recalling his first accidental consumption of the drug.
"I sat down at home on the divan and started to dream," he told the Swiss television network SF DRS. "What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures. It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."
Hofmann, who also had bad experiences with the drug, continues to insist it should be legalized for medical treatment, particularly in psychiatric research. But LSD's reputation has been as turbulent as some acid trips.
The drug earned a bad reputation amid fatalities associated with hallucinations and reports of "flashbacks" — the recurrence of hallucinations when not taking the drug.
LSD inspired the 1960s hippy generation and was immortalized in the Beatles' hit "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," although the band denied any connection. But it was also known as Like Swift Dead.
For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.
"I produced the substance as a medicine," he said. "It's not my fault if people abused it."
The chemist — who still takes nearly daily walks in the picturesque village where he lives in the Jura mountains with his wife of 70 years, Anita — discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938 while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals firm, now part of Novartis.
(Excerpt) Read more at wjz.com ...
Anybody heard of someone dying from an LSD overdose? Honest question, no agenda. I've never heard of it.
Never heard of anyone dying but do know a few people who fried their brains.
******
LSD is a fabulous learning experience for mature, well balanced (adult) human beings. There may be few better lessons of our connection to nature.
Flame away....... ;-)
People have surely done very stupid things under the influence which resulted in their untimely demise. I was working on a construction site as a teenager and watched a guy nail his own hand to a wall with a nailgun without realizing he was doing it. Don't trip and nail.
Was the LSD the only thing these friends of yours were taking over a period of years?
And if, and I doubt it, they only took LSD, there is a great possibility they were taking too much at a time.
It is my experience that "fried brains" as you say were from too large a dose at a time, or, just poor brains to start with.
I have to say - when I was 18 (40 now) I thought about trying LSD. I happened to come across Albert Hoffmans book - which is very interesting. He really believes in it's purest form it could be a very good thing. Near the end of the book is even the formula for how to make the drug! However, he also adds that what is available on the street now could be just about anything, and potentially toxic. That alone convinced me to pass over it. I'm glad that book was out there...
ROFL.
How about an old friend of mine from the 'Burgh?
****
LSD and The No-Hitter
http://www.sirbacon.org/4membersonly/docellis.htm
Art Linkletter's daughter comes to mind.
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/linkletter.asp
Yes, it was LSD(acid) and was well before designer drugs were available.
Heavy use is mentally destructive for sane people.
This guy was a GREAT source back in the 60's for some of my friends. Although he was seldom in my city, Pittsburgh, there were professors at Pitt and Carnegie Tech (CMU) who were helped by him. This guy was the king of LSD, and a very smart fellow.
*****
Owsley Stanley (b. Augustus Owsley Stanley III, January 19, 1935) was the first 'underground' chemist to mass produce high-quality LSD in the 1960s. Known to most simply as Owsley or Bear, he served eighteen months in the U.S. Air Force during the 1950s. In 1963 he began attending U.C. Berkeley where he tried his first psychoactive drug and decided to produce methedrine. Police eventually raided his lab in 1965 but found only precursors.
Owsley moved to L.A. to pursue the production of LSD. He used his methedrine proceeds to buy bulk lysergic acid and produced an enormous quantity of individual LSD 'trips', estimated at anywhere between 100,000 and 10 million doses. Once finished, he returned to the Bay area, where he supplied LSD to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters for their famous acid tests. Through them he also met the Grateful Dead in 1966 and began supporting them both financially and as a sound man. During this time he made numerous live recordings of the Dead and other leading San Francisco acts including Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin.
But that Snopes link asserts that she wasn't on acid, or at least that it's not possible to say with certainty that she was.
I said she "comes to mind".
I used to know someone who would tell me he'd go out to the woods, take LSD, and "talk to God."
My cousin on the other hand, used to do it fairly frequently in her young 20's. Her last trip was a really bad one; from there, she stopped and never went back.
I understand (she's a drug counselor now) that it just depends on how it interacts with your chemistry. Not all trips are predictable. Nor "safe."
I knew a lot of "sane" people back in the late 60's and early 70's who tripped at least 100 times over a period of a couple of years.
I don't know what you mean by "heavy use", but all these friends of mine are very productive citizens presently, took their lessons from their days of usage, and are doing quite well with wonderful families and great love for God. You would never know they were ever LSD users 30+ years ago. We all get together once a year and try it again............... it's always good.
I worked with nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery while in The US Army. When you undergo psychological and reliability interviews, they ask about drugs. The only past drug use the PERMANENTLY disqualifies you are hallucinagenics like LSD, as many consider the effects PERMANENT because of "flashbacks".
That's beautiful!
***
As his time left grows short, Hofmann's conversation turns ever more insistently around one theme: man's oneness with nature and the dangers of an increasing inattention to that fact.
"It's very, very dangerous to lose contact with living nature," he said. "In the big cities, there are people who have never seen living nature, all things are products of humans," he said. "The bigger the town, the less they see and understand nature."
And, yes, LSD, which he calls his "problem child," could help reconnect people to the universe.
Rounding a century, Hoffman is physically reduced but mentally clear. He ambles with pleasure through memories of his boyhood, but his bright eyes flash with the recollection of a mystical experience he had on a forest path more than 90 years ago in the hills above Baden, Switzerland.
The experience left him longing for a similar glimpse of what he calls "a miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality," but it also left him deeply connected to nature and helped shape his future.
"I was completely astonished by the beauty of nature," he said, laying a slightly gnarled finger alongside his nose with the recollection, his longish white hair swept back from his temples and the crown of his head. He became particularly fascinated by the plant kingdom, by the mechanisms through which plants turn sunlight into the building blocks for our own bodies. "Everything comes from the sun via the plant kingdom," he said.
*******
Glad to hear this good man is still kicking. I certainly "tripped" well over 100 times way back when, and although I had already developed an abiding love for and comfort with nature's gifts in my earlier years, my LSD/mushrooms/mescaline experiences nicely reinforced my fascination with the incredible power and beauty of nature. Nature really is all we need.
God bless this old fellow. We've been down some of the same roads. (I'll never forget my first trip. I love snowfalls, and I was fortunate enough to be introduced to it by a friend on a night when about eight inches of snow fell. It was one of those beautifully enchanting, calm and quiet snows. There was absolutely no wind that night, and the temperature was around 30 degrees, so the snowflakes were huge, the size of the good old 50 cent pieces. Under the city street lights the colors that were visible in the falling flakes were magnificent --- oranges, purples and an assortment of others.
And to me, the best thing about LSD is that it can teach you what is ALWAYS THERE (in nature), if you just take time to look! After you've used it, you really never need to continue using it, you have already learned the lessons, if you payed attention.
:-)
Why are my key's melting onto the floor...................
If you like using acid that is your business.
That fluid baseball card is a collectors item. Doc was gliding along at the 6 hour point.
Interesting. I used LSD/mushrooms/etc. way over 100 times I would guess, and I have never had "flashback". All my friends who used never have either. I consider that mostly all baloney, but I guess the Army wanted to be quite careful.
I was ASA '69-71. I had a top secret crypto-clearance as I was a code receiver. But, I consider it good fortune that I was never introduced to drugs of any sort until after my college graduation and my military service days were over.
Anyhow, most of that alarmism about LSD is just that ........ alarmism.
Used correctly by well-adjusted adults, it is generally a very beautiful and meaningful learning experience. I am so glad I had a friend who introduced me. I know this kind of talk seems dangerous to some who read it, but I'm talking about responsible usage by intelligent, well-adapted adults.
;-)
Who is that?
Watching the sun rise was always a spiritual moment. The late 60's and early 70's in Uniontown were a trippy time.
What a relief, I was worried about your approval.
;-)
I've only done it about five times in the past decade or so. Now, when I take it, I just see all these unfinished projects all around me.... projects that I began but never followed through on. Oh well. By the way, I have a great idea for a new lawnrake if you want to hear about it.
;-)
Window pane....I forgot about that one. Certainly a good clean memory.
;-)
Oh yeh, those were the good old days. After some late afternoon summer thunderstorms, I used to like to listen to the water seep into the lush roughs off the fairways at The Pittsburgh Field Club. Heavy, huh?
;-)
WDVE broadcasts were tape loops with cutting edge music at that time. One quirky thing was watching Chilly Billy on Chiller Theater. Sometimes, I believe he knew what his audience was up to.
LOL ............. but the lawn rake idea is for real. It's for removing autumn leaves from beds of ivy, myrtle, or pachysandra ---- bedding plants, ground covers. This rake does not get caught up in these beds like a normal lawn rake does, yet can still get the leaves out pretty easily. It's a great idea, but I need some big honcho to get it going.
Hey Bill Gates, are you lurking?
;-)
Your question reminds me, again, how old I am getting......
A Windex memory.
;-)
***
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.
UGH!
If the good doctor's 'trip' only lasted 2 hours, he received a smaller dose than most. --- different back then.
The 'really good stuff' kept you going for 9 or 10 hours. --- It sure did.
Most of the folks I knew, treated LSD like religious sacrament, used it only 2 or 3 times a year or less to achieve max. effect and always in a non-public venue. --- that's a great idea. But I must say, a buddy and I took some LSD before a World Series game in Three Rivers Stadium in 1971. We were way up in the upper deck with 53,000+ people, the clearest, clean blue sky that day, and as we were sitting there in that place, we felt like we were in a giant fishbowl. Oh, and the Pirates won.
;-)
I believe Art Linkletter's daughter jumped to her death from her Manhattan apartment.
Fine, but it's generally not well-balanced, mature people who are the ones using it...
;-)
Definitely.
LSD can give a glimpse of the divine, if used with the proper intent and frame of mind. But like every other ecstacy-inducing earthly thing, LSD is ultimately revealed to be a dead end road.
Personal experience? But seriously, what you say may be true. What do you suggest?
By the way, what do you want to do about all those unbalanced and immature drinkers?
My personal experience with LSD and other hallucinagencis is ZERO, so I can only relay what the Army regulations were. Personally, I've never heard of nor seen any "flashback" episodes (other than those on television).
If you would have only stopped after the first sentence .......
;-)
I don't have a lot of time, but that second sentence is just plain silly.
What is an "ecstacy-inducing earthly thing"? Are the lovely colored wild flowers waving in the wind in the meadows "ecstacy-inducing earthly things"? Well, of course they can be to some. So then, are those beautiful flowers "ultimately revealed to be a dead end road"? Well of course they are not.
CASE CLOSED
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False.
People eventually stop using LSD. Why? Because it proves to be a false god. They learn that there are limitations, and those limitations are not only distinct and revealing, but they can be quite destructive.
I should qualify this point with: those people who pursue the divine via LSD will eventually find it to be a false god. As do those who pursue sex, music, money, whatever else as their redeemer. Anyone who uses LSD strictly as a means to enhance the environment and their relation to it, in addition to looking to plumb the depths of mind and universe, can do so with relatively little damage. But those people, eventually, stop doing it. Why? Because, even if they're not disillusioned with the divine thing, realize there are only so many times you can appreciate the flowers and bees and stars and "Revolver." It becomes passe.
Not saying there is much I can do about them! Just making a point.
I know people who have done LSD. I haven't, and don't begrudge those who have. However, in my personal circle of friends, those that used LSD on a habitual basis tended to be those that weren't exactly Mr. Mature and Responsible in the first place.
Check the link on post #10.
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