LSD Story

By Jeremy Russell

…She was baffled by your behavior, she said, until Mankiewicz told her about you and LSD-25. Then, about an hour later, Bill Daughtery found (Doug) Kiker on his knees in the darkness outside McGovern’s command trailer, apparently trying to choke himself with his own hands…but when Bill grabbed him, Kiker said he was trying to un-screw his head from what he called his “neck-pipe,” so he could “check the wiring” in his own brain… (Letter from Hunter S. Thompson to John Chancellor)

LSD, or acid, is a very dangerous and hard drug, destroying the lives of millions worldwide. Apparently, at the minimum, it causes the sanest of people to fall to their knees and strangle themselves in grief-stricken moments of insanity. If it were possible, we should all thank the government for their part in outlawing this overwhelmingly harmful drug, right?

Having probably been sub-consciously motivated by Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, I began reading the Wikipedia profiles of Forbes billionaires, probably looking for some sort of pattern. I stumbled into an interesting part in Steve Jobs’ page, CEO and co-founder of Apple, which claimed that Steve had done LSD and considered it “one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life.” The mouse in the wheel in my head suddenly began to sprint. Since I’ve been influenced by 60s and 70s writing already, with a heavy dose of influence from Hunter S. Thompson, a known connoisseur of LSD, it would only be a matter of time before I asked myself, “Hey, what the hell is so bad about acid anyway?”

I am quite familiar with some of the inner-workings of the brain, exemplified by my belief that a mouse runs on a wheel up there. Truthfully, having been diagnosed with Adult ADD, I’ve done plenty of research on what causes some of my certain actions, which spidered into research of all mental health factors, including the effect medications and drugs may have. Dabbling in most other mind-altering substances and having no complaints outside of them being overpriced and inconveniently illegal, one should recognize my natural bias.

Knowing all this, I set out to find the truth! The first, most logical person I thought to ask was my psychiatrist, Dr. Hani Khalil. Going right into the vortex of the issue, I asked him what was happening in the head during an LSD trip. He not-so-confidently told me that, “There is an increase in dopamine which leads to the general hallucinogenic feelings one has.” Countering, I asked, “Isn’t that what my adderall does? Increases dopamine?” “Yes, that’s true,” he answered. “LSD is much stronger, so it would be comparable to taking 20 adderall.” “Well, you would think that people would have tried that out, right?” as I continued to badger. “That seems like a pretty simple alternative.” Then, as I realized that this super-overdose would probably stop my, or a horse’s heart, he cut in and said, “You know, I haven’t studied this stuff in a very long time. I think I could be mixing this up with PCP. I’m sorry, I’m going to write this down, because I want to research it now that you’ve mentioned it.” “Yikes!” is the only reaction I had to this.

That said, I turned to the internet for the answers. LSD, according to The Vaults of Erowid, an online library of psychoactive studies, is a tryptamine hallucinogen, chemically similar to psilocin. Conversely, mescaline has similar hallucinogenic results, but differs chemically. Therefore, we have two separate chemical hallucinogens that are most likely acting as agonists to serotonin and ketanserin. An agonist is a chemical that binds to a cell, causing some sort of reaction. In LSD, the chemicals “excite” cells that are usually “un-excited.” There is much more research done, in terms that you and I probably don’t understand, but regretfully, all theories are considered speculative anyway, ultimately because the living brain and what goes on is so minute that it’s still not able to be fully studied as a whole.

What most research has shown is that LSD shows absolutely no levels of toxicity. This means that there should not be any permanent damage done to the body, yet, we’ve all heard the story of your father’s crazy Uncle Herman taking LSD once, losing all control, and being placed in a mental institution, bobbing and unbobbing his upper-torso like an upside-down pendulum for eternity. So, what gives?

Albert Hofmann was the man responsible for LSD, creating it in 1938, accidentally ingesting it in 1943, and then arming himself with 250 micrograms (the estimated average street quantity is 50 micrograms) to take as a “threshold dosage number,” in an effort to begin studying it for us in psychiatry. What came of this were findings that it was extremely useful in fighting alcoholism (50% success rate as opposed to 10% success rate from Alcoholics Anonymous), and also useful in treating chronic pain and cluster headaches, which are comparable to migraine’s “worse than amputation without anesthetic.” Psychologically, doctors have seemingly settled into the thought that LSD triggers a dormant or repressed illness, like depression, but does not cause it. The early thought was that LSD “forced the user into facing the inner psyche,” and could therefore confront the issue.

Flashbacks, the effects of LSD much later after use, were the cause of panic among users, yet, it’s not even officially listed as a psychiatric syndrome. Hunter S. Thompson, in a letter to Tom Wolfe (Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) many years ago, wrote, “…and I’m still waiting for those acid flashbacks they warned us about in the 60s…” As far as studies go, the highest amount of users that suffer flashbacks do not reach 30%, and most are short-lived (no longer than 20 seconds), and cover both the positive and negative effects. Irregardless, the government made common possession of LSD illegal in 1968 and seemingly used flashbacks as a scare tactic.

I thought to myself, a true journalist, for the people, shouldn’t report on something he doesn’t fully understand, and thought it obvious that I should take the drug and report the effects, whether it be good or bad, and let you decide from that point on. Naturally however, somebody had beaten me to it. The first case is that of W.A. Stoll, a psychiatrist that decided in an “Oh, what the hell” moment, to self-experiment. His detailed assessment was recopied in Hofmann’s book, “LSD – My Problem Child.”

“20 minutes later the first symptoms appeared,” he wrote. “…heaviness in the limbs, some confusion, uncoordination…followed by a general malaise..a certain euphoria then set in. Visions began…the first were elementary, like rays, bundles of rays, loops, circles, then they became more organized…arches, desert landscapes, skyscraper landscapes, starry skies of unbelievable splendor…I was forced to describe it, but kaleidoscopic was poor and inadequate…the thoughts became frenzied…it became impossible to think a thought through to the end…” He went on, and some things were comical (I must have only started many sentences), he noted feeling depression for more than one stage of his experiment, he felt physically ill for some moments, noting heavy perspiration and some nausea, yet after the experiment was over, he “couldn’t wait to try the experiment again.”

Case #2 involves a writer named Robert Gannon, a writer for Popular Science in the 60s. It was his journalistic endeavor to take LSD at a mental-health facility in Pennsylvania with a doctor taking notes at his side. Again, we get a very detailed assessment…including some of the doctor’s notes:

11:45 - “Patient breathing deeply. Trying to interpret, then decides not to. Asks for rocks. Says, John Cage. What I start to say no longer matters. Fearful at times, but seems to be enjoying it – has secretive, playful expression.”

12:00 - Patient groaning. Says thoughts too fast. Tries to get senses working together, he says. Perspiring greatly. Talks of being a movie projector.

12:15 – Patient bites his own arm (probably more recognizable sensory input). Drinks a quart of OJ.

12:30 – Nauseated. Tries to explain things, but gives up. Continues to say, “Wow.” Very agitated.

1:00 – Indicates I am menacing. Sweating profusely.

1:30 – Wants reassurances I’m real.

2:00 – Continues restless. Humming.

2:30 – Up in chair for few minutes. Very unsteady. Back to bed. Appears nauseated and drunk.

2:45 – Sitting up again and fighting. Seems to be coming out of it. Nurse enters; he’s glad. Says “where were need you I when. Those are the words, put them together as you like.”

3:00 – Up and walking about. Bathroom. Beginning to enjoy again and make wisecracks.

At this point, Gannon dismissed the doctor, and he was put in the hands of the nurse. He felt effects for around eight more hours, all ostensibly positive in nature, albeit for the misconstruing of time (10 seconds = 20 minutes). He ended the report saying, “In the morning I continued to feel strange and contemplative. But I began to make notes. And yet a phrase continued to run through my brain – something I had thought the night before: ‘They’ve taken me all apart and now I have to put myself back together again.’ Some of the pieces still don’t quite fit.”

In essence, I’ve talked to people that have taken it, I’ve talked to law enforcement, and more in psychiatry, yet to me, it’s still a mystery. The original question was, “If it was so important for Steve Jobs, why wouldn’t be so important to me,” as I played with my much-loved iPhone. There’s only one way of unraveling this particular mystery, which is first-hand experience. My only hope, then, is that I’ve enlightened you of my very own personal mystery and triggered some curiosity in you.



“It’s pretty spooky in the recesses of my mind. There are some monsters down there. But it’s ok, everyone is allowed a monster or two.” (Robert Gannon)