LSD conference celebrates creator’s centennial
When you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you don’t turn into a mystic you are not a natural scientist.
- Albert Hofmann.
January 13-15, Basel, Switzerland hosted the conference LSD: Problem Child and Wonder Drug, an International Symposium on the Occasion of the 100th Birthday of Albert Hofmann. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25), a derivative of lysergic acid found in the alkaloids of the ergot grain fungus was discovered by Hoffman in 1938. During the 1950s and 1960s, LSD a.k.a. acid was found to be a promising tool for psychiatry and psychotherapy and was studied by the CIA as a potential interrogation weapon (Project MKULTRA). But it has been illegal worldwide since the mid-1960s, after the great acid wave that washed over popular youth culture. Dr. Andrew Sewell, a psychiatrist and neurologist from the Harvard Medical School says "There is no evidence that LSD causes permanent brain damage — and quite a lot of evidence that it doesn’t."
While acid flashbacks exist, they’re rare and not as dangerous as the media makes them seem. Further, no one has died of an LSD overdose. While doubtless there have been people who’ve done some really stupid things while tripping, still others have accomplished great feats, like Pittsburgh’s Doc Ellis who pitched a perfect game on acid in 1970. Among the first to popularize the drug was author Aldous Huxeley in Doors of Perception and Dr. Timothy Leary, ex-Harvard psychologist turned LSD crusader. Nobel-prize-winner Francis Crick, discoverer of the double helical structure of DNA, told friends he received inspiration for his ideas from LSD. Many computer pioneers also credit LSD as their inspiration, including Douglas Englebart, the inventor of the mouse, and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who considers it as "one of the two or three most important things he has done in his life." So it’s no surprise that some computer companies, e.g. Cisco Systems, have banned drug testing for their technologists. During the LSD symposium, mythologist Carl P. Ruck and chemist Peter Webster presented their research supporting the popular theory that an ergot preparation was the active ingredient for the Kykeon beverage used during the ritual of the Eleusinian Mysteries of the Ancient Greek cult of Diana. Others have linked ergot poisoning to explain the Salem witch trials, as well as the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.