HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/lsd.use.up

Internet Message Format | 1996-05-06 | 8KB

From: "J. J. Larrea" <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Article on LSD: Increased use and historical timeline
To: [e-mail] (raves)
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 16:12:32 -0400 (EDT)

This might be interesting to some... the timeline at the end credits
renewed hallucinogenic usage to the rave scene, circa 1988.

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Fifty Years Later, LSD Gains New Popularity in High Schools
  San Francisco, Calif. (AP) -- On the 50th anniversary of the first use of
LSD, a new study says LSD use among high school seniors is at its highest
level in seven years, and more teenagers are sniffing glue and other volatile
substances.
  The most widely used drugs among eighth-graders are inhalants -- products
such as glue and air fresheners, said Lloyd Johnston, chief researcher for
the study by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.
  In addition, the number of eighth-graders using drugs of all types is
rising, the study found.
  "The nation's attention to the subject has slacked off," Johnston told the
Associated Press. "Now we may be harvesting the bitter fruit for that change
in emphasis."
  Among seniors, 5.6 percent admitted using LSD in the past year, up from
5.2 percent in 1991. Use of LSD, widely associated with the '60s, had dropped
among seniors from 7.2 percent in 1975 -- the first year for the survey -- to
4.4 percent in 1985.
  "I think the major dynamic problem has been through sort of a general
forgetting process," Johnston said. "I'm not sure how many people expected
LSD use to make a resurgence."
  As for inhalants, the study found 9.5 percent of eighth-graders used them
in the past year, up from 9 percent in 1991.
  Politicians, educators and the news media generally do not mention
inhalants when they talk about drugs, Johnston said. "I think they really
don't have an under standing of the dangers of inhalants yet," he said.
  About 17,000 seniors in 135 public and private schools nationwide filled
out questionnaires in their classrooms for the study, as did about 18,000
eighth-graders in 160 schools and about 15,000 10th-graders in 125 schools.
  While results for 10th-graders were basically unchanged from last year,
the study found some significant increases in the number of eighth-graders
admitting to using certain drugs. The study also found a decrease in the
number of eighth-graders who disapproved of drug use.
  Among eighth-graders, the share of those who admitted using marijuana was
7.2 percent, up from 6.2 percent; LSD, 2.1 percent, up from 1.7 percent;
cocaine, 1.5 percent, up from 1.1 percent; crack, 0.9 percent, up from 0.7
percent; and other hallucinogens, 1.1 percent, up from 0.7 percent.
  "That causes a worry that the youngest cohorts maybe aren't learning as
much about drugs as their predecessors who grew up in a drug-infested world,"
Johnston said.

ORIGINS OF LSD
  When chemist Albert Hofmann accidently brushed against one of his own
creations 50 years ago Friday, he started a psychedelic journey that has
lasted to this day. Hofmann had taken the world's first LSD trip.
  Hofmann clearly remembers that day as "an uninterrupted stream of
fantastic images of extraordinary plasticity ... accompanied by an intense,
kaleidoscopelike play of colors."
  Hofmann created LSD-25 -- lysergic acid diethylamide -- in his Swiss
laboratory in 1938 while seeking a blood stimulant. His maiden trip came by
accident when a tiny amount seeped into his skin.
  Since then, LSD's reputation has been as turbulent as some acid trips.
Although popular in the underground, the drug earned a bad reputation amid
reports of fatalities associated with hallucinations and reports of
"flashbacks" -- a recurrence of hallucinations when no new dose of the drug
had been taken.
  The government banned the drug and scientists, for the most part, dropped
their research.
  The drug was popularized by one-time Harvard lecturer Timothy Leary, known
as the "high priest of LSD," whose "turn on, tune in, drop out" advice to
students in the 1960s glamorized the hallucinogen.
  Rick Doblin recalls his own first acid trip. As it took effect, he heard an
air raid siren and was convinced his life was over.
  He rushed outside to "live it up" and suddenly realized he had never
noticed the world's beautiful colors.
  "I was in this exhilarated, exalted state," he recalled recently for the
Associated Press. "I felt like all of my senses were opening up in a way I
wasn't aware of."
  Doblin, now 39 and founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for
Psychedelic Studies Inc., or MAPS, is among researchers who advocate medical
use of hallucinogens. They will gather this weekend to mark the anniversary.
  The three-day Psychedelic Summit will feature talks by Leary; Laura
Huxley, wife of the late author and LSD experimenter Aldous Huxley; and Paul
Krassner, editor of The Realist. It will focus on the use of mind-altering
drugs in mental health therapy and substance abuse treatment.
  And where better to hold the summit than San Francisco, where acid trips
fueled the psychedelic '60s and made the city's hippie-crowded Haight-Ashbury
district an international symbol of the times.
  The government refused to approve psychedelic drugs research until
recently, when the Food and Drug Administration authorized a study on the
effects of using LSD for substance abuse treatment.

LSD TIMELINE
  A chronology of the history of lysergic acid diathylamide, LSD:
  * 1938: Chemist Albert Hofmann synthesizes LSD-25 at Sandoz Pharmaceutical
Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, in search of creating a blood stimulant.
  * April 16, 1943: Hofmann accidentally absorbs a minute amount of LSD-25
through the skin on his finger. He reported seeing "an uninterrupted stream
of fantastic images of extraordinary plasticity ... accompanied by an
intense, kaleidoscopelike play of colors." The experience lasted about three
hours.
  * April 19, 1943: Hofmann deliberately ingests 250 micrograms of LSD-25. He
begins writing laboratory notes, but the drug's effects become too great. He
rides his bicycle home. Suffering great anxiety, he calls a doctor. The next
morning, Hofmann reports his physical and mental health are excellent.
  * 1947: The first report on mental effects of LSD published by Werner
Stoll.
  * 1952: Charles Savage publishes the first study on the use of LSD to treat
depression.
  * 1953: First LSD clinic opens in England under Ronald Sandison.
Separately, unwitting subjects in United States were given LSD in the CIA
funded Project MK-Ultra to test the effects of the drug.
  * 1955: First conference focusing on LSD and mescaline takes place in
Atlantic City and Princeton, N.J.
  * 1960: Harvard University's Timothy Leary establishes the Psychedelic
Research Project.
  * 1963: The first year LSD believed to appear on the streets. Doses were
dropped on a sugar cube. Articles about LSD first appear in mainstream media
(Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post). Leary is fired from Harvard.
  * 1966: The government bans LSD.
  * 1967: First Human Be-In held in San Francisco. Height of the Summer of
Love in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and London.
  * 1976: Blotter acid (LSD placed on a piece of paper) emerges as the
primary kind of underground LSD.
  * 1975: End of the last formal LSD research program.
  * 1979: Hofmann publishes "LSD: My Problem Child."
  * 1988: Psychedelic movement re-emerges along with popularity of raves,
all-night dance parties featuring synthesized music and use of hallucenogenic
drugs.