Using Acid Against Addiction: The Dawn of Psychedelic Assisted Therapy

Abstract

One of the world’s most powerful psychedelic drugs, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), was never meant to be discovered. Albert Hoffman, commonly known as “the Father of LSD”, unexpectedly came across the drug while working as a research chemist in the 1930s. His job was to repeatedly break down ergot, a fungus that grows parasitically on rye plants, into various types of lysergic acid. During the initial testing of his 25th substance, the soon-to-be famous LSD-25, he noted that the experimental animals became restless, but the substance garnered no special interest. Five years later, Hofmann decided to resynthesize LSD-25. As he completed the final steps of the process, Hofmann suddenly became lost in “an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures of extraordinary plasticity with intense, kaleidoscope-like plays of colors”, most likely due to trace amounts of the substance coming into contact with his fingertips and absorbing through the skin. Fascinated by the experience, Hofmann took more LSD. Unaware of the drug's potency, he orally consumed 0.25 milligrams - five times the recommended dose. As its effects set in, he slipped into a psychedelic nightmare. His vision wavered and distorted as if he was looking into a curved mirror. The room spun in circles around him, and his furniture took on increasingly threatening forms. Hofmann felt for a moment as if he was losing his grip on reality and knocking on the doorstep of insanity, but as the drug’s effects dwindled, he instead found himself enjoying the remarkable sensations - sounds being transformed into vivid optical perceptions, fantastic mental images culminating in kaleidoscopic explosions, and a new world revealing itself to be explored. Hofmann woke up the next day to feelings of well-being and renewed life force flowing through him. He saw the world as if it was newly created, and with that, the mystery of LSD-25 officially began.