Most common mood altering substances we know today have a long history. One of the earliest verified reports of cannabis use was in Herodotus journals, where he describes Scythian tribesmen throwing seeds on a fire, inhaling the smoke and howling with joy . Stimulants have played a role in many religions. Shamanic ceremony is often cited, but how often do people read the Bible, with it's winged angels, burning bushes and ravaged cities and wonder what on Earth these people were on?
The point is drugs began, like all other aspects of ancient human culture, tied to ritual, in particular religious ritual.
But LSD is almost unique. It is a 20th century drug, a capitalist drug. It was first synthesised in 1938, in a Sandoz laboratory. For twenty years after the Bicycle Day the company made and exported the drug around the world until it was almost universally outlawed in the mid-60s . In that time (and for some time after) it had an incredible history, attracted many great minds, inspired much thought and debate.
To begin with it was seen as a powerful aid to psychotherapy . There were investigations into its usefulness treating alcoholism, initial results suggested it was five times more effective than Alcoholics Anonymous though the studies were never carried through to a satisfactory conclusion.
The Cold War military/industrial complex then took an interest in the drug. Army chiefs saw it as a powerful chemical weapon. There is ample (and often hilarious) footage, now available online, of British and American soldiers attempting to drill and manoeuvre under the influence. The connection between soldiery and science was particularly strong in Southern California. It was through this connection that LSD found its way down from intellectual circles, onto the campus and into general society. By the mid-sixties it was transformed from an object of military study into the sacrament of anti-militarist counter-culture.
The sixties counter-culture may one day be seen as unique, a radically empty movement to refound the world. It's agent of change was not a class or country but a chemical.
General and Chemical
The human body is in constant dynamic equilibrium. Human beings need continual chemical input in order to survive, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, oxygen and so forth. We don't, of course, need recreational drugs to get by but the principle is similar. You put a chemical into your body in order to get a certain reaction. This is a choice informed adults of sound mind and body should be able to make. One of the biggest problems with prohibition is it means recreational drug users cannot make a strictly informed choice. Prohibition cannot eliminate supply, let alone quell demand .
LSD is an hallucinogenic drug. It is beyond being a stimulant, heightening the faculty of perception to the point where it it becomes distorted. Common physical effects include:
LSD can cause pupil dilation, reduced appetite (for some, it increases), and wakefulness. Other physical reactions to LSD are highly variable and non-specific, and some of these reactions may be secondary to the psychological effects of LSD. The following symptoms have been reported: numbness, weakness, nausea,(decreased or increased body temperature),elevated blood sugar, goosebumps, increase in heart rate, jaw clenching, perspiration,saliva production, mucus production, sleeplessness, hyperreflexia and tremors.
LSD has a very low toxicity, you're more likely to overdose on caffeine than LSD. Of course the psychological effects:
Some psychological effects may include an experience of radiant colours, objects and surfaces appearing to ripple or "breathe", coloured patterns behind the closed eyelids (eidetic imagery), an altered sense of time (time seems to be stretching, repeating itself, changing speed or stopping), crawling geometric patterns overlaying walls and other objects, morphing objects, a sense that one's thoughts are spiralling into themselves, loss of a sense of identity or the ego (known as "ego death"), and other powerful psycho-physical reactions. Many users experience a dissolution between themselves and the "outside world". This unitive quality may play a role in the spiritual and religious aspects of LSD. The drug sometimes leads to disintegration or restructuring of the user's historical personality and creates a mental state that some users report allows them to have more choice regarding the nature of their own personality .
So common they're quoted on Wikipedia.
It's the psychological effects of LSD that fascinate so, in particular the 'unitive' sense inspired by the drug. It is what inspired the revolution behind the eyes. It seems almost serendipitous LSD appeared in public life at the moment it did; a time that saw the first faint signs of the end of the post-war boom, the cresting wave of the Civil Rights movement, growing opposition to the Vietnam War. Perhaps above all else a generation of people was reaching adulthood who knew nothing of the war or the depression. They were presented with a life choice between a slot in a faceless corporation and the ranks of the military and found it no choice at all.
But before that we have to go to Switzerland.