Father Of LSD Celebrating 100th Birthday

[trogdor]

(AP) GENEVA LSD is an unlikely subject for a 100th birthday party. Yet the Swiss chemist who discovered the mind-altering drug and was its first human guinea pig is celebrating his centenary Wednesday — in good health and with plans to attend an international seminar on the hallucinogenic.

"I had wonderful visions," Albert Hofmann said, recalling his first accidental consumption of the drug.

"I sat down at home on the divan and started to dream," he told the Swiss television network SF DRS. "What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures. It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."

Hofmann, who also had bad experiences with the drug, continues to insist it should be legalized for medical treatment, particularly in psychiatric research. But LSD's reputation has been as turbulent as some acid trips.

http://wjz.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_010144726.html

[JVS]

1. I always had heard that some German guy invented it and went insane...

by tripping his way through WWII then died.

[Beaverhausen]

2. Happy Trails, to you

until we meet again... :party:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. IIrc, those initial doses were the equivalent of dozens or hundreds

of "hits." Hofmann be tripping hard.

[Owsley]

5. Not Quite

His first intentional dosage of LSD was 250µg (micrograms). Although I'm not sure what passes for a standard hit these days, you can assume you're taking anywhere from 15-50µg, depending on purity (50µg being a very high amount of LSD to be taking).

Owsley

[Betsy Ross]

7. And Owsley should know! n/t

[michreject]

9. Especially with the owl stamped/embossed on it.

Been a looooooooooooooong time.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. Hard to argue with someone named "Owsley" on this subject.

:D

I guess no one knows what the first unintentional dosage was. I was just remembering a book I read on/by Hofmann about how his first forays into the drug were massive overdoses.

[Owsley]

15. It's why LSD is so fascinating to me

He never imagined that it (LSD) would have an effect at such a low amount. LSD's effective dose is literally orders of magnitudes lower than other drugs, recreational or not. What he thought was a dose that would result in little or no effect was, in fact, a very large amount of LSD. Must have been an incredible experience for him.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. It has me reading this article from him:

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/child1.htm

[Owsley]

20. Here it is:

"Last Friday, April 16,1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/child1.htm

There's the first LSD trip.

[HannibalBarca]

14. ......

A standard "dose" is about 25 micrograms, 10 times less then for cocaine. It's a non selective 5-ht agonist, quite an effective one as well.

[Zensea]

16. Actually

50 micrograms is not a high dose at all, it may be these days but back in the days of the actual Owsley doses were at least 150 ..

from Wikipedia ---"A typical dose of LSD during the 1960s was only 100 to 150 micrograms, a tiny amount roughly equal to one-tenth the weight of a grain of sand. Today a typical dose of LSD is as low as 25-50 micrograms. Threshold effects can be felt with as little as 20 micrograms. LSD causes a powerful intensification and alteration of senses, emotions, memories, and self-awareness for 6 to 14 hours."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD

It also says later in the article -- "In the late 1990s, LSD obtained during drug law enforcement operations in the United States has usually ranged between 20 and 80 micrograms per dose. During the 1960s, dosages were commonly 300 micrograms or more."

[Owsley]

22. My intention...

...was to relate his dose with what is typical today. 50µg today is a large dose, relatively speaking.

[Zensea]

24. Yeah, i t occurred to me after I posted

that that might be what you were saying, referring to current standards instead of overall from back in the day.

[Toots]

25. I remember thousand mic tabs

We would split them four ways and trip for eight to twelve hours. Purple Osley was very good

[William Bloode]

32. 250 mics is normal.

I spent 3yrs in a cell with a guy who had 20yrs for making acid. He told me lower quality acid is 20-40 mics, middle quality 50-100 mics better quality was around 150-200, with 250 being pretty strong but some "double dip" was 400 or better. I know i have personally dosed at least 1,200 mics in one sitting. :crazy:

[psychopomp]

38. No, IIRC the average dose is between 100-250 mics

I would like to express my birthday wishes to the "father" of LSD! Mr. Hoffman wrote a very good book on the subject, "LSD, My Problem Child." Highly recommended.

As is LSD, lol

[cmdrzog]

4. Happy Birthday Albert

and thanks trogdor for bringing some sunshine to LBN

[pinerow]

6. I must thank the hallucinogens for the help in perceiving

and deciphering this dimension...and the spiritual lift...:woohoo:

[Tace]

8. Father of LSD, now 100, and his 'problem child'

By Craig S. Smith -- The New York Times

BURG, Switzerland -- Albert Hofmann, the father of LSD, walked slowly across the small corner office of his modernist home on a grassy Alpine hilltop here, hoping to show a visitor the vista that sweeps before him on clear days.

But outside there was only a white blanket of fog hanging just beyond the crest of the hill. He picked up a photograph of the view on his desk instead, left there perhaps to convince visitors of what really lies beyond the window.

Hofmann turns 100 on Wednesday, a milestone to be marked by a symposium in nearby Basel on the chemical compound that he discovered and that famously altered consciousnesses around the world. As the years accumulate and his time left on the planet grows short, Hofmann's conversation turns ever more insistently around one theme: man's oneness with nature and the dangers of an increasing inattention to that fact.

"It's very, very dangerous to lose contact with living nature," he said.

"In the big cities, there are people who have never seen living nature, all things are products of humans," he said. "The bigger the town, the less they see and understand nature."

And, yes, LSD, which he calls his "problem child," could help reconnect people to the universe.

(more)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/06/news/profile.php

and for an earlier DU thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x183868

[rurallib]

10. Maybe W will do some LSD tonite

instead of his Jack Daniels and coke(aine)

[0007]

23. He couldn't handle it! To see his real self would blow his

fucking mind.

[megatherium]

27. It would be like that famous cartoon that appears in the Abbie Hoffman

book Steal This Book, the one that shows the country hick taking LSD and becoming real kind and letting all his chickens go.

[High Plains]

34. I was born down South on a chicken farm

Near Nashville, Tennessee.
Tweren't nuthin' there but a sky full of air,
Seventeen million chickens and me.
Then one day I said "Hey, hey, hey," and I took a little LSD
It blew my mind, I felt real fine, and I set my chickens free
There were chickens in the barnyard,
Chickens drivin' Cadillacs to Washington, DC,
The day I set my chickens free.

God know why I always remembered that.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

12. BEST BOOK he WROTE called: "My Problem Child"--a MUST READ for those

interested in learning about the drug, once thought to be a possible salvation for humanity--
He had hoped it could help people --Administering the proper doses in the proper environments, "imprinting" ( a theraputic method) helped patients with psychological problems--

Too bad the wrong folks got their hands on it-
The U.S. Military destroyed our own soldiers by
secretly administering the drug without consent
in "experiments"-->permanently re-wired soldiers' brains to the point of non-functional.

BUT,
Without Albert Hoffman's discovery the peace/love generation may have never happened !

HAPPY Birthday to you !!! 100--that's a long life!

Maybe L.S,D. can help improve lives!

[pinerow]

17. Don't forget..."Doors of Perception...Aldous Huxley...

nt

[0007]

33. Right on with Heaven and Hell......

Remember to Remember"

[MrSlayer]

13. I have enjoyed his invention many times.

Happy birthday captain trips.

[sniffa]

18. joseph smith is way oLder!

oh wait, you said LSD. my mistake.

[pinerow]

21. That is way too funny...

nt

[BiggJawn]

26. I really enjoyed my trip.

The grain in the wood panelling was moving around like a Lava-Light...

Wonder why I didn't pursue more trips? Probably because even Shangri-La gets boring after the 23rd time.

[Guaranteed]

28. Thanks for rearranging my mother's face, Albert.

:)

[mitchum]

36. LMAO!!!

[sendero]

29. If you are looking for..

.... the highest soaring experience ever, or the nightmare of your life - look no further than acid ....

[William Bloode]

30. Happy Birthday Albert!

I have enjoyed it greatly! :thumbsup:

[Clara T]

31. Dr. Albert Hofman remembers the trip of a lifetime

Dr Albert Hofmann: The father of LSD

Dr Albert Hofmann was an anonymous Swiss chemist - then he inadvertently created the mind-altering 'psychedelic' drug that would shape popular culture for generations. As he celebrates his 100th birthday, David McCandless hears about the trip of his lifetime
Published: 10 January 2006

Albert Hofmann remembers very clearly the moment when, on a spring afternoon, riding his bicycle, the whole world - and his life - changed.

"Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror," says the chemist, who celebrates his 100th birthday tomorrow. "I had the feeling that I could not move from the spot. I was cycling, cycling, but the time seemed to stand still." It was 1943, and Hofmann was experiencing the world's first LSD trip.

By the time the frightened 37-year-old research chemist reached home, he was terrified. The room spun. The walls rippled. His worried neighbour resembled a malevolent witch. He felt like he was dying.
After a few hours, the intensity of the experimental drug he'd dosed himself with fell and he was able to enjoy the "fantastic and impressive" effects. Next day, he felt wonderful: "A sensation of wellbeing and renewed life flowed through me. The world was as if newly created."

It all began with a peculiar accident. The doctor, employed by the Swiss chemical firm Sandoz, was pursuing respectable but unremarkable research into ergot. This poisonous fungus that grows on rye had been used for centuries as a folk remedy to bring on childbirth and ease headaches. The doctor believed that ergot could be a storehouse of new medicines, and he set about synthesising new chemicals from it.

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article337680.ece

[5thGenDemocrat]

35. On behalf of former teenage pharmaceutical test sleds everywhere

Happy birthday, Doc!
John
And thanks for all the pretty colors!!

[stop the bleeding]

37. Thank you for all of the memories. n/t