The authorities moved against LSD and in 1966 its use was made illegal in the UK. Among fringe and hippy groups LSD was seen as an almost religious experience and way of getting in touch with the self, other people and environment. In the early 1960s people began to experiment with LSD use for pleasure. It was also tried out unsuccessfully by the US military as a ‘truth drug’ for interrogating enemy troops and as a drug simply to cause confusion during a battle. In the 1950s and 1960s doctors in America and the UK used LSD to help some mentally ill patients recall repressed thoughts and feelings. After some two hours this condition faded away’.Īlbert Hofmann ‘LSD: My problem child’, McGraw Hill 1980. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated condition. ‘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. In 1943 he underwent the first ever LSD trip by mistake when carrying out an experiment in his laboratory. LSD was first discovered in 1938 by a research chemist, Albert Hofmann, while working to produce new medicines.
The drug has been known to be sold in pill form mixed with ecstasy or amphetamine and sold as ecstacy. One survey of club goers listed LSD as their fourth favourite’ drug to take behind cannabis, ecstasy and amphetamines and that is probably a fair reflection of a more general UK league table of illicit drug use, although nitrites or poppers would be also be high up the list. However, in one 1998 survey in England in Wales, 11 per cent of those aged 16-29 said they had tried it at least once, two per cent said they had tried it during the year preceding the survey.
It is very difficult to know exactly how many young people have tried LSD or use it on any regular basis because in surveys it is often lumped together with other drugs like amphetamine and ecstasy.
It is usually taken orally.Īlthough thought of as a sixties’ drug, LSD is very much part of the current UK drug scene. Only tiny amounts are needed to get an effect and the strength of LSD can vary greatly. LSD is also sometimes dropped on to sugar cubes or formed into tablets or small capsules. The sheets are cut into tiny squares like postage stamps or transfers and often have pictures or designs on. It is a white powder, but as a street drug, it is a liquid either on its own or absorbed into paper sheets. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is an hallucinogenic drug that is derived originally from ergot, a fungus found growing wild on rye and other grasses. Acid, blotter, cheer, dots, drop, flash, hawk, L, lightning flash, liquid acid, Lucy, micro dot, paper mushrooms, rainbows, smilies, stars, s ugar, tab, trips, tripper, window and many othernames, some which describe the pictures on the squares (such as strawberries).