Albert Hofmann, the Father of LSD, Dies at 102
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/world/europe/30hofmann.html
By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: April 30, 2008
PARIS Albert Hofmann, the mystical Swiss chemist who gave the world
LSD, the most powerful psychotropic substance known, died Tuesday at
his hilltop home near Basel, Switzerland. He was 102.
The cause was a heart attack, said Rick Doblin, founder and president
of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a
California-based group that in 2005 republished Dr. Hofmann's 1979
book "LSD: My Problem Child."
Dr. Hofmann first synthesized the compound lysergic acid diethylamide
in 1938 but did not discover its psychopharmacological effects until
five years later, when he accidentally ingested the substance that
became known to the 1960s counterculture as acid.
He then took LSD hundreds of times, but regarded it as a powerful and
potentially dangerous psychotropic drug that demanded respect. More
important to him than the pleasures of the psychedelic experience was
the drug's value as a revelatory aid for contemplating and
understanding what he saw as humanity's oneness with nature. That
perception, of union, which came to Dr. Hofmann as almost a religious
epiphany while still a child, directed much of his personal and
professional life.
Dr. Hofmann was born in Baden, a spa town in northern Switzerland, on
Jan. 11, 1906, the eldest of four children. His father, who had no
higher education, was a toolmaker in a local factory, and the family
lived in a rented apartment. But Dr. Hofmann spent much of his
childhood outdoors.
He would wander the hills above the town and play around the ruins of
a Hapsburg castle, the Stein. "It was a real paradise up there," he
said in an interview in 2006. "We had no money, but I had a wonderful
childhood."
It was during one of his ambles that he had his epiphany.
"It happened on a May morning I have forgotten the year but I can
still point to the exact spot where it occurred, on a forest path on
Martinsberg above Baden," he wrote in "LSD: My Problem Child." "As I
strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and
lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an
uncommonly clear light.
"It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as
though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an
indescribable sensation of joy, oneness and blissful security."
Though Dr. Hofmann's father was a Roman Catholic and his mother a
Protestant, Dr. Hofmann, from an early age, felt that organized
religion missed the point. When he was 7 or 8, he recalled, he spoke
to a friend about whether Jesus was divine. "I said that I didn't
believe, but that there must be a God because there is the world and
someone made the world," he said. "I had this very deep connection
with nature."
Dr. Hofmann went on to study chemistry at Zurich University because,
he said, he wanted to explore the natural world at the level where
energy and elements combine to create life. He earned his Ph.D. there
in 1929, when he was just 23. He then took a job with Sandoz
Laboratories in Basel, attracted by a program there that sought to
synthesize pharmacological compounds from medicinally important plants.
It was during his work on the ergot fungus, which grows in rye
kernels, that he stumbled on LSD, accidentally ingesting a trace of
the compound one Friday afternoon in April 1943. Soon he experienced
an altered state of consciousness similar to the one he had
experienced as a child.
On the following Monday, he deliberately swallowed a dose of LSD and
rode his bicycle home as the effects of the drug overwhelmed him.
That day, April 19, later became memorialized by LSD enthusiasts as
"bicycle day."
Dr. Hofmann's work produced other important drugs, including
methergine, used to treat postpartum hemorrhaging, the leading cause
of death from childbirth. But it was LSD that shaped both his career
and his spiritual quest.
"Through my LSD experience and my new picture of reality, I became
aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of
the animal and plant kingdom," Dr. Hofmann told the psychiatrist
Stanislav Grof during an interview in 1984. "I became very sensitive
to what will happen to all this and all of us."
Dr. Hofmann became an impassioned advocate for the environment and
argued that LSD, besides being a valuable tool for psychiatry, could
be used to awaken a deeper awareness of mankind's place in nature and
help curb society's ultimately self-destructive degradation of the
natural world.
But he was also disturbed by the cavalier use of LSD as a drug for
entertainment, arguing that it should be treated in the way that
primitive societies treat psychoactive sacred plants, which are
ingested with care and spiritual intent.
After his discovery of LSD's properties, Dr. Hofmann spent years
researching sacred plants. With his friend R. Gordon Wasson, he
participated in psychedelic rituals with Mazatec shamans in southern
Mexico. He succeeded in synthesizing the active compounds in the
Psilocybe mexicana mushroom, which he named psilocybin and psilocin.
He also isolated the active compound in morning glory seeds, which
the Mazatec also used as an intoxicant, and found that its chemical
structure was close to that of LSD.
During the psychedelic era, Dr. Hofmann struck up friendships with
such outsize personalities as Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and
Aldous Huxley, who, nearing death in 1963, asked his wife for an
injection of LSD to help him through the final painful throes of
throat cancer.
Yet despite his involvement with psychoactive compounds, Dr. Hofmann
remained moored in his Swiss chemist identity. He stayed with Sandoz
as head of the research department for natural medicines until his
retirement in 1971. He wrote more than 100 scientific articles and
was the author or co-author of a number of books
He and his wife, Anita, who died recently, reared four children in
Basel. A son died of alcoholism at 53. Survivors include several
grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Though Dr. Hofmann called LSD "medicine for the soul," by 2006 his
hallucinogenic days were long behind him, he said in the interview that year.
"I know LSD; I don't need to take it anymore," he said, adding.
"Maybe when I die, like Aldous Huxley."
But he said LSD had not affected his understanding of death. In
death, he said, "I go back to where I came from, to where I was
before I was born, that's all."
--------
Albert Hofmann, 102; Swiss chemist discovered LSD
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hofmann30apr30,0,2872076.story
His accidental experience of 'an extremely stimulated imagination'
caused by the drug led to a lifetime of experiments and initiated the
psychedelic generation.
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 30, 2008
Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD and thereby gave
the psychedelic generation the pharmaceutical vehicle to turn on,
tune in and drop out, has died. He was 102.
Hofmann died Tuesday morning at his home in Basel, Switzerland, of a
heart attack, according to Rick Doblin, the head of MAPS, the
Multidisciplinary Assn. for Psychedelic Studies.
Hofmann also identified and synthesized the active ingredients of
peyote mushrooms and a Mexican psychoactive plant called ololiuqui
and developed at least three related, non-psychoactive compounds that
became widely used in medicine.
Those other feats would have been little remembered, however, had he
not accidentally gotten a trace amount of an experimental compound
called lysergic acid diethylamide on his fingertips and taken the
world's first acid trip.
Hofmann was a talented synthetic chemist working in the Basel
research center of Sandoz Laboratories -- now Novartis -- in the
1930s when he began studying the chemistry of ergot, the common name
for a fungus that grows on rye, barley and certain other plants.
Although ergot is poisonous, midwives had used a crude extract for
centuries to induce labor in women.
Twenty years earlier, researchers had isolated ergotamine, the first
ergot alkaloid isolated in pure form, and the compound had become
widely used for halting bleeding after childbirth and as a treatment
for migraine headaches.
In the early 1930s, American researchers had identified the primary
active ingredient of ergot, a chemical called lysergic acid. Hofmann
devised a technique to make a series of derivatives of lysergic acid
called amides and began systematically looking for medically useful compounds.
The 25th compound he synthesized, in 1938, was lysergic acid
diethylamide (in German, lyserg-saure-diathylamid), or LSD-25.
Because this compound had a chemical structure similar to an existing
drug called Coramine, Hofmann had hoped that it would be a stimulant
for the respiratory and circulatory systems.
But testing in experimental animals showed no significant activity
for the drug -- although the animals were observed to become restless
after its administration -- and it was abandoned.
During this period, Hofmann synthesized at least three amides that
became drugs: Methergine, used to halt bleeding after birth;
Hydergine, which improves circulation in the limbs and cerebral
function in the elderly; and Dihydergot, used to stabilize
circulation and blood pressure.
Prompted by what Hofmann later described as a "peculiar presentiment"
that LSD-25 might have properties other than those established in the
first investigations, he decided to look at it again.
On Friday afternoon, April 16, 1943, Hofmann had just completed
synthesizing a new batch when, he subsequently wrote to his
supervisor, "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 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 I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic
pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of
colors. After some two hours, this condition faded away."
Hofmann suspected that the state had been caused by something in the
lab. In an interview on his 100th birthday, he said, "I didn't know
what caused it, but I knew that it was important."
After breathing the solvents he had used produced no effect, Hofmann
suspected that the synthetic drug was the source. "LSD spoke to me,"
he said. "He came to me and said, 'You must find me.' He told me,
'Don't give me to the pharmacologist, he won't find anything.' "
The next Monday, he took what he considered to be an extremely small
dose of LSD, so small that a similar dose of even the most powerful
toxin known at the time would have had little or no effect. He had
planned to gradually increase the dosage but instead was surprised to
encounter the first bad acid trip.
Feeling bad, he asked his laboratory assistant to accompany him home
on his bicycle, no cars being available because of World War II
restrictions. During the trip, "I had the feeling that I could not
move from the spot. I was cycling, cycling, but the time seemed to
stand still."
By the time they reached his home, its furnishings had transformed
themselves into terrifying objects.
"Everything in the room spun around, and the familiar objects and
pieces of furniture assumed grotesque, threatening forms," he wrote
in his autobiography, "LSD: My Problem Child." "They were in constant
motion, animated, as if driven by an inner restlessness. The lady
next door [became] a malevolent, insidious witch with a colored mask."
Hofmann thought he was dying and sent for a doctor, but the physician
could find nothing wrong.
After about six hours, the experience began to change into a pleasant one.
"After some time, with my eyes closed, I began to enjoy this
wonderful play of colors and forms, which it really was a pleasure to
observe. Then I went to sleep and the next day I was fine. I felt
quite fresh, like a newborn."
That day, April 19, has subsequently been celebrated by LSD
proponents as "Bicycle Day."
Hofmann's bosses did not believe the drug could be so powerful,
concluding that he had measured the dosage incorrectly. Two
laboratory assistants subsequently took doses only a fifth of what
Hofmann had consumed, and they too had powerful experiences.
LSD was initially hailed as a wonder drug for use in psychoanalysis,
particularly for gaining insights into schizophrenia; more than 2,000
research papers appeared over the succeeding decade.
The Central Intelligence Agency investigated LSD as a potential agent
for mind control, and the British government studied it as a truth
drug. In both cases, the drug was administered to subjects who were
not informed of its nature, leading to scandals and changes in
regulations about informed consent.
But in the 1960s, largely at the instigation of Harvard University
psychologists Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, LSD began to be seen
first as a pathway to spiritual enlightenment, then as a major
recreational drug.
"Instead of a 'wonder child,' LSD suddenly became my 'problem child,'
" Hofmann said.
In 1966, the United States banned its use, followed by most other
countries. Nonetheless, some still consider it a promising drug, and
research continues on its medical potential.
Meanwhile, Hofmann read that American ethnologist Gordon Wasson had
discovered mushrooms that were used for ritual purposes by Indians
and that produced an LSD-like effect. Other researchers had little
success extracting the active ingredient, and a sample was sent to Basel.
Hofmann's initial tests in animals appeared to show no effect from
the mushrooms. Before discarding them, however, Hofmann decided to
sample them and had what he called "a full-blown LSD experience."
He and his assistants then isolated the active ingredients, using
themselves as guinea pigs. At every purification step, they would
consume the product to make sure it still contained the active agent.
Ultimately, they isolated two active ingredients, which Hofmann named
psilocybin and psilocin because they had been isolated from Psilocybe
mexicana. They turned out to be about 1% as active as LSD.
On a later visit to Mexico, Hofmann gave a bottle of psilocybin
tablets to Maria Sabina, the shaman who had originally given the
mushrooms to Wasson. "When we left, Maria Sabina told us that the
tablets really contained the spirit of the mushrooms," Hofmann said.
On that visit, Hofmann collected a batch of morning glory seeds that
the natives called ololiuqui. Using the same approach as with the
mushrooms, he isolated the active ingredients and found them to be
lysergic acid monoamide and lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide. "They
were derivatives of lysergic acid that I had on my shelf through my
studies with LSD," he said.
Once again, his colleagues didn't believe him because the lysergic
acid derivatives came from a species completely different from ergot.
They assumed that his final products were contaminants introduced in
the laboratory. And once again he was shown to be correct.
By this time, LSD had developed its negative reputation, and Sandoz
decided it no longer wanted anything to do with ergot derivatives.
But Hofmann's life had already been altered. LSD and the other
psychoactive drugs "changed my life, insofar as they provided me with
a new concept about what reality is," he said. "Before, I had
believed there was only one reality: the reality of everyday life.
"Under LSD, however, I entered into realities which were as real and
even more real than the one of everyday." He also "became aware of
the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of the plant
and animal kingdom. I became very sensitive to what will happen to
all this and all of us."
After dozens of acid trips, Hofmann finally gave up psychedelics. "I
know LSD; I don't need to take it anymore," he said.
Hofmann is survived by his wife, Anita; two daughters; a son;eight
grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
--
thomas.maugh@latimes.com
--------
Albert Hofmann: 1906-2008
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/04/albert_hofmann_1906-2008.html
The true legacy of the inventor of LSD, who died yesterday aged 102,
is in the music, literature and visual arts that were produced as a
result of acid
by Ben Myers
April 30, 2008
Which individual exerted the biggest influence on underground culture
in the 20th century? I'll give you some clues as to my suggestion:
he's Swiss, a scientist, the average man on the street hasn't heard
of him, and he died yesterday at the ripe old age of 102.
Albert Hofmann (1906 - 2008) was a chemical pioneer whose place in
history has been assured as the inventor - or rather, synthesiser -
of lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD or acid. After
accidentally ingesting some of the substance in his laboratory in
1938, Hofmann unlocked the hallucinatory powers of this drug that he
called "medicine for the soul". A true scientist, he re-checked his
findings three days later by taking a heroic dose just before his
bicycle ride home. What a dude.
Hofmann became a life-long exponent of the benefits of psychedelics.
It was, he pointed out, a drug that was used in psychoanalysis for
years, before being hijacked by the counterculture movement that
emerged in the 60s, then subsequently demonised by the establishment,
which saw it as a catalyst for major social change.
LSD and Hofmann's true legacy, though, is in the art that was
produced as a result. Music, literature and the visual arts have all
benefited from its input. I'm not saying drugs make for better
culture, but more than any other drug acid, is responsible for
altering perceptions and recalibrating minds. The last time I took it
I ended up naked, vomit-flecked and chuckling, the world's worst poem
scrawled into a notebook. But for every me, there has been a William
S Burroughs, Robert Crumb or a 13th Floor Elevators.
There's not enough room here to list acid's full effect on the arts,
but consider if you will that the following would never have happened
as they did were it not for Hofmann and his drug: clubs, rave or
happenings such as Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the
UFO, the Paradise Garage, Shoom and the Hacienda, obvious band
choices such as the Beatles, the Byrds, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Soft
Machine, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone,
Miles Davis, the Teardrop Explodes, Butthole Surfers and the Orb, and
literally hundreds of others (including less obvious ones too, such
as famously straight-edged Henry Rollins, who back in the mid 80s was
fond of tripping), through to contemporary bands such as Muse, the
Mars Volta and Klaxons, not to mention the entire acid rock, prog and
rave/acid house and ambient genres.
Then there is literature or publications such as The Teachings Of Don
Juan by Carlos Castaneda, the writings of Terence McKenna, Aldous
Huxley, Ken Kesey and Irvine Welsh, International Times, Oz, The
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and countless others.
Acid has infiltrated movies, the media and fashion too, none more so
than today when fluorescent colours and smiley faces are all the (nu)
rave with today's fashionistas, while a study of psychedelic art
would warrant a separate article entirely. Honorable mentions go to
Giger, Dali, Escher and the anonymous chemists who decorated their
blotters of acid with an array of imaginative insignias. And to
Santana's Abraxas.
More interestingly, with visual imagery that made most design work
look archaic at the time and a new emerging demographic of users,
acid was quickly co-opted by the corporate advertising world to sell
anything and everything, from Campbell's soup ("Turn your wall
souper-delic!") to Clearasil. Soon psychedelic became a byword for youth.
It continues today - in digital-psychedelic art, in raves the world
over, in the symbiosis of technology and hallucinogenics. Kurt
Vonnegut called the internet "a particularly habit-forming,
hallucinatory, pernicious form of LSD". So maybe the net is the spawn
of acid culture too.
Either way, Albert Hofmann lived a long and fruitful life - and
accidentally changed the world.
--------
Albert Hofmann
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1912485/Albert-Hofmann,-LSD-inventor,-dies.html
30/04/2008
Albert Hofmann, who died on Tuesday aged 102, synthesised lysergic
acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938 and became the first person in the
world to experience a full-blown acid trip.
The day, April 19 1943, became known among aficionados as "Bicycle
Day" as it was while cycling home from his laboratory that he
experienced the most intense symptoms.
Hofmann was working as a research chemist in the laboratory of the
Sandoz Company (now Novartis) in Basel, Switzerland, where he was
involved in studying the medicinal properties of plants. This
eventually led to the study of the alkaloid compounds of ergot, a
fungus which forms on rye.
In the Middle Ages, ergot was implicated in period outbreaks of mass
poisonings, producing symptoms in two characteristic forms, one
gangrenous (ergotismus gangraenosus) and the other convulsive
(ergotismus convulsivus).
Popular names such as "mal des ardents," "ignis sacer," "heiliges
Feuer," or "St Anthony's fire" refer to the gangrenous form of the disease.
Hofmann's studies led to many new discoveries such as Hydergine, a
medicament for improvement of circulation and cerebral function and
Dihydergot, a circulation and blood pressure stabilising medicine.
His interest in synthesising LSD was stimulated at first by the hope
that it might also be useful as a circulatory and respiratory stimulant.
But when his molecule, known as LSD-25, was tested on animals, no
interesting effects were observed, though the research notes recorded
that the beasts became "restless" during narcosis. The substance was
dismissed as of no interest and dropped from Sandoz's research programme.
But five years later, acting on some intuition, Hofmann decided to
resynthesise LSD. In his autobiography, LSD, My Problem Child (1979),
he recalled that in the final stage of the synthesis, he was
interrupted by some unusual sensations.
In a note to the laboratory's director, he reported "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 perceived an uninterrupted
stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense,
kaleidoscopic play of colours. After some two hours this condition
faded away."
Hofmann concluded that he must have accidentally breathed in or
ingested some laboratory material and assumed LSD was the cause. To
test the theory he waited until the next working day, Monday April 19
1943, and tried again, swallowing 0.25 of a milligram.
Forty minutes later, his laboratory journal recorded "dizziness,
feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire
to laugh".
Unable to write any more, he asked his assistant to take him home by
bicycle. "On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms.
"Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if
seen in a curved mirror. I also had the sensation of being unable to
move from the spot. Nevertheless, my assistant later told me that we
had travelled very rapidly."
Back home, when a friendly neighbour brought round some milk, he
perceived her as a "malevolent, insidious witch" wearing "a lurid
mask". After six hours of highs and lows, the effects subsided.
Sandoz, keen to make a profit from Hofman's discovery, gave the new
substance the trade name Delysid and began sending samples out to
psychiatric researchers.
By 1965 more than 2,000 papers had been published offering hope for a
range of conditions from drug and alcohol addiction to mental
illnesses of various sorts.
But the fact that it was cheap and easy to make left it open to abuse
and from the late 1950s onwards, promoted by Dr Timothy Leary and
others, LSD became the recreational drug of choice for alienated
western youth.
An outbreak of moral panic, combined with a number of accidents
involving people jumping to their deaths off high buildings thinking
they could fly, led governments around the world to ban LSD.
Research also showed that the drug taken in high doses and in
inappropriate settings, often caused panic reactions. For certain
individuals, a bad trip seemed to be the trigger for full-blown psychosis.
Hofmann was disappointed when his discovery was removed from
commercial distribution. He remained convinced that the drug had the
potential to counter the psychological problems induced by
"materialism, alienation from nature through industrialisation and
increasing urbanisation, lack of satisfaction in professional
employment in a mechanised, lifeless working world, ennui and
purposelessness in wealthy, saturated society, and lack of a
religious, nurturing, and meaningful philosophical foundation of life".
Albert Hofmann was born at Baden, Switzerland, on January 11 1906,
the elder of two children. Having graduated from Zürich University
with a degree in chemistry in 1929 he took a doctorate on the
gastro-intestinal juice of the vineyard snail.
After leaving university, he went to work for Sandoz Pharmaceuticals
where he researched the medicinal properties of the Mediterranean
squill (Scilla maritima), before moving on to the study of Claviceps
purpurea (ergot).
As a result of the use of LSD as a recreational drug Sandoz found
itself bombarded with demands for information from regulatory bodies
along with demands for statements after accidents, poisonings,
criminal acts and so forth from the press. For scientists
unaccustomed to the glare of publicity, it became a headache.
"I would rather you hadn't discovered LSD," Hofmann's managing
director told him. In the end the decision was taken to stop all
further production.
Hofmann laid some of the blame at the door of Dr Timothy Leary. In
his autobiography, he described meeting Leary in 1971 in the railway
station snack bar in Lausanne.
Hofmann began by voicing his regret that Leary's experiments had
effectively killed off academic research into LSD and took Leary to
task for encouraging its recreational use among young people. Leary
was unabashed.
"He maintained that I was unjustified in reproaching him for the
seduction of immature persons to drug consumption," Hofmann recalled,
on the ground that American teenagers "with regard to information and
life experience, were comparable to adult Europeans" and able to make
up their own minds.
Hofmann continued to work at Sandoz until 1971 when he retired as
Director of Research for the Department of Natural Products.
In addition to his discovery of LSD, he was also the first to
synthesize psilocybin (the active constituent of "magic mushrooms") in 1958.
He also discovered the hallucinogenic principles of Ololiuqui
(Morning Glory), lysergic acid amide and lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide.
In retirement, Hofmann served as a member of the Nobel Prize
Committee. He was a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, and a
Member of the International Society of Plant Research and of the
American Society of Pharmacognosy.
In 1988 the Albert Hofmann Foundation was established "to assemble
and maintain an international library and archive devoted to the
study of human consciousness and related fields."
He disapproved of the appropriation of LSD by the youth movements of
the 1960s, but regretted that its potential uses had not been
explored. He had been due to speak at the World Psychedelic Forum in
March, but ill health prevented him from attending.
Albert Hofmann was married and had three children.
--------
Health Blog Obit: Albert Hofmann, Father of LSD
April 30, 2008
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
Albert Hofmann, the drug-industry researcher who accidentally
discovered the powerful hallucinogen LSD, died yesterday of a heart
attack. He was 102.
Hofmann, who worked as a chemist at Sandoz (now part of Novartis),
first synthesized lysergic acid in 1938. But it was in 1943, when a
small amount of LSD accidentally dripped onto his hand, that he
stumbled upon the drug's mind-altering qualities, AP says.
"At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxication-like
condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination," he
wrote in his book LSD: My Problem Child.
"In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight too
unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of
fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic
play of colours. After some two hours this condition faded away."
Not long after, Hofmann went back for more and had a rather
different experience:
"On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms.
Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen
in a curved mirror," he wrote. "A demon had invaded me, had taken
possession of my body, mind, and soul. I jumped up and screamed,
trying to free myself from him, but then sank down again and lay
helpless on the sofa. The substance, with which I had wanted to
experiment, had vanquished me."
That wasn't enough to stop Hofmann, who with his colleagues came to
believe that the drug could be useful in giving psychiatric patients
insights into their illness. Sandoz sold LSD under the brand name
Delysid, encouraging doctors to try it themselves, the AP reports.
He also thought the drug could help healthy people feel the the deep
connection between the individual and the external world that he
first felt as a child, wandering in the hills above his Swiss home,
the NYT says.
Though he never gave up on that belief, he wrote that the "huge wave
of an inebriant mania that began to spread over the Western world,
above all the United States, at the end of the 1950s" caused the drug
to be used in a reckless, unsupervised manner that led to problems.
LSD was banned in the U.S. in 1966, the Los Angeles Times says, and
other countries followed suit.
Hofmann retired from Sandoz in 1971, and lived in good health for
decades, Washington Post says. When he turned 100, Hofmann told a
reporter that he attributed his longevity not to his many LSD trips,
but to the raw egg he consumed every day.
--------
Father of LSD, Albert Hofmann, Dies at 102
http://laist.com/2008/04/29/albert_hofmann.php
April 29, 2008
By Andy Sternberg
Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD, died at his
home near Basel, Switzerland on Tuesday.
Hofmann synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) in 1938 and
five years later became the first person to experience a full-blown acid trip.
On April 16, 1943, Hofmann inadvertently absorbed a little LSD-25
compound in his fingertips at the Sandoz laboratory (now Novartis)
where he worked. In a note to the lab director he described what happened next:
"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 perceived an uninterrupted
stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense,
kaleidoscopic play of colours. After some two hours this condition
faded away."
The following Monday -- y'know, to verify the side-effects -- Hofmann
ingested 1/4mg of the drug and asked his assistant to ride him home
on his bicycle once the effects began to kick in:
"Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if
seen in a curved mirror. I also had the sensation of being unable to
move from the spot. Nevertheless, my assistant later told me that we
had travelled very rapidly."
Sandoz initially tried to profit from Hofmann's invention, although
later his managing director famously said: "I would rather you hadn't
discovered LSD."
By the early 1950s, LSD made it to campus -- for academic and
research purposes. Dr. Sidney Cohen commissioned three UCLA doctoral
dissertations in which at least 80 "members of academia" tested the
psychotic and psychedelic effects of the drug.
British author Aldous Huxley, who spent the last 25 years of his life
in Los Angeles, first took acid in 1955 and later had it injected
while on his death bed.
And then there was Timothy Leary, Ginsberg, Kesey, our aunts and
uncles, and you and me.
The Albert Hofmann Foundation was established in Santa Monica in 1988
to "further the understanding and responsible application of
psychedelic substances in the investigation of both individual and
collective consciousness."
Hofmann called LSD "medicine for the soul." In a 2006 NYT interview he said:
"I know LSD; I don't need to take it anymore.... Maybe when I die,
like Aldous Huxley."
--------
'Father' of LSD dies at 102
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/29/hofmann.obit.ap/index.html
April 29, 2008
Albert Hofmann, father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical
discovery grew into a notorious "problem child," died Tuesday. He was 102.
Hofmann died of a heart attack at his home in Basel, Switzerland,
according to Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies, in a statement posted on the
association's Web site.
Hofmann's hallucinogen inspired -- and arguably corrupted -- millions
in the 1960's hippie generation. For decades after LSD was banned in
the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.
"I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if
people abused it," he said.
The Swiss chemist discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938
while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and
other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals firm in Basel.
He became the first human guinea pig of the drug when a tiny amount
of the substance seeped onto his finger during a repeat of the
laboratory experiment April 16, 1943.
"I had to leave work for home because I was suddenly hit by a sudden
feeling of unease and mild dizziness," he wrote in a memo to company bosses.
"Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror," he said,
describing his bicycle ride home. "I had the impression I was rooted
to the spot. But my assistant told me we were actually going very fast."
Three days later, Hofmann experimented with a larger dose. The result
was a horror trip.
"The substance which I wanted to experiment with took over me. I was
filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was
transported to a different world, a different time," Hofmann wrote.
There was no answer at Hofmann's home Tuesday, and a person who
answered the phone at Novartis, a former employer, said the company
had no knowledge of his death.
Hofmann and his scientific colleagues hoped that LSD would make an
important contribution to psychiatric research. The drug exaggerated
inner problems and conflicts, and thus it was hoped that it might be
used to recognize and treat mental illness like schizophrenia.
For a time, Sandoz sold LSD 25 under the name Delysid, encouraging
doctors to try it themselves. It was one of the strongest drugs in
medicine, with just one gram enough to drug an estimated 10,000 to
20,000 people for 12 hours.
Hofmann discovered that the drug had a similar chemical structure to
psychedelic mushrooms and herbs used in religious ceremonies by
Mexican Indians.
LSD was elevated to international fame in the late 1950s and 1960s,
thanks to Harvard professor Timothy Leary, who embraced the drug
under the slogan "turn on, tune in, drop out." Actor Cary Grant and
numerous rock musicians extolled its virtues in achieving true self
discovery and enlightenment.
But away from the psychedelic trips and flower children, horror
stories emerged about people going on murder sprees or jumping out of
windows while hallucinating. Heavy users suffered permanent
psychological damage.
The U.S. government banned LSD in 1966, and other countries followed suit.
Hofmann maintained that this was unfair, arguing that the drug was
not addictive. He repeatedly said the ban should be lifted to allow
LSD to be used in medical research.
He himself took the drug -- purportedly on an occasional basis and
out of scientific interest -- for several decades.
"LSD can help open your eyes," he once said. "But there are other
ways: meditation, dance, music, fasting."
Even so, the self-described "father" of LSD readily agreed that the
drug was dangerous if in the wrong hands. This was reflected by the
title of his 1979 book: "LSD: My Problem Child."
Hofmann retired from Sandoz in 1971. He devoted his time to travel,
writing and lectures, which often reflected his growing interest with
philosophy and religious questions.
He lived in a small village in the Swiss Jura mountains and remained
active until his early 90's.
-------
Albert Hofmann, 102; Chemist Discovered LSD
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902738_pf.html
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 30, 2008; B07
Albert Hofmann, 102, a Swiss chemist and accidental father of LSD who
came to view the much-vilified and abused hallucinogen he discovered
in 1938 as his "problem child," died April 29 at his home in Burg, a
village near Basel, Switzerland, after a heart attack.
His death was confirmed by Rick Doblin, the Boston-based founder of
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a
nonprofit pharmaceutical company developing LSD and other
psychedelics for prescription medicines.
Lysergic acid diethylamide, thousands of times stronger than
mescaline, can give its user an experience often described as
psychedelic -- a kaleidoscopic twirling of the mind pulsating with
color and movement.
After its discovery, LSD was viewed as a wonder drug with the
potential to treat problems including schizophrenia and alcoholism.
For the latter, some held the theory that chronic drinkers quit only
after experiencing the hallucinations of delirium tremens.
LSD attracted many prominent advocates. They included Aldous Huxley,
author of "Brave New World," and psychologist Timothy Leary, who saw
the drug as a potent way for people to live up to his 1960s
counterculture motto: "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
The CIA was also widely reported to have used LSD in experiments on
unwitting subjects. This, and greater recreational use that caused
some fatal overdoses, led to the widespread condemnation of the drug
and, by the early 1970s, its criminalization. As a result, research
permission and funding from state and federal agencies was terminated.
In Dr. Hofmann's opinion, outlawing LSD made its use even more
attractive to young people and diminished any safeguards. He spoke of
many hippies stopping by his home on the way to their spiritual
quest, hoping to score from his "secret stash."
Dr. Hofmann came across LSD while working on medicinal uses of a
fungus to act as a circulatory heart-lung stimulant. His first LSD
"trip" occurred in 1943, a troubling experience that led him to write
in his journal, "A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my
body, mind and soul."
Dr. Hofmann remained wary of LSD's recreational uses as well as its
portrayal in the media.
"I was not surprised that it became a ritual drug in the youth
anti-establishment movement, but I was shocked by irresponsible use
that resulted in mental catastrophes," he told Playboy magazine in
2006. "That's what gave the health authorities a pretext for totally
prohibiting its production, possession and use."
Albert Hofmann was born Jan. 11, 1906, in Baden, Switzerland. He was
the oldest of four children, and after his father, a toolmaker, fell
seriously ill, he was forced as a teenager to seek a commercial
apprenticeship to support the family.
While learning a trade, he continued his private schooling with
financial help from his godfather. In 1930, he received a doctorate
from the University of Zurich, where he studied the chemistry of
plants and animals, and he joined the pharmaceutical-chemical firm
Sandoz (now Novartis) in Basel.
Among his early accomplishments was the synthesis of an alkaloid that
prompted uterine contractions to stop postpartum bleeding.
In 1938, he was exploring a circulatory heart-lung stimulant when he
happened on LSD-25 while conducting purification and crystallization
experiments on the fungus ergot, which grows on rye. Ergot had been
long used to induce childbirth.
Lysergic acid is an active part of therapeutically essential ergot
alkaloids, and Dr. Hofmann began combining it with other molecules
for his research.
At the time, LSD showed little effect on lab animals besides some
agitation. It was shelved for five years until he, on a hunch,
repeated the experiment to help him with another medical study.
Having unknowingly absorbed some of the compound, he experienced a
dizzying sensation that also made him restless.
He wrote in a journal about this first known encounter: "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."
Three days later, April 19, he bicycled home after consuming 250
micrograms of LSD in a now-famous "trip" that has become known as
Bicycle Day. The route he took home was later named in his honor.
That time, he said, he felt some of the darker symptoms of the drug:
a feeling of impending death, of possession by the devil, of feeling
violently threatened by family and neighbors. Above all, he wrote, "I
was seized by the dreadful fear of going insane."
As he continued to study the drug, Dr. Hofmann struck up a
correspondence with German novelist Ernst Junger, who had
experimented with mescaline. At Dr. Hofmann's home in 1951, the
scientist administered .05 of a milligram of LSD to Junger and
himself as they were surrounded by violet roses, Japanese incense and
a Mozart concerto for flute and harp.
"Ernst Junger enjoyed the color display of oriental images," he later
wrote. "I was on a trip among Berber tribes in North Africa, saw
colored caravans and lush oases."
Further controlled experimentation by University of Zurich scientists
on humans subjects -- some with psychiatric problems -- showed a
similar calming reaction. This led Sandoz to manufacture LSD under
the trade name Delysid by the late 1940s.
It entered the U.S. market and, during the next two decades, LSD was
intensely researched as a drug to treat all manner of emotional and
addictive disorders. Humphry F. Osmond, a British-born psychiatrist,
introduced the word "psychedelic" to describe the effects of
mescaline and LSD while corresponding with Huxley in 1956.
Dr. Hofmann wrote in a 1980 book, "LSD, My Problem Child," that LSD
brought him the "same happiness and gratification that any
pharmaceutical chemist would feel on learning that a substance he or
she produced might possibly develop into a valuable medicament."
But he said he was increasingly disturbed by a "huge wave of an
inebriant mania that began to spread over the Western world, above
all the United States, at the end of the 1950s. . . . The more
[LSD's] use as an inebriant was disseminated, bringing an upsurge in
the number of untoward incidents caused by careless, medically
unsupervised use, the more LSD became a problem child for me and for
the Sandoz firm."
He described meeting Leary in September 1971 at a railway station
snack bar in Lausanne; Leary was living in Switzerland. He said they
had a cordial but strong exchange of words in which Dr. Hofmann
criticized Leary's self-promotion and his "propagation of LSD use"
among impressionable young people.
Dr. Hofmann said that Leary said that American teenagers "with regard
to information and life experience, were comparable to adult
Europeans. . . . For that reason, he deemed the LSD experience
significant, useful, and enriching, even for people still very young in years."
Dr. Hofmann headed the research department for natural medicines at
Sandoz before retiring in 1971. At the company in the 1950s and
1960s, he discovered and named many of the active hallucinogenic
ingredients in Mexican "magic mushrooms," including psilocybin and
psilocin. He was credited with important developments in medications
for geriatric and gynecological uses as well as drugs to control
blood pressure.
He was a member of the Nobel Prize Committee and a fellow of the
World Academy of Sciences. He was a prolific writer of scientific
articles and the author of several books, many of which tried to bind
the scientific with the spiritual. In particular, he denounced the
demonization of LSD after hippies and societal dropouts seemed to
have monopolized the media's focus.
In his 1989 book "Insight Outlook," he wrote that LSD taken by
"mentally stable persons in the right set and setting" was suited to
the Western world, which he saw rife with "materialism, estrangement
from nature, . . . [and] the missing of a sense-making philosophical
fundamentalness of life."
His 100th birthday was celebrated in Basel as a referendum on his
greatest discovery. He attended the conference, "LSD: Problem Child
and Wonder Drug," and told one reporter that it was his daily diet of
a raw egg that kept him spry, not, as many LSD enthusiasts suspected,
his long-ago experiments.
His wife of more than 70 years, Anita Hofmann, died in December. One
son died years earlier.
Survivors include three children.
--------
Albert Hofmann, 11 January 1006 – 29 April 2008
An Obituary by Dieter A. Hagenbach and Lucius Wertmüller
4|30|08
At the age of 102 years, Albert Hofmann died peacefully last Tuesday
morning, 29th April, in his home near Basel, Switzerland. Still last
weekend we talked to him, and he expressed his great joy about the
blooming plants and the fresh green of the meadows and trees around
his house. His vitality and his open mind conducted him until his last breath.
He is reputed to be one of the most important chemists of our times.
He is the discoverer of LSD, which he considers, up to date, as both
a "wonder drug" and a "problem child". In addition he did pioneering
work as a researcher of other psychoactive substances as well as
active agents of important medicinal plants and mushrooms. Under the
spell of the consciousness-expanding potential of LSD the scientist
turned increasingly into a philosopher of nature and a visionary
critical of contemporary culture.
Until his death Albert Hofmann remained active. He communicated with
colleagues and experts from all over the world, gave interviews, and
showed great interest in the world's affairs, although he decided to
retire from public life already a few years ago. Nevertheless he
welcomed visitors at his home on the Rittimatte, and opened the door
for late in the evening.
He managed to keep his almost childlike curiosity for the wonders of
nature and creation. In his "paradise," as he would call his home, he
enjoyed being close to nature, especially to plants. During one of
our last visits he said to us with luminous eyes: "The Rittimatte is
my second most important discovery." It was always a unique
experience to stroll with him over his meadows and to share his
enjoying the living nature all around.
Gratefully and lovingly we grieve for an outstanding scientist, an
important philosopher, a dear and true friend, and our member of the board.
Albert Hofmann was born on January 1906 in the quiet small town of
Baden, Switzerland, as the eldest one of four children. His father is
a toolmaker in a factory where he meets Albert's mother-to-be; when
he falls seriously ill, Albert has to support the family. That's why
he decides for a commercial apprenticeship. At the same time he
starts studying Latin and other languages, since he wants to take his
A-levels, which he succeeds in at a private school, paid for by a godfather.
In 1926, at the age of twenty, Albert Hofmann begins to study
chemistry at the University of Zurich. Four years later he does his
doctorate with distinction. Subsequently he works at the Sandoz
pharmaceutical-chemical research laboratory in Basel, a company to
which he proves his loyalty for more than four uninterrupted decades.
(In 1996 Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy merged to become Novartis.) That's
where he mainly works with medicinal plants and mushrooms. He's
specifically interested in alkaloids (nitrogen compounds) of ergot, a
cereal fungus. In 1938 he isolates the basic component of all
therapeutically essential ergot alkaloids, lysergic acid; he mixes it
with a series of chemicals. He then tests the effects of the thus
derived lysergic acid derivatives as circulatory and respiratory
stimulant – among others LSD-25 (Lysergic acid diethylamide). Because
the effects observed fell short of expectations, however, the
pharmacologists at Sandoz quickly lose interest in it.
Five years later, following a "peculiar presentiment," Albert Hofmann
devotes himself again to LSD-25. On 16 April 1943, while
synthesizing, he is overcome by unusual sensations – "a remarkable
restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness," – which prompt him
to interrupt his laboratory work. "At home I lay down and sank into a
not unpleasant intoxication like condition, characterized by an
extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes
closed (I found the daylight too 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."
Three days later, on 19 April 1943, Hofmann sets out for the first
voluntary LSD trip in the history of man. Because he cannot yet judge
the enormous efficacy of the drug, he takes, at 4:20 pm, with 250
microgram a relatively high dose – and gets to know the
hallucinogenic power of the substance with all its intensity.
With his discovery of LSD Albert Hofmann has caused a snowball
effect, which turns into an avalanche in no time. It influences the
late second millennium – at least in the Western world – to an
extent, comparable only to the "pill". Consciousness researchers
respectfully spoke of an "atom bomb of the mind."
To worldwide setting-in research Albert Hofmann makes essential
contributions. So he is, in 1958, the first one to succeed in
isolating the psychoactive substances psilocybin and psilocin from
Mexican magic mushrooms (Psilocybe mexicana); in Ololiuqui, the seeds
of a climbing plant, he finds substances related to LSD. He isolates
and synthesizes substances of important medicinal plants in order to
study their effects. His basic research blesses Sandoz with several
successful remedies: Hydergine, an effective one in geriatrics,
Dihydergot, a circulation- and blood-pressure stabilizing medicament,
and Methergine, an active agent applied in gynecology. Hofmann stays
with Sandoz until his retirement in 1971, last as head of the
research department for natural medicines. From then on he devotes
more and more of his time to writing and lecturing. He increasingly
wins recognition for his scientific pioneering ventures: he is given
honorary doctorates by the ETH Zurich, the Stockholm university, and
the Berlin Free University; and he is called into the Nobel Prize Committee.
Here, outstanding contributions to research were honored – but Albert
Hofmann's life's work comprises much more. From the start he took a
favorable view of efforts by physicians and psychotherapists to
include LSD into new approaches for the treatment of manifold chronic
diseases. But LSD isn't only useful with special diagnoses – it's
Hofmann's firm belief that the "psychedelic" potential of this
"wonder drug" could be beneficial to all of us. In LSD-induced
altered states of consciousness its discoverer doesn't only see
psychotic delusions of a chemically manipulated mind, but windows to
a higher reality – true spiritual experiences during which a normally
deeply buried potential of our mind, the heavenly element of
creation, our unity with it reveals itself. "The one-sided belief in
the scientific view of life is based on a far-reaching
misunderstanding," Hofmann says in his book Insight – Outlook.
"Certainly, everything it contains is real – but this represents just
one half of reality; only its material, quantifiable part. It lacks
all those spiritual dimensions which cannot be described in physical
or chemical terms; and it's exactly these which include the most
important characteristics of all life."
It's not the single consumer alone who profits from chemicals which
help to understand these aspects of the world; for Hofmann it could
help to heal deficits the Western world chronically suffers from:
"Materialism, estrangement from nature (...), lack of professional
fulfillment in a mechanized, lifeless world of employment, boredom
and aimlessness in a rich, saturated society, the missing of a
sense-making philosophical fundamentalness of life." Starting from
experiences as LSD conveys them, we could "develop a new awareness of
reality" which "could become the basis of a spirituality that's not
founded on the dogmas of existing religions, but on insights into a
higher and profounder sense" – on that we recognize, read, and
understand "the revelations of the book which God's finger wrote."
When such insights "become established in our collective
consciousness, it could arise from that, that scientific research and
the previous destroyers of nature – technology and industry – will
serve the purpose of changing back our world into what it formerly
was: into an earthly Garden of Eden."
With this message the genius chemist turns into a profound
philosopher of nature and visionary critical of contemporary culture.
The critical distance from the LSD euphoria of the hippie- and flower
power-driven ones Albert Hofmann has never given up, however; that he
has fathered a "problem child" he already emphasizes with the title
of one of his most known works. He always underlines the risks of an
uncontrolled intake. On the other hand he never tires of emphasizing
what's the basic difference between LSD and most of the other drugs:
even if used repeatedly, it doesn't make addictive; it doesn't reduce
one's awareness; taken in a normal dose it's absolutely non-toxic.
The total demonizing of psychedelics, as pursued by the mass media,
conservative politicians, and governments from the sixties onward, he
never could understand; for him, there is no reason why mentally
stable persons in the right set and setting shouldn't enjoy LSD. All
the more disappointed Albert Hofmann was when, in the late sixties,
he had to see it happen that the use of LSD was worldwide
criminalized and prohibited – even for therapeutic and research purposes
The impetus for a change emanating from the impact of the
international Symposium "LSD – Problem Child and Wonder Drug" in 2006
in Basel, at the occasion of his 100th birthday, quickened him to say
that "after this conference my problem child has definitely turned
into a wonder child," and he regarded this development as his most
beautiful birthday present.
And after just shortly before his 102nd birthday, he enjoyed taking
notice that the first LSD study with humans has received the
permission from the Federal Office of Public Health in Bern, which he
called the "fulfillment of my heart's desire."
His life has become an ideal for many for how we can reach a great
age in mental and physical vigor by retaining a childlike curiosity.
Albert Hofmann repeatedly expressed his conviction, that his mystical
experiences and his trips into other worlds of consciousness, which
he experienced first spontaneously as a child and later during his
experiments with psychedelic substances would be the best
preparations for the last journey which everybody has to go on at the
end of her or his life. He has retained his curiosity for himself for
his last journey.
--------
Albert Hofmann, father of drug LSD, dies in Switzerland
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/04/29/state/n193020D35.DTL
By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose
medical discovery inspired and arguably corrupted millions in the
1960s hippie generation, has died. He was 102.
Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris
Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village near Basel where Hofmann
moved following his retirement in 1971.
For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended
his invention.
"I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if
people abused it," he once said.
The Swiss chemist discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938
while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and
other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals firm in Basel.
He became the first human guinea pig of the drug when a tiny amount
of the substance seeped onto his finger during a laboratory
experiment on April 16, 1943.
"I had to leave work for home because I was suddenly hit by a sudden
feeling of unease and mild dizziness," he subsequently wrote in a
memo to company bosses.
He said his initial experience resulted in "wonderful visions."
"What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures," he told a
Swiss television network for a program marking his 100th birthday two
years ago. "It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."
Three days later, Hofmann experimented with a larger dose. The result
was a horror trip.
"Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror," he said,
describing his bicycle ride home. "I had the impression I was rooted
to the spot. But my assistant told me we were actually going very fast."
"The substance which I wanted to experiment with took over me. I was
filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was
transported to a different world, a different time," Hofmann wrote.
Hofmann and his scientific colleagues hoped that LSD would make an
important contribution to psychiatric research. The drug exaggerated
inner problems and conflicts and thus it was hoped that it might be
used to recognize and treat mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
For a time, Sandoz sold LSD 25 under the name Delysid, encouraging
doctors to try it themselves. It was one of the strongest drugs in
medicine with just one gram enough to drug an estimated 10,000 to
20,000 people for 12 hours.
LSD was elevated to international fame in the late 1950s and 1960s
thanks to Harvard professor Timothy Leary who embraced the drug under
the slogan "turn on, tune in, drop out."
But away from the psychedelic trips, horror stories emerged about
people going on murder sprees or jumping out of windows while
hallucinating. Heavy users suffered permanent psychological damage.
The U.S. government banned LSD in 1966 and other countries followed suit.
Hofmann maintained this was unfair, arguing that the drug was not
addictive. He repeatedly argued for the ban to be lifted to allow LSD
to be used in medical research.
Peter Oehen, a psychiatrist in the Swiss town of Biberist, says
substances such as LSD and MDMA also known as ecstasy can produce
results where conventional psychotherapies fail.
"They help overcome the wall of denial that some patients build up,"
said Oehen, who met Hofmann and has studied his work.
Hofmann welcomed a decision by Swiss authorities last December to
allow LSD to be used in a psychotherapy research project.
"For me, this is a very big wish come true. I always wanted to see
LSD get its proper place in medicine," he told Swiss TV at the time.
Hofmann took the drug purportedly on an occasional basis and out of
scientific interest for several decades.
"LSD can help open your eyes," he once said. "But there are other
ways meditation, dance, music, fasting."
Even so, the self described "father" of LSD readily agreed that the
drug was dangerous if in the wrong hands. This was reflected by the
title of his 1979 book: "LSD - my problem child."
In it he wrote that, "The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates
the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect
is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug."
Hofmann retired from Sandoz in 1971 and devoted his time to travel,
writing and lectures.
"This is really a high point in my advanced age," Hofmann said at a
ceremony in Basel honoring him on his 100th birthday. "You could say
it is a consciousness-raising experience without LSD."
Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.
.
