Albert Hoffmann, discoverer of LSD, died yesterday at 102.
LSD culture (which for better or for worse has informed popular culture in more ways than might be apparent to many) is about as far from my life as for Muskogee, Oklahoma residents. Still, I couldn't help remembering the factoid that the accidental discovery of this still unexplained substance happened in the course of research into a class of pharmaceuticals that bring on uterine contractions. That was just a blog topic yesterday, along with doors opening into the other side on the old pagan April 30 holiday. Pure coincidence. But are the pharmacokinetics coincidence -- that something so related to a facet of the birth process is also related to consciousness? Some people think not, and not all of them seem to be wacky hippies, though they certainly have trouble getting government funding to take them seriously.
A loss it is. The 1960s were filled with various pied piper figures, cult leaders and lost youths, but Hoffmann was a decent man of science (whose life work was something completely unrelated) who provided balance and unlike certain Harvard psychologists remained true to the scientific method -- needed in an age that tends to get hysterical/messianic about religious topics, let alone mystical experiences.
Some opnion leaders might have said "drop out", but I imagine Hoffmann might have told kids: Don't use drugs and stay in school. A mind is terrible thing to waste, and so is consciousness.
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2 comments:
A hundred and two. Fucking aye.
Also, I'm told that LSD in its original, pharmaceutically pure state, was harmless to the human body. Stuff you can get now is inevitably cut with any kind of shit.
That's pretty much it. The quantities involved are in the micrograms, it's almost like it isn't in the body at all. But there is a lethal dose and it's a low one in absolute terms. Seems to be some confusion in the literature about why it would cause death. Maybe it is a mind effect (catatonia) that "jumps" to the body. That sounds wacky, but from what I read it's a strange substance.
I would not trust the Baltic black market for "LSD" or anything. In general, things like this should be regulated and researched and talked about, to keep kids from possibly eating methamphetamine.
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