Father of LSD turns 100 years old 1-9-06

GENEVA (AP) - The mind-altering drug LSD is an unlikely subject for a 100th birthday party. Yet Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, the father of what he calls his "problem child," LSD, is celebrating his centenary Wednesday in good health and planning to attend an international scientific meeting on the hallucinogenic, which inspired a generation of flower children, even as it worried their parents.

"I sat down at home on the divan and started to dream," Hofmann told Swiss television network SF DRS about his first experience with LSD. "I had wonderful visions. What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures. It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."

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

"Wrong and inappropriate use has caused LSD to become my problem child," Hofmann wrote in the foreword to his 1979 book "LSD - My Problem Child."

Although popular in the underground, the drug earned a bad reputation amid fatalities associated with hallucinations and reports of "flashbacks" - a recurrence of hallucinations when no new dose of the drug had been taken.

Hofmann's hallucinogen inspired the 1960s hippy generation and was immortalized in the Beatles' hit "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," although the band denied any connection.

Decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.

"I produced the substance as a medicine," he said. "It's not my fault if people abused it."

The Swiss chemist - who still takes nearly daily walks in the small picturesque village where he lives in the Swiss Jura mountains with his wife of 70 years, Anita - 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, which is now part of Novartis. The company declined to comment for this story.

Hofmann was the first person to test the drug when a tiny amount of the substance seeped onto his finger during a repeat of the laboratory experiment in April 1943.

"Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror," he subsequently wrote, noting his surprise that LSD was able to produce "such a far-reaching, powerful, inebriated condition without leaving a hangover."

The chemist experimented with a larger dose three days later, but the result this time was a "horror" trip. His surroundings turned into threatening images. A neighbor who passed by his home to bring him the milk he craved was transformed into a wicked witch.

"I was filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was transported to a different world, a different time," he 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 illness like schizophrenia.

The drug was popularized by one-time Harvard lecturer Timothy Leary, known as the "high priest of LSD," whose "turn on, tune in, drop out" advice to students in the '60s glamorized the hallucinogen. The film star 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, stories emerged of 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 said the ban should be lifted to allow LSD to be used in medical research, and he took the drug himself - purportedly on an occasional basis and out of scientific interest - for several decades.

But he added a note of caution: "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 wrote.



:rasta:

i dunno why but that look really familiar...i think someone already posted it

hooffmans b-day is the 11th. :rolleyes:

http://www.hofmann.org/