LSD
The lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD-25 or simply LSD (from German Lysergsäure-Diethylamid), also known as lysergide or acid, is a semi-synthetic psychedelic substance derived from ergoline and the tryptamine family that produces psychotropic effects. Its effects may include hallucinations with eyes open and closed, synesthesia, distorted perception of time, altered perception, consciousness and feelings, as well as feeling sensations or visualizing images that, to the user, may appear real.
It is primarily used as an illegal recreational substance, as an entheogen, and in some countries as a legal prescription drug in psychotherapy. LSD is usually ingested by swallowing or placing it under the tongue. It can often be found on the black market on blotting paper or in jelly or sugar cubes, although it can also be injected.
Although scientific trials conducted to date show that LSD does not cause addiction, its use can cause adverse psychiatric reactions, some potentially serious, such as anxiety, paranoia, and delusions. human, but the median lethal dose in the species for which it is known is low: mice 50–60 mg/kg i.v., rats 16.5 mg/kg, and rabbits 0.3 mg/kg. The cause of death is respiratory paralysis. However, LSD poisoning is very unlikely to occur, because the dose needed to produce its psychedelic effects is well below toxic or lethal doses, since it is enough with 20 to 30 micrograms to experiment slightly.
LSD is sensitive to oxygen, ultraviolet light, and chlorine, although it can keep for years if stored in a cool, dry, and dark place. The substance in its pure form is odorless, clear or white in color.
LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann in Switzerland in 1938 from ergotamine, a chemical obtained from a fungus, ergot. The name comes from the name given to the compound in that laboratory, an acronym for the German Lyserg-säure-diäthylamid, followed by a sequential name: LSD-25. Hofmann discovered its psychedelic properties in 1943, and LSD was introduced by Sandoz Laboratories as a commercial drug for various psychiatric uses in 1947 under the brand name Delysid. Many psychiatrists and psychoanalysts of the 1950s and 1960s saw it as a very promising therapeutic agent. In the 1950s, officials of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) thought the drug might be useful for their use in mind control and chemical warfare programs, so they tested it on students and military youth without their knowledge. The recreational use that young people began to give to the substance in the countercultural movements of the 1960s precipitated its prohibition; the extra-medical use of the drug caused a political storm that led to the prohibition of the substance, outlawing all its uses, both medicinal, recreational and spiritual. Despite this, some intellectual circles continued to believe that LSD had a great future as a medicinal substance and continued to finance and promote its research. In some countries legalization of its therapeutic use has been discussed or proposed, while in others, such as Switzerland, investigations have been authorized for its use as a medicine.
General information
Its name is a Germanism, an acronym for Lysergsäure-Diethylamid, 'diethylamide of lysergic acid'. Although "diethylamide" is a feminine word, the general use of the term has opted for the masculine form, as stated by the Royal Spanish Academy in its "Preview of the twenty-third edition of the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy". used as a recreational drug and entheogen, as well as a tool for meditation, psychonautics, artistic creation and psychotherapy.
Origin
Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first synthesized the substance in 1938 and discovered its effects by accident in 1943 when it came into contact with his skin and was later absorbed during the recrystallization of a sample of LSD tartrate. The number 25 (LSD-25) alludes to the order that the scientist was giving to the compounds that he synthesized.
Chemical composition and dosage
It is a crystalline compound, closely related to the ergot alkaloids, from which it can be prepared semisynthetically.
LSD is sensitive to oxygen, ultraviolet light, and chlorine, especially when diluted, although it can retain its potency for years if stored away from light and moisture, at low temperatures. In its pure form, it is colourless, odorless and tasteless. LSD is usually administered orally, usually on some kind of substrate, such as a blotting paper, sugar cube, or jelly. In liquid form, it can be given by intramuscular or intravenous injection.
LSD is one of the most powerful drugs in common use, being active even in extremely low doses. LSD doses are measured in micrograms (µg), or millionths of a gram, while doses of almost all drugs are measured in milligrams, or thousandths of a gram. The minimum dose of LSD capable of causing a psychoactive effect in humans is between 20 and 30 µg (micrograms). Thus, it is about 100 times more active than psilocybin and psilocin and about 4,000 times more active than mescaline. "As Sidney Cohen observed, a suitcase holding just two suits could carry enough LSD to temporarily incapacitate the entire population of the United States."
In the late 1990s, LSD obtained during drug enforcement operations in the United States usually ranged from 15 to 70 micrograms per dose. During the 1960s, doses were commonly 300 micrograms or more. The drug's effects are markedly more apparent at higher doses, especially up to 100 micrograms. There is also a practice of using microdoses below the minimum amount at which the effects are barely noticeable.
LSD does not cause physical dependence. Frequent use of the drug or others related to it (such as mescaline and psilocybin) generates rapid tolerance, so that consumption ceases to have an effect. Tolerance is probably due to regulation of 5-HT2A serotonin receptors in the brain, and decreases after a few days of abstinence.
Adverse effects of psychotropics are often treated with short-acting benzodiazepines, such as diazepam or triazolam, which have calming and anxiolytic effects but do not directly affect the specific actions of psychotropics. There are many rumors circulating about home remedies to counter psychedelic effects, including substances such as sugar, calcium, orange juice, or milk, but none of them have been proven to be effective, and they don't make sense from a psychological point of view. pharmacological view. Theoretically, specific 5-HT2A receptor antagonists, such as Seroquel, would act as direct antidotes.
History
Summary
Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann synthesized LSD for the first time on November 16, 1938 in the Sandoz laboratories in Basel (Switzerland), during a research program aimed at finding possible uses for the alkaloids of the ergoline group, present in ergot of the rye Ergot is a fungus that infects cereal grains used to make rye bread, causing Saint Anthony's fire (ergotism). After managing to synthesize ergobasine (uterotonic substance), he began to work on other amide derivatives of lysergic acid. Lysergic acid diethylamide is the twenty-fifth derivative of lysergic acid that he synthesized (hence its name: LSD-25), and at first Hofmann thought that it could be useful as an analeptic, stimulant of the circulatory and respiratory systems, given its Structural analogy to nicetamide (nicotinic acid diethylamide), a known analeptic. However, in animal experiments no beneficial effect was observed in this regard (although laboratory notes indicate that animals became extraordinarily restless under its effects), and study was abandoned. Its psychedelic properties were not discovered until 1943, when Hofmann, following what he called "a curious hunch," returned to work on the compound.While re-synthesizing LSD-25, Hofmann felt dizzy and had to leave work. In his diary, Hofmann wrote that he left the laboratory and went to his house, affected by "a marked restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness." Hofmann indicates that while he was resting in his bed he fell into a "state similar to drunkenness", not unpleasant, which was characterized by an extraordinary stimulation of the imagination. In a dream-like state, with his eyes closed he gazed at an uninterrupted series of "fantastic images, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic color patterns." The state lasted about two hours, after which he subsided.Hofmann thought that these psychoactive effects were due to his having accidentally absorbed a small amount of LSD-25 through the skin. Three days later, he took a much larger dose to test the effects of it; this day later became known as "the day of the bicycle".
There is a substance known as LSA that is similar in structure to LSD and could be used as a precursor in another route for LSD synthesis.
Bicycle Day
On April 19, 1943, Hofmann deliberately ingested 250 µg of LSD because, from his experience with other ergot alkaloids, he thought it might be the minimum dose. However, he soon discovered that the substance had a higher potency than almost anything else known at the time, so the dose that was administered was actually higher than was later recommended for therapeutic purposes. After ingesting the substance, Hofmann found it difficult to speak intelligibly and asked his laboratory assistant, who was aware of the experiment, to accompany him on his bicycle ride home, as, due to wartime restrictions, there were no cars available. During the ride home, Hofmann's condition worsened, and in his journal he wrote that everything in his field of vision wavered, distorted like an image in a concave mirror. Although he was advancing quickly, he had the paradoxical sensation that he remained motionless. When he got home, he called a doctor and asked his neighbor for some milk, believing it would help him recover. Hofmann notes that despite his delusional state, he was able to lucidly choose milk for its quality as a non-specific antidote to poisoning.
When the doctor arrived, he found no abnormal physical symptoms other than extremely dilated pupils. After spending several hours in terror, convinced that a demon had possessed his body, that his neighbor was a witch, and that the furniture in his house threatened him, Dr. Hofmann thought he had gone completely mad.. In his diary, Hofmann indicates that the doctor decided not to medicate him and preferred to send him to bed. Lying down, Hofmann felt his panic begin to give way to a sense of good luck and gratitude. The colors and games of shapes that he saw with his eyes closed were now pleasing to him. These were "fantastic images" that surged before him, alternating one after the other, opening and closing in circles and whorls, then exploding into fountains of color, and beginning again, in an unceasing flux. During his 'journey', acoustic impressions (such as the noise of a passing car) were transformed into images. Finally, Hofmann fell asleep and woke up the next day refreshed and with a clear mind, although with some physical fatigue. He ate breakfast with a sense of well-being and renewed life, and found the food delicious. As he walked through the garden, he noted that all of his senses "vibrated with a heightened sensitivity, which lasted throughout the day."
Clinical use
LSD was first used in animal experiments carried out by Dr. Aurelio Cerletti in the Sandoz laboratories. It was observed that cats and dogs apparently suffered from hallucinations, and their behavior patterns were altered (the cat did not react to a mouse or even fled, frightened). When administering LSD to a single chimpanzee, it was observed that the entire tribe of chimpanzees reacted with anger, as the intoxicated chimpanzee failed to observe the hierarchical laws of the community. At low doses, the spiders made their webs more skillfully than usual, but at high doses they were unable to weave them properly.
Once the animal experimentation was completed, Dr. Werner A. Stoll, from the University of Zurich, administered low doses of LSD (between 20 and 130 micrograms) to two groups, one of healthy people and the other of schizophrenics. A euphoric effect was detected in both groups, and Stoll noted the similarity to the effects of mescaline.
In his conclusions, published in 1947, Dr. Stoll suggested that LSD could be a good drug for psychotherapy. In that same year, Sandoz Laboratories began to market the substance under the name Delysid, a drug whose indications included psychoanalytic therapy and experimental study of the nature of psychoses. In their package insert, the labs suggested that therapists also take the drug to better understand the mental state of their patients. The drug came in two formats: it was to be taken orally as sugar-sweetened tablets of 0.025 mg (25 micrograms) or one-milliliter ampoules containing 0.1 mg (100 micrograms). The latter could be drunk or injected. An initial dose of 25 micrograms was recommended, which could be increased in successive doses until the optimal dose was found. The effects described were “transient affect disorders, hallucinations, depersonalization, experiencing repressed memories, and mild neurovegetative symptoms. The effect begins between 30 and 90 minutes after taking it and generally lasts between 5 and 12 hours. However, intermittent affective disorders may occasionally persist for several days."
Dr. Max Rinkel of the Massachusetts Center for Mental Health introduced LSD to the United States in 1949. Early experiments were aimed at improving conditions for schizophrenics. The objective was to provoke a temporary psychotic state, similar to schizophrenia, in healthy people, who volunteered to do so, in order to better understand it. LSD was then considered psychomimetic, that is, capable of producing a temporary psychosis. Since researchers considered the similarities between schizophrenia and the effects of LSD to be really superficial, this avenue of research was abandoned. However, in 2007 new research conducted at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York demonstrated that the analogy does have a foundation: LSD acts on the same serotonin and glutamate receptors that function abnormally in schizophrenics. Therefore, if drugs capable of blocking the effects of LSD at these receptors are discovered, it is very likely that they will also prove effective in combating the symptoms of schizophrenia.
During the 1950s and 1960s, various medicinal applications of LSD were investigated, including psychoanalysis, rehabilitation of alcoholics, and use as an analgesic for terminal cancer patients.
Numerous psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in general used LSD as a psycholytic, to break down the patient's psychic barriers, making them face repressed contents in a single session that, otherwise, would have required years of therapy. One of them was the American doctor Humphry Osmond, who in 1956, in a letter to Aldous Huxley, coined the term psychedelic ("that manifests the spirit") to refer to this type of substance. Another of them is the Czechoslovakian Stanislav Grof, who is still active.
One of the first patients to go public with his experience was actor Cary Grant, who in 1961 declared that LSD therapy had changed his life: “I feel like I really understand myself now. It was not like this in the past. And not understanding myself, how can I hope to understand others? Simply, I have been born again."
Regarding the research with alcoholism patients, it was aimed at "making them 'hit rock bottom', releasing repressed memories and creating a favorable situation for new learning processes". Of the nearly a thousand patients treated by the American doctors Hoffer and Osmond, almost half gave up alcohol or substantially reduced their consumption of it. In a similar experiment carried out in Canada, 72% of alcoholics treated became abstainers or reduced their consumption for more one year.
Limited cancer patients were also prescribed LSD to help them tolerate severe pain and cope with their situation. The results were positive in most cases, although adverse effects also occurred in some patients. According to Escohotado, of 17 terminally ill cancer patients to whom Dr. Pahnke applied agonal therapy with LSD in 1969, “a third of the individuals (...) did not experience any improvement; another third improved to a considerable degree, and the last third felt 'dramatically relieved'". The analgesic effect of LSD was revealed.
Other applications were also tested, some striking, such as 'curar' to homosexuals and to disinhibit frigid women. Autistic and schizophrenic children showed, after the LSD experience, a greater interest in establishing relationships with other people, improving their communication attempts and their rest and eating routines.
Spirituality
LSD is considered an entheogen, because it can channel intense spiritual experiences, during which users may feel they have come into contact with a higher spiritual order. Users sometimes report "out of body experiences." In 1966, Timothy Leary established the League for Spiritual Discovery, with LSD as its sacrament. Stanislav Grof wrote that the "religious and mystical experiences" observed during LSD sessions appear to be phenomenologically indistinguishable from similar descriptions in scripture. of the world's great religions and the texts of ancient civilizations.
Illegalization
In 1962, the US Congress passed new drug regulations, categorizing LSD as an "experimental drug." This meant that its clinical use was prohibited. However, investigations by the CIA and the military were not restricted. In 1965, a further step was taken with the Drug Abuse Control Amendment, which criminalized illegal production and sale, though not possession. In April 1966 Sandoz Laboratories stopped marketing LSD, and in 1968 the Amendment was amended, making possession a misdemeanor and sale a felony.
The illegalization of LSD could not stop its growing use among American youth, as the psychedelic experience became one of the identity traits of the hippie movement. The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, the heart of the movement, became a psychedelic supermarket, "the first place where acid was sold on a massive scale". Much of the art of that era, labeled as hippie, psychedelic or psychedelic, is inspired by the experience of LSD or tries to evoke it. As the movement declined, so did the use of hallucinogens, which gradually lost popularity, displaced by opiates. Successive neopsychedelic movements have somewhat revitalized its use, such as the rave subculture, without ever reaching the levels of its heyday.
In 2008, clinical research on the psychotherapeutic effects of the drug was resumed. In 2009, two investigations were carried out in this regard, one in Switzerland and the other at the University of California. Psychedelic psychotherapy with substances such as LSD and Psilocybin is being investigated again.
Current legal situation
Currently, the legal status of LSD is determined by the 1971 Vienna Convention, where it is classified as a psychotropic drug, along with phencyclidine, MDMA, amphetamine and methamphetamine.
The Spanish Penal Code, in its article 368, establishes the following:
Those who carry out acts of cultivation, processing or trafficking, or otherwise promote, favour or facilitate the illegal use of toxic drugs, narcotics or psychotropic substances, or possess them for those purposes, shall be punished by imprisonment for three to nine years and a fine for both the value of the drug subject to the crime if it is a matter of substances or products that cause serious harm to the health of both imprisonment and imprisonment for three years.
Consumption itself is not considered a crime, nor is it the possession or purchase of small amounts intended for one's own consumption. The Supreme Court uses a table prepared by the National Institute of Toxicology on October 18, 2001 on the average doses of daily consumption. According to this table, a regular user usually buys for himself the necessary amount for five days, which in the case of LSD is 3 mg.
Effects
The effects of LSD on the central nervous system are variable; they depend on the dose, the environment at the time of consumption, and the presence and proportion of adulterants. The experience can also vary depending on the mood of the consumer. Some LSD users experience a feeling of euphoria, while others find the experience unpleasant and even aversive. This last case is colloquially called having a "bad trip".
There are several ways to introduce this substance: the most common is orally, the effects take to manifest between 30 minutes and an hour and, depending on the dose, they can last between eight and ten hours.
Recurrent physiologic effects include: uterine contractions, fever, elevated blood glucose, hair on end, increased heart rate, sweating, dilated pupils, insomnia, paresthesia, hyperreflexia, and tremors.
Psychological effects
The effects of LSD on the human psyche are characterized by varying from person to person and situation to situation. The effects of LSD are considered to be largely unpredictable and depend on the context of use and the mental situation in which the individual who uses it finds himself. However, there is a wide range of effects that LSD typically causes. According to research conducted by the Mental Research Institute (a department of the Medical Research Institute of California), we can understand the psychological effects of LSD on five different levels.
Effects on mood
They tend to be very varied. In general terms, the individual who consumes the drug enters a state of emotional susceptibility that can lead to both intense sadness and euphoria. Frequently, feelings of euphoria and well-being tend to evolve in many subjects to feelings of omnipotence. Sometimes, the drug produces an increase in anxiety while in other cases there is a decrease in anxiety levels that can allow the individual to talk about issues that are normally painful or difficult to face.
Similarly, subjects on LSD tend to worry about events that are happening in the immediate moment and lose interest in events of the future and past.
Effects on Interpersonal Behavior
LSD tends to generate in the subject a greater interest in interpersonal relationships. This often leads to an ease in feeling hurt by others or ignored. In a psychotherapeutic environment, it has sometimes been shown to increase the trust of the subject with his treating psychologist. It can also cause paranoid reactions in the subject who consumes it.
Sensory and perceptual effects
They are frequent: increased sensitivity to sound and visual stimuli in general; body image distortions; visual distortions that are usually illusions, although they can sometimes also be hallucinations; synesthesia of all kinds, for example, music that produces visions, visual images that produce smells. The senses are affected and it is possible to experience For example, hearing colors, seeing sounds, and perceiving taste sensations when touching an object with a certain texture. It is not that I associate it or have the sensation of feeling it: I really feel it. Altered perception of time, for example, feeling that time stops, or that time goes backwards or that it speeds up, etc; altered perception of the external world, as something unstable and slippery.
Cognitive Effects
It usually stimulates thought processes, causing an accelerated passage from one idea to another. It can cause a disruption of thought or concepts. This has been interpreted as confusion or psychotic thinking, but it has also been seen as a creative impulse.
Other effects
LSD tends to produce feelings of unity with the environment, a sense of understanding of life and existence, religious experiences, and a strong tendency to think in existential terms. These effects have been frequently reported in the scientific literature and are interpreted as the result of the combination of cognitive and emotional effects produced by LSD, as described in the previous segments.
There is evidence that psychedelics induce molecular and cellular adaptations related to neuroplasticity.
Adverse effects
In reaction to the enormous popularity given to LSD by Timothy Leary and other scientific advocates, some media counterattacked by highlighting its dangers: both those arising from reckless behavior while on the 'trip' and the dangers of LSD. (a false urban legend became popular about young people who would have gone blind while they were watching the sun, entranced) as permanent damage to health derived from consumption: for example, chromosome mutations and irreparable loss of lucidity. Subsequent studies indicated that DNA alterations are related to the use of LSD of illegal origin, which can be false or impure, and to exposure to extremely high doses used in in-vitro experiments of between 2,000 and 10,000 µg/ml., much higher than recreational doses. LSD psychosis occurs in predisposed patients, its symptoms and the incidence of related suicides being indistinguishable from those suffered by people with schizophrenia.
LSD does not leave sequelae that can be appreciable in electroencephalograms, nor in magnetic resonances, nor in punctual neurological tests. The investigation has not corroborated the supposed deterioration of the genetic material either.
However, while LSD does not generally cause lasting disorders in people who have not experienced anxiety, depression, or alienation, it can contribute to the development of mental problems in those who already have them or are prone to psychotic states. In the Delysid package insert, Sandoz Laboratories warned that the drug could aggravate mental illnesses, and that special care should be taken in people with suicidal tendencies. A famous case of this type is that of Syd Barrett, composer of the first hits of Pink Floyd.
A 1971 study of adverse reactions to LSD in a clinical setting provides the following conclusions: out of 4,300 patients, three (already suffering from mental illness) committed suicide and nine attempted suicide without success (giving a reason of 0.7 per thousand patients). 2.3 per thousand of the patients suffered an accident. Nicholas Malleson concludes that "LSD treatment causes acute adverse reactions, but if there is adequate psychiatric supervision and the proper conditions for its administration exist, the incidence of such reactions is not great."
As John Cashman points out, “There are also other reports of negative reactions, temporary psychoses, dissociations, and post-LSD reactions requiring hospitalization. But in all of them there was a previous history of psychic disturbances."
The most recent research indicates that psychiatric complications from LSD use peaked in the late 1960s and have declined since then, perhaps due to a change in the profile of LSD users and the consumption pattern of the same (better information on the effects, greater attention to the environment and lower doses).
One of the most serious, yet understudied, adverse effects is hallucinogen persistent perception disorder, which can leave a person hallucinating for the rest of their life.
Although it is a phenomenon that does not have large-scale scientific studies, it is estimated that around 4% of hallucinogen users are affected by this disorder.
Flashbacks
Some LSD users experience flashbacks, recurrences of certain aspects of the psychedelic experience that occur without the user taking the drug again. These recurrences occur suddenly, without advance notice, and can take place several days or more than a year after using LSD. Flashbacks can occur in both people with an underlying personality problem and healthy people who occasionally use LSD. As with the experience from which they derive, the environment and the disposition of the individual determine whether the experience of the phenomenon is pleasant or frustrating. Timothy Leary named his biography that way ( Flashbacks , 1983).
References in music
- When the Beatles published their song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", many people (including Timothy Leary) interpreted that the title was an intentional acronym of LSD. John Lennon repeatedly dismissed this interpretation, claiming that he took the character from a drawing by his son Julian Lennon.
- Throughout the psychedelic generation, artists such as Pink Floyd, The Doors, Beatles, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Jimi Hendrix, composed themes in almost parallel relation and directly to their experiences with entheogens such as LSD, marijuana or mescalin. On the other hand, it is well proven that John Lennon composed another Beatles song, "Tomorrow Never Knows" (included in the 1966 album). Revolver), to evoke the experience of a LSD journey, inspired for it in the book The Psychedelic ExperienceTimothy Leary and others, inspired in turn in Bardo Thodol or Tibetan Book of the Dead.
- Also the song “She Said She Said” by The Beatles, from the album Revólver, born from an experience with the LSD of the group together with the actor Peter Fonda. During the psychedelic journey, according to Lennon, Fonda “constantly approached me, sat beside me and whispered I know what it's like to be dead (I know what it is to be dead). He was describing an acid trip he had had».
- In 1994, Luis Alberto Spinetta formed his fifth musical group called "Spinetta and Los Socios del Desierto" making an acrostic of this substance.
- The rapper ASAP Rocky, who has openly declared himself a consumer of this stupephant, recorded a single in 2015, called "L.$.D." (Acronym of Love, Sex, Dreams).
- The Mexican singer Luis "Vivi" Hernández exvocalista de Los Crazy Boys recorded in 1968 an item entitled "LSD", referring to the experiences they have when using it.
- The 1200 Micrograms group owes its name to a very high dose of this substance, consumed apparently by one of the members of the group during a musical blockage. In his debut album, one of the tracks is called LSD, and all others refer to enthegens.
- In May 2018, musical artists Labrinth, Sia and Diplo formed the LSD band.
- Argentine singer Carlos Alberto "Indio" Solari in his last album as soloist (El Ruiseñor el Amor y la Muerte) composed the song known as El Uncle Alberto on the Day of Bike, in which he refers to the hallucinations of Dr. Albert Hoffman and the effects of the LSD.
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