The Truth About Drugs Booklets / The Truth About LSD
The Truth About LSD
What is LSD?
LSD is one of the most potent, mood-changing chemicals. It is manufactured from lysergic acid, which is found in the ergot fungus that grows on rye and other grains.
It is produced in crystal form in illegal laboratories, mainly in the United States. These crystals are converted to a liquid for distribution. It is odorless, colorless, and has a slightly bitter taste.
Known as “acid” and by many other names, LSD is sold on the street in small tablets (“microdots”), capsules or gelatin squares (“window panes”). It is sometimes added to absorbent paper, which is then divided into small squares decorated with designs or cartoon characters (“loony toons”). Occasionally it is sold in liquid form. But no matter what form it comes in, LSD leads the user to the same place—a serious disconnection from reality.
LSD users call an LSD experience a “trip,” typically lasting twelve hours or so. When things go wrong, which often happens, it is called a “bad trip,” another name for a living hell.
What is an Hallucinogen?
Hallucinogens are drugs that cause hallucinations. Users see images, hear sounds and feel sensations that seem very real but do not exist. Some hallucinogens also produce sudden and unpredictable changes in the mood of those who use them.
“At the age of 16 I was introduced to a drug that I abused for over three years—LSD. What I was unaware of was the fact that LSD is the most potent hallucinogen known to man.
The drug came on a small piece of paper no bigger than my index finger, called a blotter. Fifteen minutes after putting the paper on my tongue my entire body got hot and I began to sweat.
Some other reactions that I experienced while on the drug included dilated pupils, nausea and ‘goose bumps.’ While high on LSD I felt like there was a huge distortion both in my mind and body. The visual changes as well as the extreme changes in mood were like some strange scary trip—one in which I felt like I had no control over my mind and body.”
Street Names for LSD:
Acid
Battery acid
Blotter
Boomers
California sunshine
Cid
Doses
Dots
Golden dragon
Heavenly blue
Hippie
Loony toons
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Microdot
Pane
Purple heart
Superman
Tab
Window pane
Yellow sunshine
Zen
What Are the Risks of LSD?
The effects of LSD are unpredictable. They depend on the amount taken, the person’s mood and personality, and the surroundings in which the drug is used. It is a roll of the dice—a racing, distorted high or a severe, paranoid* low.
Normally, the first effects of LSD are experienced thirty to ninety minutes after taking the drug. Often, the pupils become dilated. The body temperature can become higher or lower, while the blood pressure and heart rate either increase or decrease. Sweating or chills are not uncommon.
LSD users often experience loss of appetite, sleeplessness, dry mouth and tremors. Visual changes are among the more common effects—the user can become fixated on the intensity of certain colors.
Extreme changes in mood, anywhere from a spaced-out “bliss” to intense terror, are also experienced. The worst part is that the LSD user is unable to tell which sensations are created by the drug and which are part of reality.
Some LSD users experience an intense bliss they mistake for “enlightenment.”
Not only do they disassociate from their usual activities in life, but they also feel the urge to keep taking more of the drug in order to re-experience the same sensation. Others experience severe, terrifying thoughts and feelings, fear of losing control, fear of insanity and death, and despair while using LSD. Once it starts, there is often no stopping a “bad trip,” which can go on for up to twelve hours. In fact, some people never recover from an acid-induced psychosis.
Taken in a large enough dose, LSD produces delusions and visual hallucinations. The user’s sense of time and self changes. Sizes and shapes of objects become distorted, as do movements, colors and sounds. Even one’s sense of touch and the normal bodily sensations turn into something strange and bizarre. Sensations may seem to “cross over,” giving the user the feeling of hearing colors and seeing sounds. These changes can be frightening and can cause panic.
The ability to make sensible judgments and see common dangers is impaired. An LSD user might try to step out a window to get a “closer look” at the ground. He might consider it fun to admire the sunset, blissfully unaware that he is standing in the middle of a busy intersection.
Many LSD users experience flashbacks, or a recurrence of the LSD trip, often without warning, long after taking LSD.
Bad trips and flashbacks are only part of the risks of LSD use. LSD users may manifest relatively long-lasting psychoses or severe depression.
Because LSD accumulates in the body, users develop a tolerance for the drug. In other words, some repeat users have to take it in increasingly higher doses to achieve a “high.” This increases the physical effects and also the risk of a bad trip that could cause psychosis.
“At 13 years of age I took my first drink and soon after was introduced to marijuana. Then LSD quickly fell into my hands and I became addicted, eating it like candy.
One night during one of my binges I blacked out and awoke with blood all over my face and vomit coming out of my mouth. By some miracle I pulled myself awake and cleaned myself up. I got into the car, shaking, drove to my parent’s house. I climbed into bed with my mom and cried.
By the age of 21, I checked into my first rehab.”
The Harmful Effects of LSD
On LSD, which is often taken in tab form, an intense, altered state transforms into disassociation and despair. Often there is no stopping “bad trips,” which can go on for up to twelve hours.
Physical Effects
Dilated pupils
Higher or lower body temperature
Sweating or chills (“goose bumps”)
Loss of appetite
Sleeplessness
Dry mouth
Tremors
Mental Effects
Delusions
Visual hallucinations
An artificial sense of euphoria or certainty
Distortion of one’s sense of time and identity
Impaired depth perception
Impaired time perception, distorted perception of the size and shape of objects, movements, color, sounds, touch and the user’s own body image
Severe, terrifying thoughts and feelings
Fear of losing control
Panic attacks
Flashbacks, or a recurrence of the LSD trip, often without warning long after taking LSD
Severe depression or psychosis
“I started drinking at the age of 15. Then I progressed to taking Ecstasy, speed, cocaine and LSD.
I found it difficult to hold down a job and became depressed and thought I would never overcome my obsession with drugs. I attempted suicide twice by overdosing on pills. I was put under psychiatrists who gave me even more drugs, antidepressants and tranquilizers, which just made matters worse.
As an outlet for my feelings I turned to self-harm—I started cutting and burning myself.”
“After taking the acid, I imagined that we had driven head-on into an eighteen-wheeler and were killed. I could hear the screeching metal, then a dark and evil quiet. I was terrified at this point, I actually thought we were dead....For a year I wouldn’t go into any cemetery because I was terrified I would find my own grave.”
International Statistics
In Europe, as many as 4.2% of those aged 15 to 24 have taken LSD at least once. When surveyed, the percentage of people in this age group who had used LSD in the past year exceeded 1% in seven countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Hungary and Poland).
In America, since 1975, researchers funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse have annually surveyed nearly 17,000 high school seniors nationwide to determine trends in drug use and to measure the students’ attitudes and beliefs about drug abuse. Between 1975 and 1997, the lowest period of LSD use was reported by the class of 1986, when 7.2% of high school seniors reported using LSD at least once in their lives.
The percentage of seniors reporting LSD use at least once over the course of the prior year nearly doubled from a low of 4.4% in 1985 to 8.4% in 1997. In 1997, 13.6% of seniors had experimented with LSD at least once in their lives.
A study released in January 2008 found that about 3.1 million people in the US aged 12 to 25 said they had used LSD.
“I started hanging out at strip clubs, casinos and became very promiscuous, visiting brothel after brothel and soon to be introduced to other drugs.
I had now lost all my inheritance and had to move into a crack house where I stayed for a year watching people die, losing my business and becoming a thief.
I was arrested in November 2003 for attempted hijacking and went to prison.
I had hurt and lost everyone that loved me and I was disowned.
I ended up homeless and on the streets living and sleeping in a cardboard box by the [train] station, begging and struggling to find ways to get my next meal.”
LSD: A Short History
Albert Hofmann, a chemist working for Sandoz Pharmaceutical, synthesized* LSD for the first time in 1938, in Basel, Switzerland, while looking for a blood stimulant. However, its hallucinogenic effects were unknown until 1943 when Hofmann accidentally consumed some LSD. It was later found that an oral dose of as little as 25 micrograms (equal in weight to a few grains of salt) is capable of producing vivid hallucinations.
Because of its similarity to a chemical present in the brain and its similarity in effects to certain aspects of psychosis, LSD was used in experiments by psychiatrists through the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. While the researchers failed to discover any medical use for the drug, the free samples supplied by Sandoz Pharmaceuticals for the experiments were distributed broadly, leading to wide use of this substance.
LSD was popularized in the 1960s by individuals such as psychologist Timothy Leary, who encouraged American students to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” This created an entire counterculture of drug abuse and spread the drug from America to the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. Even today, use of LSD in the United Kingdom is significantly higher than in other parts of the world.
While the ‘60s counterculture used the drug to escape the problems of society, the Western intelligence community and the military saw it as a potential chemical weapon. In 1951, these organizations began a series of experiments. US researchers noted that LSD “is capable of rendering whole groups of people, including military forces, indifferent to their surroundings and situations, interfering with planning and judgment, and even creating apprehension, uncontrollable confusion and terror.”
Experiments in the possible use of LSD to change the personalities of intelligence targets, and to control whole populations, continued until the United States officially banned the drug in 1967.
Use of LSD declined in the 1980s, but picked up again in the 1990s. For a few years after 1998 LSD had become more widely used at dance clubs and all-night raves by older teens and young adults. Use dropped significantly in 2000 or so.
“The days following my LSD use, I was filled with anxiety and extreme depression. Following my first ‘trip’ on LSD, I would eat it frequently, sometimes up to four or five times per week for an extended period. Each time I would take the drug, mentally I was drifting more and more out of reality. The eventual effect was the inability to feel normal in my own skin.”
What Dealers Will Tell You
When teens were surveyed to find out why they started using drugs in the first place, 55% replied that it was due to pressure from their friends. They wanted to be cool and popular. Dealers know this.
They will approach you as a friend and offer to “help you out” with “something to bring you up.” The drug will “help you fit in” or “make you cool.”
Drug dealers, motivated by the profits they make, will say anything to get you to buy their drugs. They will tell you that taking LSD will “expand your mind.”
They don’t care if the drugs ruin your life as long as they are getting paid. All they care about is money. Former dealers have admitted they saw their buyers as “pawns in a chess game.”
Get the facts about drugs. Make your own decisions.
“Within my own little trip world I started to get paranoid, feeling my friends were conspiring to do something, maybe even kill me. I thought to myself, I have to get out of here.
I ran into my friend’s bedroom, opened the window as wide as it would go and jumped out. Luckily for me my friend lived on the ground floor. I ran across a wooded area toward a bridge. I could feel my heart starting to beat faster and faster. I heard voices telling me I was going to have a heart attack and die.
This was not the end. Years later, I was running and all of a sudden, bam, I was having flashbacks of the time I was running in my trip. I started to have a bad panic attack and heard voices telling me I was going to have a heart attack and die.
I would tell anyone even thinking of taking LSD to reconsider.”
The Truth About Drugs
Drugs are essentially poisons. The amount taken determines the effect.
A small amount acts as a stimulant (speeds you up). A greater amount acts as a sedative (slows you down). An even larger amount poisons and can kill.
This is true of any drug. Only the amount needed to achieve the effect differs.
But many drugs have another liability: they directly affect the mind. They can distort the user’s perception of what is happening around him or her. As a result, the person’s actions may be odd, irrational, inappropriate and even destructive.
Drugs block off all sensations, the desirable ones with the unwanted. So, while providing short-term help in the relief of pain, they also wipe out ability and alertness and muddy one’s thinking.
Medicines are drugs that are intended to speed up or slow down or change something about the way your body is working, to try to make it work better. Sometimes they are necessary. But they are still drugs: they act as stimulants or sedatives, and too much can kill you. So if you do not use medicines as they are supposed to be used, they can be as dangerous as illegal drugs.
Why Do People Take Drugs?
People take drugs because they want to change something in their lives. Here are some of the reasons young people have given for taking drugs:
To fit in
To escape or relax
To relieve boredom
To seem grown up
To rebel
To experiment
They think drugs are a solution. But eventually, the drugs become the problem.
Difficult as it may be to face one’s problems, the consequences of drug use are always worse than the problem one is trying to solve with them. The real answer is to get the facts and not to take drugs in the first place.
Make Sure Others Get the Facts
These pages are based on the content of our fourteen easy-to-read booklets in The Truth About Drugs series.
These booklets are free and can be ordered as a set or individually. You can give them to friends, family and others who should know the facts they contain.
Refer others to this website.
References
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction 2007 Annual Report
United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, report on LSD, 1998
U.S. Department of Justice, National Drug Intelligence Center report, May 2003
"Research Report Series—Hallucinogens and Dissociative Drugs," U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse
U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy report on Hallucinogens, September 2005
www.drogues.gouv.fr. (Website of French Government's Interdepartmental Mission for the Fight Against Drugs and Drug Addiction)
U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
“Situation of Amphetamines, Ecstasy and LSD in Europe,” European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
“New Study Reveals More than 3 Million Adolescents and Young Adults Have Used Non-Prescription Cough and Cold Medicines to Get High at Least Once in their Lifetimes,” 10 Jan 2008, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
* Paranoid: suspicious, distrustful or afraid of other people.
* Synthesize: to make (a drug) by combining chemicals.
