LSD

An hallucinogenic drug synthesized from lysergic acid or other substanceshttp://www.designer-drugs.com/pte/12.162.180.114/dcd/chemistry/lsd-buzz.html, LSD produces mind altering effects in users such as visual hallucinations, mood swings, a distortion of space and time, and altered or unfiltered sensory perception. There are also effects on the sympathetic nervous system possible, including rapid heartbeat, nausea and/or sweating. Because LSD alters the user's perception of reality and sense of judgment, they become more likely to engage in irrational behavior.Centre for Addiction and Mental Health: Do You Know... LSD

This site gives information on the effects of LSD ingestion on users, quotes about LSD by notable people, and relevant myths surrounding drug use that are enlightening. Books that are about experience with hallucinogens are listed as well. Futher information about LSD can be found in links in the Google and Related Mahalo Pages section. There are also news and blog sections below, as well as a LSD facts section on the right.

The effects that a user experiences depends on many factors, including:

1. How much is ingested
2. User experience
3. Psychological makeup and emotional state of the user
4. Current mood of the user
5. The environment where the use occurs during the time the LSD is active hawaii.hawaii.edu/hsersacc/HSER268/UDA_Ch6.ppt

1. You can overdose on LSD. The hallucinogenic effects may have caused a few people to leap to their deaths from tall buildings, but there is no known lethal dose established as a toxin and no one has been known to die from a chemical overdose of LSD. Thus you can die from your illusions, but not from the drug itself.
2. LSD can cause “madness”. The hallucinations caused by LSD are temporal and differ from those experienced in the state of schizophrenia. Clinical tests were done in the past where volunteers were given LSD for testing new medicines for psychosis, but there is no evidence that the drug causes madness in normal people LSD in normal people.
3. Brain cell damage is inevitable with drug use. The few that have shown effects for damaging the brain are high intake of alcohol for a long time, methamphetamine and MDMA (in animal studies only), and substances which are inhaled including correction fluid, paint thinner, hair spray, and airplane glue (which damage the internal organs) The ability of the brain to recover from the effects of most drugs shows it is resilient.
4. Addiction is caused by drugs. If addiction is caused by drugs, then why is it that not all people become addicted. Studies are being done to see if there are genetic links or other factors that cause dependency in a small proportion of the population.
5. The addiction potential of all drugs is equal. It defies logic to make that assumption, because addiction is dependent on the potential of a person to become addicted and the specific potential of the substance to interact with the brain's sites that help foster the behavior. http://www.utexas.edu/research/asrec/myths.html

"Perhaps to some extent we have lost sight of the fact that LSD can be very, very helpful in our society if used properly."—Robert F. Kennedy

"Consciousness is what we're in need of to avoid running off the cliff into armageddon. If the claim that these drugs expand consciousness, promote empathy, and allow deeper insights into our problems has any validity at all, it should be explored very carefully and very thouroughly. - Terence McKenna http://www.lsd.info/en/quotes.html

"The LSD experience usually changes forever the worldview and basic life-orientation of all who experience it."—Ralph MetznerLSD Symposium: Quotes

"Nobody stopped thinking about those psychedelic experiences. Once you’ve been to some of those places, you think, ‘How can I get back there again but make it a little easier on myself?" Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, Rolling Stone, Nov. 30, 1989.

"You never see a positive drug story on the news. They always have the same LSD story. You've all seen it: "Today a young man on acid...thought he could fly...jumped out of a building...what a tragedy!" What a dick. He's an idiot. If he thought he could fly why didn't he take off from the ground first? Check it out? You don't see geese lined up to catch elevators to fly south; they fly from the fucking ground. He's an idiot. He's dead. Good! We lost a moron. Fucking celebrate. There's one less moron in the world.." Bill Hicks http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Hicks

"I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your mind. Why is it that people think it's so evil? What is it about it that scares people so deeply, even the guy that invented it, what is it? Because they're afraid that there's more to reality than they have confronted. That there are doors that they're afraid to go in, and they don't want us to go in there either, because if we go in we might learn something that they don't know. And that makes us a little out of their control." Ken Kesey in "The Beyond Within: The Rise and Fall of LSD"

"Acid is not for every brain... only the healthy, happy, wholesome, handsome, hopeful, humorous, high-velocity should seed these experiences. The elitism is totally self-determinated. Unless you are self-confident, self-directed, self-selected, please abstain." Timothy Leary http://www.lsd.info/en/quotes.html

Several books related to the use and introduction of LSD are found below. The last four books are found in full at the referenced site for free reading material.

1. Nicholas Chwelos and Dwight Blewett. 1959. Handbook for the Therapeutic Use of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25: Individual and Group Procedures. - This book proposed use of LSD for treatment of alcoholism and mental illness, based on the belief that the drug experience improved the patients’ self awareness and understanding, which would help them towards realizing their individual abilities and potential for growth.http://www.uregina.ca/news/assets/pdfs/h146gahl.pdf?PHPSESSID=ccb38c60fd40552d6f14f4141a6ac7b7
2. Watts, Alan W. 1962. The Joyous Cosmology. Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness. Pantheon Books. - Alan w. Watts, well known author of books on Eastern philosophies, describes his personal experience with psychedelics, believed to be with LSD in particular, and in his prologue he discusses some of the social and legal issues related to psychedelic drug use and regulation.http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/jccontnt.htm
3. Hoffmann, Albert. 1980. LSD - My Problem Child. McGraw-Hill. - The chemist who first isolated and described LSD discusses the discovery process, related compounds and psychedelics, meetings with Aldous Huxley, who wrote The Doors of Perception about his mescaline experience, and the LSD experience.http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/child.htm
4. Braden, William. 1967. The Private Sea. LSD and the Search for God. Quadrangle Books, Chicago. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/braden.htm
5. Hollingshead, Michael. 1973. The Man Who Turned on the World. Blond and Briggs, Ltd., London. - Autobiography of Hollingshead, including the introduction of LSD to Harvard and the Harvard Research Group in the Psychology Department, including Hollingshead, Richard Alpert, Timothy Leary, George Litwin, Gunter Weil, Michael Kahn,, Ralph Metzner, and Ralph Schwitzgebel. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/hollings.htm