[bomp] Have a safe trip.

[Rick McCullough <rsmccull@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hNDRiP53gl6YPZEcojTe2sK6ERWwD90C9KS80



GENEVA (AP)  Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD
whose medical discovery inspired  and arguably corrupted  millions in
the 1960s hippie generation, has died. He was 102.

Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris
Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village near Basel where Hofmann moved
following his retirement in 1971.

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

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

The Swiss chemist 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 in Basel.

He became the first human guinea pig of the drug when a tiny amount of
the substance seeped onto his finger during a laboratory experiment on
April 16, 1943.

"I had to leave work for home because I was suddenly hit by a sudden
feeling of unease and mild dizziness," he subsequently wrote in a memo
to company bosses.

He said his initial experience resulted in "wonderful visions."

"What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures," he told a
Swiss television network for a program marking his 100th birthday two
years ago. "It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."

Three days later, Hofmann experimented with a larger dose. The result
was a horror trip.

"Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror," he said,
describing his bicycle ride home. "I had the impression I was rooted to
the spot. But my assistant told me we were actually going very fast."

"The substance which I wanted to experiment with took over me. I was
filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was
transported to a different world, a different time," Hofmann 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 illnesses like schizophrenia.

For a time, Sandoz sold LSD 25 under the name Delysid, encouraging
doctors to try it themselves. It was one of the strongest drugs in
medicine  with just one gram enough to drug an estimated 10,000 to
20,000 people for 12 hours.

LSD was elevated to international fame in the late 1950s and 1960s
thanks to Harvard professor Timothy Leary who embraced the drug under
the slogan "turn on, tune in, drop out."

But away from the psychedelic trips, horror stories emerged about 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 argued for the ban to be lifted to allow LSD to
be used in medical research.

Peter Oehen, a psychiatrist in the Swiss town of Biberist, says
substances such as LSD and MDMA  also known as ecstasy  can produce
results where conventional psychotherapies fail.

"They help overcome the wall of denial that some patients build up,"
said Oehen, who met Hofmann and has studied his work.

Hofmann welcomed a decision by Swiss authorities last December to allow
LSD to be used in a psychotherapy research project.

"For me, this is a very big wish come true. I always wanted to see LSD
get its proper place in medicine," he told Swiss TV at the time.

Hofmann took the drug  purportedly on an occasional basis and out of
scientific interest  for several decades.

"LSD can help open your eyes," he once said. "But there are other ways 
meditation, dance, music, fasting."

Even so, the self described "father" of LSD readily agreed that the drug
was dangerous if in the wrong hands. This was reflected by the title of
his 1979 book: "LSD - my problem child."

In it he wrote that, "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 retired from Sandoz in 1971 and devoted his time to travel,
writing and lectures.

"This is really a high point in my advanced age," Hofmann said at a
ceremony in Basel honoring him on his 100th birthday. "You could say it
is a consciousness-raising experience without LSD."

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