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Is LSD Good for You?
As the FDA paves the way for clinical LSD trials, scientists are exploring its medical benefits. Is acid the new Xanax? Plus, from Angelina to The Beatles, a gallery of celebrity trippers.
Bob Wold doesn't seem like your typical acid tripper. A happily married 56-year-old contractor with four kids who lives the suburbs of Chicago, he had never considered taking psychedelic drugs until about 10 years ago. At the time, he was suffering from cluster headaches—known as “suicide” headaches because they’re so painful—for 12 hours a day, and he was spending more than $20,000 a year on medication. Then he read a post on a support-group Web site from someone who said they’d found a miracle cure for their own cluster headaches: LSD.
Wold decided to try it. "Compared to brain surgery,” he says, “taking a couple hits of LSD looked a lot more attractive.” But ever since a bust of the country’s biggest LSD lab nine years ago, the drug has become much harder to find. So Wold got his hands on the closest equivalent he could think of: psilocybin “magic” mushrooms (though he has since switched to LSD, which he says works better). The psychedelics arrived in a brown box at his doorstep from a long-distance dealer. He took one dose: about 1.5 grams. "In 15 minutes I could feel the difference,” he says. “My head was clearer than it had probably been in the past 20 years. Other medications felt like they were just covering it up.” But on acid, “All the pressure was gone."
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Acid Users
Most people with headaches aren’t going to purchase an illegal drug. And soon, they may not have to. For the first time in four decades, the government is cracking open the door to studies looking into the medical benefits of LSD. If such studies bear fruit—and early results are promising—people like Wold may someday be able to pick up an LSD pill at their local pharmacy.
The watershed moment came last September, when the FDA approved a clinical trial on the use of LSD to treat anxiety in cancer patients. According to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (or MAPS), it was the first time since the 1960s that a medical study involving LSD was permitted by the federal government. MAPS Director Rick Doblin called it “a symbol that the psychedelic renaissance is here.”
MAPS reached its fundraising goal of $225,000 in April, and will soon run its LSD trials in Switzerland, where it’s easier to legally obtain acid. The FDA’s approval is crucial, however, because it means it will accept the data that comes out of the Swiss trials. If those results prove the drug works, the agency will then run similar tests for safety and effectiveness. Doblin thinks that because of this ruling, it’s highly possible that within 10 years LSD prescriptions for treating anxiety associated with life-threatening illnesses could be available in America.
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How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
gak001
Excellent. It's nice to see the chains that shackled the scientific community removed. Another not-so-obvious political change.
sritchey
Agreed, excellent indeed.
overdue
And was our friend Bob Wold able to go out and work after taking 1.5 grms of shrooms? Because back in the days when I took acid, shrooms, etc, I was barely able to dress myself, let alone operate industrial cooking equipment at the restaurant I worked at.
JackBurton
He's a contractor. His work probably became much more artistic. I bet he's making the big money now.
Cymatic
I think that was a test. That is far too much. It sounds like they are able to take microdoses that wouldn't have much of a psychedelic effect.
Much like Morphine - in small doses it's therapeutic, in medium doses a narcotic, in high doses a poison. Although acid won't kill you - in extremely large doses it can scramble your brain pretty good.
felixsama
Do you think he could've been at work while experiencing a headache that was that kind of severe?
It doesn't say he stays high on LSD, it wears off- you should, apparently remember.
moman1
I started my cluster headache cycles about 20 years ago.
Picture this: the most severe pain imaginable 3-5 times a day for 2-3 months. And I'm one of the lucky ones in that my cycles come after clear periods of 24-36 months. Some of my co-sufferers go through this day after day after day.
A small non-recreational dose of "shroom" tea (no buzz felt) broke my last cycle. This after 2 months of Imitrex which besides being expensive (about $900 a month) is known to cause any number of undesireable side effects including heart attack.
But even heart attacks don't hurt like cluster headaches do.
Word.
glenndale
I was smiling when I was reading about Dock Ellis. I remember a time when a friend of mine and I took shrooms and later played pool. We were partners and kept the table for hours. Neither of us could miss. We were pretty good players, but that night we were on fire. We even had a crowd around us watching. It was amazing the focus that we had.
skibummin1
Having taken Lsd and other Psychedelic about 300 times during the late 60's early 70's could be wonderful,frightening, insightful, and just plan stupid all in one trip. It never really had a profound effect on me. I can say it changed a few people I knew for the worse they never were the same the very next day. You would run into them years later and it was like they were still under the effects and just didn't seem right. I often wondered what was up did they see something others couldn't something so profound it changed them so,God ,devil,meaning of life.
We were not holed up with Timithy Leary or a guru ,doctor with fresh fruit and beutiful music. We were on the street trying to function with all walks of life and left to our own survivor skills
AuntBarb
Well, this may confirm that acid is, as they used to say, groovy.
frontman9000
I had first taken LSD when I was 18 and subsequently until I was about 25. No other drug had ever had such a profound effect on my psyche. I was never to see the world the same way again. The insight into myself and the world was nothing short of incredible. It totally reshaped my thinking and ever since, I have been totally dedicated to expanding my intelligence and learning has been an enthusiastic passion of mine ever since. This is great news to see that the scientific community is realizing the benefits of this controversial substance.
liviapeacock
I had the same experience during about the same ages as you did. Never touch the stuff now, but have fond memories of solving the world's problems and seeing things with crystal clarity.
My friends and I in the 80's would bemoan the fact that Reagan and Gorbachev didn't sit down together and go on a little "trip.
Redhead5050
Freedom in the scientific arena to learn more about these drugs is a wonderful side effect of a change of leadership in this country.
ecodelsol
me me me, i want to test it!
blade87
Xanax , Klonpin and their cousins, all in the family benzo- are all too often prescribed for anxiety.
These drugs are not only addicting but they are hell to stop using after a few weeks, because all too often the anxiety comes back super sized. It's so miserable a lot of people simply keep taking the drug.
One study of the prescribing patterns of benzos reported people prescribed these drugs for short term anxiety end up taking them for an average of nine years.
Ergo, if a psychedelic type drug can do better, I say go for it.
A benzo addiction is the worst of its kind.
enfinlily
I took LSD and mescaline many many times in my early twenties. It was just FUN FUN FUN. But I will never forget my first time. I was about 17 years old and had to be home before midnight. I found myself alone in my bedroom high on Purple Haze. It was a long wonderful night in which I finally understood and solved the "problems of the world". If only I had known, I would have written down some of those revelations. I've always wished I could go back to that night... maybe now I will be able to. GREAT NEWS!!!
Mauiboy
"One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small.
And the one's that mother gives you, it does nothing at all..."
sonofloud
I'm sure Timothy Leary would feel vindicated.
squiggy
My thought too. The cosmos are smiling on us now, watch them grin! LOL Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww, Dude.............................. They just pop into little stars and vanish, cool! LOL
felixsama
It's unfortunate that Leary managed to take the profundity of LSD and convince most of a generation to 'Turn on, tune in and drop out'. Ultimately turned the whole thing on it's head, by encouraging the 'drop out' part. We followed his advice and handed the world to the Repug.s.
Leary might have felt vindicated by this decision- but I hope he realized how badly he'd screwed up with his directives.
LSD can be profound, to say the least, but we BLEW it when we withdrew from society with our new-found understanding of the world, to live little hippie lives.
I generalize- but I also live in Nor. Cal.
And Squiggs, maybe it's not too late for you. LOL yerself.
Trilby16
I can say from person experience that LSD IS good for you. It opens your eyes and lets you see things in a new, different light. What is wrong with that? And yes, it is very fun.
lordastral
I just hope the scientists don't mention lions, wolves, and leopards to people when giving them lsd.
Margot62
I'm so tired of seeing typos in every story on the TDB.
Proof read, folks! That's what real writers do!
felixsama
Yes, it's called LEARN TO SPELL- why should TDB cover for the illiterates who spout off here!
Many of y'alls grammar is atrocious too- but TBD is not here to make you look good.
And Margot62- in your next post you pull out of ? to mention driving on LSD? Let's just get the drunks off the roads- it is irrelevant to this article.
truthinmypocket
ahhhhh white people and their addiction to grammar and spelling... le sight
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