WEBVTT - Timothy Leary, Part 1: The Science of LSD 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.320 Stuff to Blow Your Mind New York Comic Con Stranger Things. Yes, 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.800 it all comes together on October six, from seven pm 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.200 to eight thirty pm at Hudson Mercantile in Manhattan. If 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.160 you're in the area, Join is for Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.880 Your Mind Live Stranger Science as we explore the exciting 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.799 science and tantalizing pseudo science underlying the hit Netflix show 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.799 Stranger Things. Stuff you missed in history class has a 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.360 show right after us in the same venue, so you 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.440 can really double down on your stuff. And Hey, the 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:31.680 three of us would love to meet you. This is 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.120 the opportunity to do it. Learn more and buy your 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.680 tickets at New York Comic Con dot com Slash n 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:46.000 y c C hyphen presents Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:55.200 Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.160 to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.600 Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. And this week we're talking 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.960 about Timothy Leary. Now we're not just gonna talk about 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.839 Timothy Leary. We're also going to talk about science of LSD, 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.520 the history of LSD, the use of LSD and psilocybin 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:15.680 in various UH research projects. What these substances actually due 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.320 to the mind to the brain. But we're going to 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:21.760 use Timothy Leary as kind of, you know, sort of 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.040 a guiding principle, I guess for this episode. And if 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.160 you're if you're out there and you're thinking, well, I 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.920 love Timothy Learry, well, then strap in. If you're out 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.240 there and you're you're thinking yourself, well, I don't know 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:34.760 that I like this Timothy Leary guy, well, strap in 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.600 as well. Yeah, I think we've got something for everybody here. 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.480 We uh, we're basically sheltered during a hurricane this week, 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.319 and so Robert and I just binge read about Timothy 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:48.800 Leary for four days straight. We've got a lot to 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.080 share with you. My eyes are bleeding a little, but 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.360 I think you're going to be interested in this so 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:54.800 much so that we're going to do this as a 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.960 two parter. Yes, uh, now, just to refresh anybody out 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:00.840 there and too, and to inform from anyone who just 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.760 who doesn't know who Timothy Learry is. Well. Timothy Leary 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.320 was an American psychologist, author, and a key figure of 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:12.360 the nineteen sixties counterculture and psychedelics you know movement in general. 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.200 He lived nineteen twenty through nineteen, and he managed to 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.920 run a foul of pretty much every organization he was 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:23.040 a part of. Uh. He was arrested uh enough times 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.680 that he supposedly saw the inside of thirty six different prisons. 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.680 He earned the ire of many Americans, even as he 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.560 was able to submit a reputation as also kind of 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.359 a you know, a counterculture leader uh his and I 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.600 think the reason is because he has this message of 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:44.320 inner exploration of anti establishment thinking, and this this resonated 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.440 with folks and continues to resonate. His writings, his soothing, 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.480 sage like voice on numerous audio recordings, his his his 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.840 irresistible celebrity allure. It all made him just impossible to ignore, 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.240 love him or hate him. Plus he was not the 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.760 sort of guy to let the limelight go away new 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.720 and we'll and we'll get into all that he uh yeah, 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:09.560 he he clung to it, and people gravitated to him 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.120 as well. He was more than willing to rub elbows 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.520 with scientists like Carl Sagan, artists like hr and Geeger, 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.320 performers like John Lennon, uh, and you know, such luminaries 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.839 as Alan Ginsburg, a'l just Huxley, William Burrows, Jack Caro, 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.000 Whack and kin KESI. He even kept the company of 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.640 former enemies when it benefited, and such as Watergate Burglar 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:35.400 and later conservative radio talk show host G Gordon Liddy. Yeah, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:41.040 so this guy has been widely influential. He was. I 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:45.400 have a derogatory saying that I say sometimes about people 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.120 like Leary, although I think Leary was doing this before 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.560 this guy. He was the Cato Kalin of his time. 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:55.800 Like he was famous for being famous he was. Yeah, Um, 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.400 it wasn't because of a very specific thing he did, 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:01.800 and we learned this through the research. But I have 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:03.960 to be honest that, like, my experience with him was 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.360 basically thinking, oh, this was an academic who had done 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.240 some studies and then sort of became a guru like figure, 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.240 much like Sasha Shulgin when we talked about him during 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.000 our two parter on M D M A. Now, Sasha 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.480 Shulgin was a practicing chemist who is in his laboratory 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:24.200 up until he died. Right, Uh, Leary was not. He 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:28.400 did do some interesting studies in the fifties and sixties, 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.000 and we're gonna get into all of that stuff, but 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.799 first I think we should probably talk about his influence 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.000 on music. Yeah, I have to say that before I 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.480 knew anything about Timothy Leary, I knew the moody blues 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.400 song legend of the mind is the has the chorus 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.719 Timothy Learies Dead, you know, yeah, and so forth. Wonderful, 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.599 wonderful track. I listened to it several times while researching 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:54.000 this episode. Other fan music fans out there might recognize 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.800 the the the the sampling of his voice in various recordings, 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.640 probably most notable a live version of Tools Third Eye, 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.960 where they have the bit to think for yourself, question authority. Um, 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.720 and then you'll find numerous other musical projects that make 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.240 use of his soothing voice and in fact, and he 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.800 was involved in several of these projects as well. Uh, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:21.760 there's an ambient instrumental like sitar distortion album titled Turn 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.240 Onto an End Dropout, which was one of his catchphrases. 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.440 And that's actually like really good listening. I fired up 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.040 every now and then you just kind of, you know, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.240 chill out and and you know, don't think about what's 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:37.040 being said too much. But um, the interesting thing is 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:39.520 we've alluded to is that there is this kind of 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:45.039 surface level pop culture idea of Leary and it doesn't. 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.120 It doesn't necessarily hold up when you start going into 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.080 the details of who he was, the sorts of research 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.279 projects he was involved in. Um Like I I really 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.560 wanted him to be more in line with with another 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:02.680 counterculture contra virtual character. We've talked about John C. Lily, right, 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:04.600 but there's not really a lot to compare the two 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.480 besides the LSD connection, right, And that's actually kind of 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.000 what's happening with this episode is we're getting a convergence 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.920 of two types of episodes that we normally do. We 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.920 have a history of doing these two parters on specific 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.880 psychedelics and looking at their scientific and medical applications. But 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.880 then we also have a history of doing episodes like 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.000 the John C. Lily one or the Sasha Shulgin one. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.760 We call them our psychedelic Avengers. And we thought, oh, 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:37.520 we're gonna emerge Tim Leary and this LSD psilocybin research 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.320 together and it will be really interesting. It turns out 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.960 that that he wasn't actually contributing to the research, but 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.240 I think it does come together in a really interesting 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.680 way thematically when we get to the whole piece of this, 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.600 and in that I think he was a barometer for 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:59.159 America's acceptance of the idea of researching acid as being 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.680 a medical tool. Yeah, it's interesting how he was his 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.279 just will just discuss he was, you know, a spokesperson 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.200 for this. He represented that the supposedly a a learned 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.080 academic who was who was advocating LSD as this this 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:16.200 powerful tool, and yet at the same time he also 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.560 was such um an inflammatory individual as part of the 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.280 counterculture heat uh. A lot of people point to the 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.320 harm he did as one of one of the key 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.760 figures um more so than John C. Lily uh who 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:34.000 who vilified the counterculture and vilify the use of psychedelics 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.800 and one of the reasons that psychedelics were not studied 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.600 for for decades. Yeah, there are multiple researchers in the 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:43.400 notes here that we'll talk about throughout the course of 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.760 these two episodes who point to Leary as being the 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:51.200 reason why we haven't been able to use LSD in 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.000 UM medically approved studies for going on thirty plus years now, 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.600 longer than that, I think even it was. It's in 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:00.920 the notes here somewhere, but it was in the mid 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.600 sixties when it was banned. So, yeah, strap in because 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.760 that's the other thing, we're going to get into a 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.560 real basic primer for you on what LSD is, what's 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.320 the difference between LSD and psilocybin, and then we'll roll 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:20.080 into the Leary experience. Okay, So to go back to 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.200 the very beginning here, let's just go to the the 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.520 origins of l s D itself, since that's the main 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:30.960 substance that we're gonna be discussing here. So Swiss chemist 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.319 Albert Hoffman synthesized l s D and a Sandas pharmaceutical 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:40.120 lab on November six uh. Sandas was working on a 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:45.000 research project involving a parasitic fungus called ergot that grows 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.360 on rye. Now you may remember that Joe and I 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.679 recorded an episode titled The Psychedelic Nightmare of Ergotism that 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.319 dealt with the ergot and that that is the same 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.040 substance that we're discussing here. And you know, aside from 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:03.600 a noteworthy and truly horrifying breakouts of ergod poisoning in Europe, 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.840 it has been linked to various supernatural rights as well 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.960 as as well as allegedly individual artist and artistic traditions 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.640 throughout history, though I think sometimes those are mere theories, right. Yeah, 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.480 And so just to be clear here, San DAWs was 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.040 a pharmaceutical company that started in eighteen eighties six and 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:25.480 they began researching for more novel kind of drugs in 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.960 nineteen seventeen. They were basically looking for therapeutic leads based 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.079 on natural products. So they turned to ergot Why, well, 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.440 they had an example that they had already created called ergotamine. 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.480 That was a drug that they had created for treating 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.440 migraine headaches. So Hoffman came along and he started looking 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:45.920 at ergat and he saw the lisergic acid in it, 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.120 and he thought, well, maybe this LSD that I can 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:52.000 synthesize out of this will be a good respiratory stimulants. 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.600 So for instance, make maybe if you have asthma, you 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.640 take some LSD and it will help you breathe better. Yeah. 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:02.400 So he ended up derived being different compounds from lysergic acid, 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.559 and he developed several medicines, including drugs that lowered blood 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.240 pressure and improved brain function in the elderly. And he 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.280 derived the twenty five in a series of these derivatives. 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:16.840 It was lysergic acid dithalamide or LSD twenty five, and 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.400 he thought that LSD stimulate breathing circulation, but test didn't 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:26.400 show anything special, and Sandaz abandoned further study. But then 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.920 five years later, Hoffman's thoughts returned to LSD potential and 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.040 he felt that it hadn't been fully explored, so he 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.839 took the you know, perhaps unusual step of synthesizing another 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.319 batch further testing, and during the process he began to 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:44.360 feel strange. Um. The rest is history. He discovered the 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:48.040 properties of LSD and I've I've heard it described as 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.560 his his problem child, like it. Basically the rest of 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.040 his life he kept coming back to LSD and and 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.040 trying to figure out, like, you know what what it 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.000 can be used for and how you know, what are 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.040 the true properties of this. At this same time, there's 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:05.600 this kind of roller coaster of of cultural awareness of 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.480 it taking place in the background. Yeah. Yeah, And he 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.480 has that infamous bicycle ride as well, right after he 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:14.679 takes it for the first time that has been sort 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:17.760 of mythologized over the years. Yes. Now, l s D, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.280 to be clear, is a psychedelic drug, meaning that it 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:24.839 alters perceptions of reality, the shape of thoughts, the connections 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.480 that one forms. I can't stress enough that one should 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:33.640 set aside any cinematic uh ideas of what acid trips 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.080 consists of, because it's it's rare to find a film 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.440 that truly feels trippy in a way that matches up 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:41.720 with the actual experience of ls D. You don't. You 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.319 don't see imaginary elves or anything. It's if you watch 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.800 just films and TV, you just assume that an LSD 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.520 trip is a dream sequence, and a dream sequence is 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.839 just an LSD trip, that these are in just interchangeable 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.280 altered states of reality, right, Yeah, exactly. I remember, like 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.720 growing up when kids would start talking about LSD and 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:09.000 it being available to us just all the like various 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.439 like bizarre urban myths that people would tell, you know, like, oh, 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.160 there's this one guy who took it and uh, he 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.480 thinks he's an orange now and he doesn't know how 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.200 stop being an orange, or like another one was like 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.240 this guy took it and he saw a bunch of 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.120 everybody looked like giant white guerrillas to him, and he 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.400 fought all these guerrillas and it's like these sort of 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:34.280 spectacular stories. Well, it does have hallucinogenic properties, there's their 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.080 mythologized Yeah, I always think back to an episode of 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.400 Strangers with Candy where there's a story of a girl 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.360 who try took alice D and tried to force herself 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.920 through a key hole. You know. Now, that's not to 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.360 say that that nothing bad can happen while while one 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:49.600 is on l S D. We'll have some examples of 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.520 that as well as we go on here. But in 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.959 terms of just like what the experience of the elics 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.839 D that basically what is the psychedelic experience? Uh? Oddly enough, 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.280 I'm I want to turn to some the words of 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.600 Timothy Leary because I thought that that he actually managed 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.640 to sum it up rather nicely here and uh, and 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.360 I'm gonna go ahead and read it in my impersonation 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.959 of Timothy Leary because it's more fun that way for 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:18.600 me and hopefully for you. Of course, the drug dose 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.760 does not produce transcendent experience. It merely acts as a 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.560 chemical key. It opens the mind, frees the nervous system 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.120 of its ordinary patterns and structures. The nature of the 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:34.520 experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.360 the preparation of the individual, including his personality, structure, and 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.160 his mood. At the same time setting is physical, the weather, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:47.360 the room's atmosphere, social feelings of persons present toward one another, 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:51.560 and cultural prevailing views as to what is real. It 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.760 is for this reason that manuals or guide books are necessary. 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:58.880 Their purpose is to enable a person to understand the 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.800 new realities of the expanded consciousness, to serve as roadmaps 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:07.120 for new interior territories which modern science has made accessible. 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.960 So to give you an idea of what LSD is 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.600 like outside of the experience, outside of getting turned on, 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.920 as Leary would not right, It starts without about an 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:18.920 hour of when you first take it, and it can 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.360 last up to twelve hours. Uh, there's a peak about 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.560 halfway through that experience. And the effects very widely, but 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:32.760 biologically they include dilated pupils, increased blood pressure, high body temperature, dizziness, sweat, 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.960 blurred vision, and tingly hands and feet. The primary effects, though, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.920 are visual, which is more what Leary is describing there. 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:45.720 You get stronger colors, brighter lights, trails, halos, and patterns. Overall, 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.880 people say it provides a sense of happiness and euphoria. 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:53.400 That's very emotional. However, though, as we said, this can 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.680 also lead to impulsive behavior. And poor judgment. When you're 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.840 under the effects of this euphoria. Yeah, you you feel 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:02.240 you're body as if it's something new, something different. You 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.760 smell and taste the world in a different way, visual stimulized, processed, 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.640 and with new areas of focus, new details, and and 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.720 the same can be said for cognition. Uh. And the 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.200 same can be said for the basic processing of time. 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.160 And so indeed, that is the that is the essential 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.520 psychedelic experience, uh, in a nutshell. And there's one thing 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:22.480 I'd like to point out before we go further here, 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.480 which is that we don't actually know how it affects 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.720 the brain entirely. And why don't we know that because 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.800 there's never been any scientific research on how it affects 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.280 the brain because it has been banned largely in the 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.160 United States and some other countries for for the last 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.120 couple of decades, as we mentioned, So this is kind 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:42.880 of a problem. We've got this thing on our hands. 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.960 Everybody knows about it, we have a general understanding of it, 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.560 but we haven't done the research. Yeah, and we've touched 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.960 on this. So when we've talked about marijuana, so a 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.280 cybin as well as m d M A you have 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.880 these substances that just became banned. Research into their properties right, 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.760 was at the very least professionally taboo for so long. 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:08.400 So yeah, despite the fact that they clearly have powerful properties, 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.360 we don't necessarily understand them all that much. It's believed 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:16.240 that LSD works similar to serotonin, a neurotransmitters responsible for 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:21.680 regulating moods, appetite, muscle control, sexuality, sleep, and sensory perception. 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.600 And ls D seems to interfere with the way the 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:29.960 brain serotonin receptors work, so it may inhibit neurotransmission, stimulated 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.280 or both. It also affects the way that the retinas 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.960 process information and conduct that information to the brain. So 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.240 you might be listening to this and saying, well, hold on, 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.560 I've never taken any of this stuff before, and you're 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.440 just kind of throwing these terms around. What's the difference 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.040 between LSD and psilocybin. While psilocybin is a fun guy, 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.640 and that's classified by botanists and my cologists people to 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.840 study mushrooms. While they were used by the Aztecs in 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.320 religious rituals, the American public didn't really find out about 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.080 psilocybin until nineteen fifty seven, and this was when an 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.520 article in Life magazine recounted the adventures of a New 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.960 York banker in Mexico where he tried it. H Yeah, 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:17.840 LSD totally different. It is colorless, odorless, and tasteless and ingesting. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.040 Just twenty five micrograms is enough to feel effects. Now, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.359 to give you an idea of what twenty five micrograms is, 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.600 that's less than the weight of two salt grains. It 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.919 is very quickly metabolized by the human body. Now, as 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:35.080 previously established, LSD is a chemical that synthesized in a 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.880 laboratory setting, whereas psilocybin is a fun guy that's grown 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.760 in nage. One is natural one is created in a lap. 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.240 Several chemicals that could go into l s D are 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.119 currently sales restricted here in America or are monitored by 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:53.119 the Drug Enforcement Agency. And there's all kinds of different 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.080 recipes on how to make it. Some start with lysergic 0:17:56.160 --> 0:18:00.320 acid that's derived from morning glory seeds. Others use that 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.960 ergot fungus that we talked about earlier and how it 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.720 was discovered. They culture that and they extract ergot alkaloids 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.040 from it. This fungus and LSD itself can break down 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.360 when exposed to light, and that's important to note as well. 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:16.280 In this ergot recipe, the solvents and reagents involved are 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:22.120 also very dangerous. They're poisonous, carcinogenic, and explosive. So it's fun. 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.040 I would imagine marking on this stuff, like if you've 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.920 got your little laboratory, you've got to be really careful. 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.320 You know. This is like uh um, some Jesse and 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:33.800 Walter White stuff where you've got to be really careful 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:35.800 about what kind of stuff you're concocting and what you're 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.320 breathing in and whether you're not you blow up your trailer. Yeah, 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:40.800 this is straight up chemistry. And that's the other different 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.440 psilocybin is uh is ultimately uh, it's it's about I 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:50.200 guess scavenging or or growing naturally occurring organism. Uh. This 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.520 is chemistry. So the way you do it is you 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.399 synthesize the ergot alkaloid into a life surgic acid compound, 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.200 and you do this by adding chemicals and applying heat. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.880 After word, you isomerize the compounds so that the atoms 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:07.080 in its molecules rearrange. This involves some cooling, mixing, it 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.880 with an acid, an actual acid, not the term acid, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.760 also a base, and then evaporating it. The remnants are 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.960 iOS lysergic dithalamide, which is then isomerized again and that 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.560 produces what's called active LSD. So finally you purify it, 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.640 you crystallize it. Afterward, LSD can be made into tablets, 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.800 or it's dissolved into liquid or made into gelatine squares. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.400 Most often it's dissolved into ethanol, and then that ethanol 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.200 is added to sheets of blotting paper that are then dried, 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.480 cut up into little pieces, and people get tabs. It 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.800 looks just like the candy that you can buy. I'm 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:46.399 not really sure on the history of that. Can you 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.120 know the one where it basically looks like blot Yeah? 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.000 Like which came first. It's a good question this is 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.800 this like candy cigarettes or is it just a happy 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:59.639 coincidence that this terrible candy looks like acid? Yeah? That 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.440 is curious. If any listeners know, please let us in 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.160 on the secret. There A lot of you have probably 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:07.840 also heard about bad trips. We mentioned them earlier. Well, 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:10.840 it's not really clear what causes these bad trips, but 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.680 they result in fear and paranoia, and treatment usually requires 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:17.600 basically going to a quiet space so that the user 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.600 can just come down, but sometimes you have to administer 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:25.159 anti anxiety medication or tranquilizers, so that that's important to 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.080 remember as well. Yeah, this makes me think of a 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.160 lot of the research involving psilocybin um that really ultimately 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.119 kind of backs up some of what Leary said in 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.959 that that bit that I read in that a lot 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:42.200 of it comes down to priming, preparing the individual for 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:45.000 what the trip is going to consist of, and then 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.480 of course personal medical and personal psychiatric history is going 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.840 to play into that scenario. Yeah. Absolutely. Now you've also 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.199 probably heard of flashbacks, right, this is the other thing 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.000 like when when I was in high school, like all 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:58.360 the legends, it was like, Oh, he's gonna see those 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:00.960 White Guerrillas every year for the rest of his life, 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.000 right like something like that. Oh yeah, it's this is 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:06.760 something that is that pops up in films and TV 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.720 from time to time, and it's either just completely ridiculous, 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.359 like the White Guerrillas, or even when it is a 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.040 lot cooler and more believable, say with the first season 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.760 of True Detective, there's still a lot a lot of 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.320 doubts from some individuals to to what extent this is 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.280 a thing or or a realistic depiction of it if 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.920 it is. Yeah, here's the deal with flashbacks. There's no 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.760 evidence to support the idea that LSD remains in your 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.440 body forever in amounts inside your brain or spinal fluid. 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:36.639 People say that, but we don't have any evidence on it. 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:40.239 Why because we really haven't been able to study it. Right. Uh. 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:44.440 Some people think though, that this is what causes flashbacks. 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:49.199 The majority of users the report never having had flashbacks, 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.400 and of those who have reported it, many are mentally ill, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.680 and some doctors believe that what they're perceiving is actually 0:21:55.720 --> 0:22:00.280 a form of psychosis that emerged due to the LSD use. 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:06.880 There's actually a medically recognized disorder called hallucinogen persisting perceptive disorder, 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:11.240 and this is for people who constantly experience visual hallucinations 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:14.119 after they take LSD. This is a little different than 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.680 the idea of flashbacks, right. I mean, it's also worth 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.800 noting that the visual hallucinations can occur for a number 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:23.800 of reasons. Um, So it's it's entirely possible that one 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.800 could could could take LSD and then what a year later, 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:30.680 they experienced some sort of visual hallucination and one of 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.639 the main ways they can describe it is the narrative 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:36.320 of acid flashbacks and then they're going and then that 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.160 becomes encoded in memory. So one last thing I want 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:42.280 to make clear about ls D before we we cap 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:46.080 off this summary here. LSD is not an addictive drug. 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.560 So if somebody tells you you know you're gonna take that, 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:51.320 you're gonna get hooked on it or something like that, 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:55.879 that's just patently untrue. Uh. The real basic way that 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.600 it works is that if you take it a lot, 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:01.080 your body is going to get used to it, and 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.600 subsequently the effects are going to lessen over time. So 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:07.800