WEBVTT - How LSD Works 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:06.160 Disclaimer drug episode. Hey, everybody, we recorded an episode on 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.160 LSD and we just wanted to throw it out there 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.920 that we talked about LSD and other drugs in a 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:16.200 very frank, open, uh, non judgmental way. So parents, you 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.840 may not want your little kiddies to listen to this one. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.680 It's up to you. I don't know what kind of 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:25.640 household you run, but that's our disclaimer. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:34.480 you Should Know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:38.159 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.960 Chuck Bryant and Jerry and this is Stuff you Should 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:46.960 Know the podcast. It's right, Josh. Uh. I'm gonna wish 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.960 you two things. Happy anniversary, Yes, happy anniversary because the 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.680 day that we're recording, it was eight years ago this 0:00:54.720 --> 0:01:00.160 week that we released Well not we you we. I 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.120 wasn't even there yet, you were here in spirit. I 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.520 appreciate that. Yeah, it's when stuff you should know. I I 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.600 was born. Yeah, two mid April, eight years ago. We 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.880 got forty two years ago. And happy bicycle Day. Did 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:14.880 you know that it was bicycle day when he picked 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:20.320 us out? No? Really really, that's actually that's amazing, isn't it. Yeah, 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.640 it's weird. Yeah. It was the thing that prompted it 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.280 was that recent study about LSD and I was like, wow, yeah, 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:29.760 we should totally do LSD. We've never done it. And 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.920 it was I think yesterday that I realized today is 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.319 bicycle Day. And for those of you who aren't in 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.720 the know, bicycle days not about riding bicycles to work. No, 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:41.880 it's not. As a matter of fact, somebody on Twitter 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.479 said every day's bicycle Day. To me, I'm like, I 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:50.600 bet you don't. So. Bicycle Day commemorates the day when 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.000 Um Albert Hoffman, the discoverer or creator I guess, depending 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.840 on how you look at it of LSD, UM experimented 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.720 on himself and part of that included him riding his 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:06.720 bike back home from work while he was Yeah, and 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.720 we'll talk about that here in a minute. But bicycle 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:14.800 Day itself was started supposedly by Professor Thomas Roberts of 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:20.200 Northern Illinois University, Go Huskies, in commemoration of that what 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.000 some people say it was a great day in history. 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.280 It certainly was the day that changed history. You really 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.119 can't argue that. No, and Um, if you want to 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:31.960 just hear all things LSD and stuff you should know 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.040 We and did two other shows two thousand eight, did 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.800 the CIA test LSD on Unsuspecting Americans? Good? The answer 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:43.600 is yes, mind opening and October. Can you treat mental 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:49.000 illness with psychedelics? And now in typical stuff you should 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.359 know backward form, we're gonna do LSD. Yeah, we like 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.440 to nibble around that. Do l s D. You know 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.720 that'd be weird. Oh, we weren't supposed to. Oh, we 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.640 better get through this quick. We got about thirty minutes. Oh. 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:04.240 We should also point out at the end of this 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.160 episode we have John hodgment On is in a very 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:15.280 special listener male audio segment where he rebuts our nostalgia episode. 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.200 Although it seems like we agreed more than we didn't, 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.400 he didn't end up forbutting anything. Yeah. Uh, and that's 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.480 we worked out the the the misunderstanding, how about that? Yeah, 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:27.280 and we like all times that you sit down with 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.359 hodgement We talked for thirty minutes about one small thing. 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:34.440 That's why this episode is super long, because this is 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.800 gonna be long too. It is so it's super size 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.480 robuts we should sell like eight more extra ads all 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.160 but just kidding. Yeah, like Tommy Chong would probably one 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.480 in on this one. He's got some businesses done. Yeah, 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.440 I shouldn't joke because sales will be like knocking on 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.440 the door. All right, Chuck really really said, Chuck, we're 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.440 talking about l s D today, um and l s 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:00.000 D again. That that bicycle day, that first day seven 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:02.440 three years ago. I think it really did change the 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.000 world because there are very few substances that have ever 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:09.640 been created by man that had a more sweeping, profound 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.560 effect than LSD. Like you, kind of a lot of 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:18.400 people associate LSD with hippies, they're grateful dead maybe ravers, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.520 that kind of thing. But if you really start to 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.520 kind of poke around popular culture here in the West, 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.000 you start to see it turn up everywhere. Like every 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.680 American president has taken LSD. Right, Well, it's part of 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.880 the oath of office, like the Bible is laced with 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.279 LST put their hand on their hand on it. Actually, 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.599 let's debunk that myth right now. Apparently LSD is non 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:43.160 absorbment through the skin. Yeah, which means that those says, well, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.160 there's a bunch of rumors, but the one with Jimi 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.200 Hendrix would put LSD in his sweatband. He may have 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.479 wouldn't have done anything, although it could have trickled down 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:56.800 into his mouth maybe. Yeah. Uh, here's some other popular 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.160 LSD myths. I don't think there have been any They're 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.920 drugs that have spawned maybe these days. But I'm not 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.040 hip to all these new drugs, man, and like it's 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.400 impossible to be. I was doing research for this and 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.200 I ran across, like all the new drugs that are 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:17.680 available today. It's incredible. There's just like an avalanche of new, new, 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:23.040 virtually untested drugs that's being They're they're going from synthesis 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.640 to human trials by way of customer like people are 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.000 taking these things and they're essentially like guinea pigs for 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.120 these things. Still, it is extremely dangerous. Yeah, Molly and 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:37.040 Billy and Jim's way beyond that, Jimmy, Jimmy's old news, 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:42.760 Jimmy's oldness. Uh. Here just a few quickie uh highlights. Um, 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:44.719 the guy that thought he was an orange so he 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.520 like peeled his skin off. Clearly LSD did that. Not true? Uh, 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.040 college kids who stared at the sun until they were blind. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:56.600 Clearly LSD is responsible for those children licking stick tattoos 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:01.800 given out to children at Halloween. Uh, seven hits will 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.640 make you legally insane, right, you can use that as 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:08.320 a defense in court. Diane link Letter jumped from a 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.719 window because she thought she could fly, So that was 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.280 a big one that kind of changed public opinion. She 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:17.400 jumped from a window, she definitely did, but she was 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.400 also suicidal and she had taken LSD before. What made 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.719 it such a huge case was that, um, she was 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.599 Art link Letter's daughter art link Letter at the time. 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:29.640 This is I think the early seventies. When his daughter 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.359 committed suicide, Um, he was already a bit of a 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.760 He was like the Bill Cosby of the age, which 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:41.040 is not surprising, and the moral crusader and kind of 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:46.159 um social scold of everybody, and how things are just 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.039 not like they used to be in the good old days, 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:50.960 are so much better and everybody's just letting their kids 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:52.599 get away with so much and pull up your pants 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.680 and that kind of stuff. He was a bit like 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.840 that already. And then his his daughter committed suicide, and um, 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:04.000 he was understandably uh devastated by that, and he turned 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.680 his ire towards drugs because she had taken LSD before. 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.560 But there's no evidence that she was on on LSD 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.160 at the time, she was already suicidal. But again, art 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.679 link letter is going to all of the kids parents 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.040 and saying like, you can't let your don't let this 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.440 happen to your children too. Scared America's parents and really 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.600 kind of sealed the deal of public opinion against LST 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:27.960 at the time. Yeah. Uh, and how about one more 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.200 for you. Uh. Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher doc Ellis thoes a 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:36.400 no hitter on acid. That's true, that's true. Well, I 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.720 know we've covered it. Dufus Okay, oh you're putting one 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.840 into yeah. Oh sorry, there's a great documentary about it, 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:48.400 and um, true is the only person's word we have 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.680 to go on. Was doc Ellis, Well, his girlfriend also, 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.520 I don't want to say testify, but she she backed 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.080 it up. She was like, yeah, we took acid and 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.280 into it. Though, and apparently the story changed a bit 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.400 over the years, and he also said other things that 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.400 didn't quite match up. So there's a little speculation that 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.520 he might have Gussie did it up a little bit. Oh, 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:11.720 like the ball was telling him what pitch to throw, 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.200 and maybe when he took the acid, so supposedly took 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.080 it at noon and he was pitching it like seven. 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.120 So I mean he still would have been on acid, 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.720 he just wouldn't have been speaking on acid or something. Yeah, 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:24.960 but it's a great documentary. You should check it out. Yeah, 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.240 it's good. Okay, you threw me off at that. When 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:32.520 you got me I was like, Chuck, wait, we did 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:34.920 an internet round up on that. Yeah, that's right. So 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.520 there was another thing, Chuck, that I remember growing up 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.679 with is that acid. If you took acid, it would 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.839 mess up your chromosome so that when you had offspring kid, 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.479 they would be all kinds of messed up, disfigured, deformed, 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:54.200 would have severe developmental defects, all sorts of terrible stuff. 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:55.800 That's what we call it back in the early eighties. 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.720 By the way, um, it could put holes in your brain. Yeah, 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.640 that's another one too that everybody ringing around believing. And 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.880 one of the reasons everyone ran around believing all of 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.559 these weird myths. By the way, No, LSD doesn't affect 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.600 your chromosomes. That actually is metabolized. It out of your 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.920 system faster than just about any other drug on the planet. 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.400 Pee it up very quickly. Your liver starts breaking it 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.920 down immediately. Um, So it certainly doesn't affect your chromosomes 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.200 and it doesn't put holes in your brain. But the 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.000 reason why these myths are around and the reason why 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.520 people believe them is because the authorities are the ones 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.640 who either made up these myths or latched onto them 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.480 and basically amplified them through these kind of public service 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.840 announcements and through the media. And so a lot of 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.560 people walked around believing this. And and on the one hand, 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.720 you can say, well, that's fine, it kept some kids 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.680 maybe off of heroin or something. Lying to kids is 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.560 fine when it comes to drugs. You can make that case, right, 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.760 But at the same time, you can also point to 0:09:55.160 --> 0:10:00.440 the real chilling effect that the LSD hysteria had on 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:08.240 um understanding consciousness, potentially treating mental illness, which were just 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:10.840 now starting to realize, like, yeah, it has that a 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.920 lot of potential for that treating alcoholism. Um, there's a 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.880 lot of people whose lives could have been helped had 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.480 at the very least uh Science been allowed to continue 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.680 his inquiry into LSD. But the the the fear of 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:29.160 LSD was so widespread and so profound that even science 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.440 was clamped down. Yeah, the CIA was like only week 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.880 and good people LSD, not you scientists in controlled settings. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:39.480 There's this one guy. I don't know where the lawsuit 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:41.839 is now, but he uh. I don't think we covered 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.480 it on our show about the CIA, but the family 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.040 of a guy that supposedly jumped from a window after 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.840 being dost Yeah, but his family is suing the CIA, 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.760 saying now he was beaten up and shoved out the 0:10:54.760 --> 0:11:00.000 window because he had information. I think he was actually 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.600 does though, and he was losing his stuff. I don't 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.200 know he was dosed, but they're there. Their contention, the 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.440 families and he was thrown out is that he was murdered. 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.800 I saw that too. Yeah, yeah, like the Frank Olsen 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.840 project dot org. Maybe that's what the website is. And 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.720 we definitely covered that the CIA thing because he definitely 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.000 he was around at the time that happened at that time, 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.400 because that was the time when like, if you went 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.320 to a party with CIA, they we were all just 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.640 dozing one another for fun. If you went to a 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:32.240 San Francisco CIA party, you're a hardcore at that you'ren 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.600 me drinking acid unwinningly, all right, So we should, uh, 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.240 even though we've covered it before, the story is so wonderful. 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.120 We should go over the creation of LSD by Albert 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.600 Hoffman again. So I think, please begin. You didn't want 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.520 to skip this, did you know? I was? I was. 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.440 I think we should put in like a little accompanying music, said, yeah, 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:58.520 like some Jefferson airplane maybe. So. Um a Swiss chemist. 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:00.920 His name was Albert Hoffman. We said a few times. 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.760 He was working at a lab called Sandoz. Uh. They 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:08.000 were a farmer company and now they're they're still around, 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:09.960 but there's a subsidy or I can't remember who. They're 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.560 not making drugs anymore, okay. Uh. So he was working 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.240 on a project involving something called ergot. It's a fungus 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.680 that grows on rye and it's been blamed uh, notably 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.559 this woman named Linda l Oh, I know what you're 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.960 talking about. Yeah, she put forth a theory that the 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.679 Salem witch trials were kicked off by a round of 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.800 ergot poisoning, and she has a lot of good evidence. Um, oh, 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:37.160 we'll go over it all. It's it's cool to look 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.080 up though, And a lot of people came out and like, 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.200 you know what, I bet she's right. So you're gonna 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.520 talk about the Hoffman. Yeah, so he was working with ergot, 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.880 which grows on rye and UM did a lot of 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.720 poisoning over the years, notably in the Middle Ages. Even 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.040 though they used it medicinally, midwives used it to help 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.400 speed up labor until they decided in the nineteenth century 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:03.240 that's pretty dangerous, actually, maybe we should just not poison 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.200 these pregnant women with ergot. Well they were they were 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.240 not just giving them ergot to poison them for fun. 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:14.760 Apparently it um contracts muscles, right, so it would speed 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.800 up labor, right exactly. UM. And they figured out that 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.160 they would actually prove it would slow bleeding, I think 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.440 by dilating blood vessels maybe, so they would give it 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.640 to a woman after labor. Still, but they stopped giving 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.440 it to them like to to create, to put a 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:36.200 woman into labor. But it was it was remarkable enough 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:41.400 that even after this level of medicine UM went away, 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.240 scientists were still figuring out there, like, there's something with ergot. 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:46.920 We've got to be able to do something with it. 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.679 It's just too potent, you know, so uh in the 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.680 nineteen thirties, this was the nineteen thirties. It's just so crazy. 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.800 To think about when you see pictures of the nineteen thirties. Yeah, 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.240 they're like wires hanging everywhere the new electric lamp, like 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:04.520 experimenting with LSD. But it happened um at the Rockefeller 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.000 Institute in New York City. They isolated lisergic acid from 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.880 ergot and um, this is where Hoffman kind of started 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:19.280 his work, resulting in N and the derivative. The number 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:21.960 twenty five is and he did twenty four previous. He 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:27.600 finally landed on LSD, and uh that was kind of it. Yeah. 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.320 And LSD we should say, stands for lysergic acid diethyl minde. 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:36.160 And uh, basically he started with this lisergic acid um 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.840 and just basically tinkered around with it until he, like 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:43.200 you said, arrived at LSD. And again, he wasn't looking 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.400 for the most potent psychedelic known to humankind. Now he's 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.400 looking for medicine exactly. He was looking for I think 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:56.320 a respiratory um um stimulator something like that made me asthma. So, yeah, 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:01.720 give these kids some LSD. Twenty five it up and uh, 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.280 he the first time he messed around with it, he 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.960 sent it off to the pharmacologists to look, because he 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.760 was a chemist at Sandos, and chemists at Sandos they 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.360 figure out processes to extract stuff, to make new compounds, 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.480 that kind of thing. But that's that's the sum of 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.760 their job. Once they come up with a new compound 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:20.760 that they're satisfied with, they send it off to the 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:25.560 pharmacology department. The pharmacology department says, uh, yeah, actually this 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.040 made that frog's leg jump by itself all the way 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.760 across the room. I think there's some potential here. The 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:35.240 pharmacologist got their hands in on LSD, examined it, said 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:39.320 we don't think there's any pharmacological potential here. Throw it away, 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.440 and Hoffman did as he was told. Five years later, 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:49.400 he um suddenly just thinks about LSD again, and it's like, 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.320 you know what, I think they missed something. I'm gonna 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:57.440 make a new batch just on my own. Later on, 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.880 he was quoted as saying, I did not choose LSD. 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.800 LSD found and called me. So him deciding to make 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:05.800 a batch on his own is highly irregular. For the 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.760 first For one, he's a chemist. You know the chemist. 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.440 Don't go and tell the pharma colleges they missed something. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:13.920 They certainly don't have a hunch. Five years later they 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.440 missed something. And then thirdly, for him to make a 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:22.280 batch of LSD was very weird. It was contrary to 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.400 his work orders. And also Ergot was very expensive and 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.480 Sandoz was trying to keep a lid on expenses. So 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.240 it was really really weird that five years later he 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.560 mixes up another batch of LSD. That is true, but 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.320 while he was mixing it up, it was a sort 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.600 of a little like a Peter Parker experiment gone wrong. 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.400 He got a little inside of him somehow. Uh they 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:46.200 think now he probably got on his fingers and maybe 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.400 like licked his finger while he was he had been 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.560 eating KFC for lunch, maybe so, and uh it got 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:57.160 into his body. Uh, and he you know, he had 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:00.360 a macid trip. He had an accidental one at first, 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.800 the world's first acid trip. That's right, And that happened 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.240 one of those pharmacologists. I was keeping something on the download. 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.240 He's like, yeah, this is useless, throw all this away 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.000 except to save me, like since my head staff. So 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:20.880 that was April eighteen ninety three. And um, the next 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.320 day Albert Hoffman's like, I got to try that again. 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.440 So he takes some LSD. I think he took two 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:32.760 fifty micrograms at PM. Yea, I noticed that too, almost 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:38.440 on four nineteen. Yeah, but that's a marijuana thing. Yeah, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:40.240 I just I just it kind of jumped out at me. 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.000 It's like I thought I saw that too. I'm sure 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.959 everyone who's ever read that was like, oh dude, nineteen 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.960 Oh he was so close. That's the universe. So he 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.160 took two fifty micrograms, is that right? Which is about 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.960 ten times the minimum dose that an average person takes 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.919 these days. That's a lot. And he he shot it. 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:03.719 He injected it in traveniously, I believe. Yeah, didn't he 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:05.800 or did he take it orally? I'm sorry, no he 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:07.520 took it orally? Yeah, I don't. I don't see in 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.240 there where he injected it, and uh, he started to 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.400 have a wild ride. He did. He went to the doctor. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.919 At first, he asked his assistant. He was like, um, 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.560 I am tripping pretty hard. You don't know what that 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.359 is yet, but I do. And he said, I think 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:24.600 I should go to the doctor. And he went to 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.880 the doctor and the doctor was like, dude, you're fine. 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.399 Uh you're not fine, but there's nothing physically going on 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:32.720 with you. Right, and we should say he was that 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.840 he made it to his house with his assistant and 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:37.960 they were on their bikes. This is why where bicycle 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.919 day comes from. And he was like, oh my god, 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:43.760 how long did it take for us to get home? 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:45.520 And as the system is like, actually, we made it 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:50.080 home really fast, and he's like what, he's freaking out, 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.280 He's like, go give me some milk from the neighbor. 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.600 Ends up drinking two liters of milk that night. Yeah, 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.840 because milk could supposedly quell the effects of different drugs 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.199 at the time. Yeah, so sense it did nothing for 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.960 this no and his neighbor. Later on, there's a couple 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.720 of stellar quotes. Let me jump back, sorry, jump back jack, 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.640 that's all right. After forty minutes after that initial dose, 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:16.240 he wrote down in his journal seventeen hundred hours beginning dizziness, 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:21.399 feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire to 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:27.639 laugh full stop. Uh. And then following that closely, I 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.360 was able to write the last words only with great effort. 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.520 And then who wrote that last? And when he got 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.400 the milk, he said, Um, the lady next door, whom 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.399 I scarcely recognized, brought me milk. She was no longer 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.600 Mrs R but rather a malevolent, insidious witch with a 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:49.640 colored mask. So people think now he was fearful going 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.720 into this experiment, and that's what you know. We'll talk 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.520 about setting, setting and your mindset going in has a 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:57.080 lot to do with what kind of trip you have. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:59.960 And people think now like he went into it fear 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.359 full and ended up by all accounts, having a bad trip. 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.520 He had a bad trip. But then the doctor came 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.520 and was like, look, man, uh you're something wacky's going 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.680 on with you, but physically you're fine. You don't have 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.920 to worry about it. And I believe that's what kind 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.280 of freed Hoffman up to have a good time, have 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:21.480 a good trip. After that, he uh really started to 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.760 go oh wow and really took in what he was seeing, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.119 what he was thinking, what he was experiencing, and um 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.880 moved from dysphoria to euphoria is the way he would 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:35.720 have put it. That's right. And he goes into work 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:39.640 the next day, tells everyone about this amazing experience and uh, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.879 everyone else tries it, well, not everyone, but other people 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.600 at Sandos. His two bosses, did I think his boss 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.920 and his boss's boss. And the reason they were like no, uh, 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:53.400 it was because he said I took two and fifty micrograms. 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:58.880 They're like, that's astounding, two fifty micrograms, right, that they've 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.040 never heard of a compound having the kind of effects 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.160 that Hoffman was reporting. And he's like, I measured it myself. 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.720 I know what I was doing, and it was two micrographs. 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.240 These guys each took a third of that, and they 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.000 tripped pretty hard themselves, and from that moment on, Sandoz 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:18.480 was like, we're onto something here. Yeah. He also experimented 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:22.040 on animals. He started dosing boy, you name it. He 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.359 gave it to mice, and he said they moved radically 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.159 and showed alterations in licking behavior. They taught themselves to 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:32.520 tide cats cats hair stood on end, and they salivated. 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.439 He put cats and mice together and instead of the 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.000 cats attacking the mice, said, the felines would ignore the 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:42.680 rodents or sometimes even appear frightened by them. How about 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.240 that that's a cat on a bad trip, it said. 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.960 Chimpanzees did not show any obvious signs of being affected, 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.760 but normal chimps around them became upset, which he his 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.720 theory was they failed to maintain these weird social norms 0:21:55.720 --> 0:22:00.520 that are only perceptible to other chimps. Fish swar am oddly, 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:05.760 and finally Spider's altered web building patterns that low doses 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.160 the webs were even better proportioned and more exactly built 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.720 than normally, But in higher doses the webs are badly 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:16.320 in rudimentaral rudimentarily made. Yeah, so he would give it like, look, 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:18.639 there's a roach crawling across the floor. Let's douse it. 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:22.280 See what happens. And there's also a very famous case 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.040 and it wasn't Hoffmann. Who's who tested it? This dude 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:30.360 in Oklahoma Um who was a professor of maybe pharmacology, 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.640 I'm not sure psychology. He shot an elephant. He got 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:38.639 his hands on the like Oklahoma City zoos elephant and 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:43.800 shot it full of LSD. The elephant, like trumpeted once, 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.280 fell on its side, started seizing its eyes, roll back 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.240 on its head, a bit part of its tongue off. 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:51.480 It stayed like this for an hour. He finally, ultimately 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:54.640 a lot of people point to this as a fatality 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.600 from LSD, proving that you can die. There's such a 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:00.560 thing as a fatal overdose from LSD. UM. But other 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:03.320 people say, well, actually, and then he shot the elephant 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:06.160