WEBVTT - Selects: How LSD Works 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.720 Hey everyone, it's your Buddy Josh and for this week's 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:06.600 select I chose our two thousand and sixteen episode on 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.920 L S D. We really took our time with this 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:14.040 one and it's the longest regular single episode we've ever recorded, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.360 clocking in at over seventy five minutes. Originally it was 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.800 even longer, with a thirty minute interview with John Hodgman, 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.240 but we chose to remove that from this select because 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.200 we've only recently broken hodgment of the habit of hanging 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.680 around the studio hoping for a chance to be in 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.400 the show, and we think that including the interview in 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.120 this rerun might send some mixed signals to him. If 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:38.920 you want to hear that interview, go back and listen 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.159 to the original episode published in Two Thousand and sixteen, 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.280 where it will remain a part of that forever and ever. 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.519 One note. We recorded this several years back, as evidenced 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.839 by Chuck's I can has cheeseburger reference. So some of 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.880 the phrases we use our out of date, like committed suicide. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.360 Sorry for that at any rate. Tune in, turn on 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:06.759 and enjoy the heck out of this classic episode. Welcome 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:16.000 to stuff you should know a production of I heart radio. Hey, 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.600 and welcome to the PODCAST. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.200 W Chuck Bryant and Jerry and this is stuff you 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:28.280 should know. The podcast. It's right, Josh Uh, I'm gonna 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:33.280 wish you two things. Happy Anniversary. Yes, happy anniversary, because 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.960 the day that we're recording, it was eight years ago 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:41.240 this week that we released. Well, not we've you. We 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.480 I wasn't even there yet. You were here in spirit. 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.080 I appreciate that. It's when stuff you should know. I 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.200 was born. Yeah, two thousand and eight, mid April, eight 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:53.560 years ago. We got forty. Two years ago. And Happy 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.040 Bicycle Day. Did you know that it was bicycle day 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:00.600 when you picked this out? No, really, really, that's actually 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.520 that's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, it was. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.680 The thing that prompted it was that recent study about 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.520 LSD and I was like wow, yeah, we should totally 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.200 do LSD. We've never done it, and it was I 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.320 think yesterday that I realized today is Bicycle Day. And 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.200 for those of you who aren't in the know, Bicycle 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.760 Day not about riding bicycles to work. No, it's not. 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:23.880 As a matter of fact, somebody on twitter said every 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.440 day's bicycle day. To me I'm like, I bet you 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:33.560 don't so. Bicycle Day commemorates the day when Um, Albert Hoffman, 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.840 the discoverer or Creator, I guess, depending on how you 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:41.240 look at it, of LSD Um, experimented on himself and 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.119 part of that included him riding his bike back home 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:48.960 from work while he was yeah, and we'll talk about 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.840 that here in a minute. But Bicycle Day itself was 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:57.800 started supposedly by Professor Thomas Roberts of Northern Illinois University. 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:02.440 Go huskies and commemorate ration of that what some people say. 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.280 It was a great day in history. It certainly was 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:09.000 the day that changed history. You really can't argue that. No, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.120 and Um, if you want to just hear all things 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.639 LSD and stuff, you should know we and did two 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:18.000 other shows. Two Thousand Eight. Did the CIA test LSD 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:23.160 ON UNSUSPECTING AMERICANS? The answer is yes. Mind opening and October. 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.959 Can you treat mental illness with psychedelics? And now, in 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.600 typical stuff, you should know backward form. We're gonna DO LSD. Yeah, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:35.880 we like to nibble around that. Do L S D. 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.200 You know that'd be Weird Oh, we weren't supposed to. Oh, 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:44.200 we better get through this quick we got about thirty minutes. Oh, 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:45.800 we should also point out at the end of this 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.720 episode we have John Hodgment on is in a very 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:56.840 special listener male audio segment where he rebuts our nostalgia episode. 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.760 Although it seems like we agreed more than we didn't, 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.600 he didn't end up for butting anything. Yeah, uh, and 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:07.040 that's we worked out. That the the misunderstanding. How about that? Yeah, 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.280 and we like all times that you sit down with Hodgeman. 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:14.280 We talked for thirty minutes about one small thing. That's 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.240 why this episode is Super Long, because this is gonna 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:18.719 be long too. It is so it's super size robuts, 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:21.440 which it saw like eight more extra ads. Oh, let's 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.839 just kidding. Yeah, like Tommy Chong would probably one in 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.040 on this one. He's got some businesses, doesn't hey? Yeah, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.000 I shouldn't joke, because sales will be like knocking on 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:33.000 the door. All right, chuck really really said Chuck. We're 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:38.320 talking about LSD today, Um, and L S D again. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:42.400 That that Bicycle Day, that first day seventy three years ago. 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.840 I think it really did change the world, because there 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.480 are very few substances that have ever been created by 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:53.000 man that had a more sweeping, profound effect than LSD. 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.240 Like you kind of a lot of people associate LSD 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:00.520 with hippies. They're grateful dead. Sure, maybe ravers that kind 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.400 of thing, but if you really start to kind of 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.120 poke around popular culture here in the West, you start 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.440 to see it turn up everywhere. Like every American president 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.680 has taken LSD. Right. Well, it's part of the oath 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.200 of office, like the Bible is laced with lst. Put 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.480 their hand on their hand and it actually let's debunk 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.960 that myth right now. Apparently LSD is non absorbent through 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:25.080 the skin. Yeah, which means that those says. Well, there's 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.080 a bunch of rumors, but the one with Jimi Hendrix 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:31.360 would put LSD in his sweatband. He may have. I 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.039 wouldn't have done anything, although it could have trickled down 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:38.360 into his mouth maybe. Yeah. Uh, here's some other popular 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.640 LSD myths. I don't think there have been any other 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.480 drugs that have spawned. Maybe these days, but I'm not 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.279 hip to all these new drugs, man, and it's impossible 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.080 to be. I was doing research for this and I 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.960 ran across like all the new drugs that are available today. 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.159 It's incredible. There's just like an avalanche of new, new, 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:04.600 virtually untested drugs that's being they're they're going from synthesis 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.200 to human trials by way of customer like people are 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.560 taking these things and they're essentially like guinea pigs for 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.400 these things. Still extremely dangerous. Yeah, Molly and Billy and 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:20.520 Jim's way beyond that, Jimmy, Jimmy's old news, Jimmy's oldness. Uh. 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.920 Here just a few quickie UH highlights. Um, the guy 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.400 that thought he was an orange, so he like peeled 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.080 his skin off. Clearly LSD did that. Not True? Uh, 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:33.599 college kids who stared at the Sun until they were blind. 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.560 Clearly LSD is responsible for those children lick and stick 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:43.240 tattoos given out to children at Halloween. UH, seven hits 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.960 will make you legally insane. Right, you can use that 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.800 as a defense in court. Diane Link Letter jumped from 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.039 a window because she thought she could fly. So that 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.480 was a big one. That kind of changed public opinion. 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:58.800 She jumped from a window, she definitely did, but she 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.599 was also suicide and she had taken LSD before. What 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.000 made it such a huge case was that. Um, she 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.159 was art link letters daughter, art link letter. At the time, 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.200 this is, I think, the early Seventies. When his daughter 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.920 committed suicide, Um, he was already a bit of a 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.320 he was like the bill cosby of the age, which 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:22.440 is not surprising, and in the moral crusader and kind 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:27.120 of UM social scold of everybody and how things are 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:29.160 just not like they used to be in the good 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.200 old days. are so much better and everybody's just letting 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:33.680 their kids get away with so much and pull up 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:35.880 your pants and that kind of stuff. He was a 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.040 bit like that already. And then his his daughter, committed 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:43.920 suicide and Um, he was understandably uh devastated by that 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:48.040 and he turned his ire toward drugs because she had 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.120 taken LSD before. But there's no evidence that she was 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.320 on on LSD at the time. She was already suicidal. 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.240 But again, art link letter is going to all of 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.760 the kids parents and saying like, you can't let your 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.240 don't let this happen to your children too. Scared America's 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.040 parents and really kind of sealed the deal of public 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.880 opinion against LST at the time. Yeah, uh, and how 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.200 about one more for you, uh, Pittsburgh Pirates Pitcher, doc 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:17.880 Ellis those a no hitter on acid. That's true. That's true. Well, 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.800 I know we've covered it, dufus. Okay, Oh, you were 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.040 putting one into yeah, oh, sorry, there's a great documentary 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:29.760 about it and, Um, true is the only person's word 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:31.520 we have to go on. WAS DOC ELLIS LIST? Well, 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.880 his girlfriend also, I don't want to say testify, but 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.080 she she backed it up. She was like yeah, we 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:42.559 took acid into it, though, and apparently the story changed 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:44.640 a bit over the years and he also said other 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.240 things that didn't quite match up. So there's a little 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.080 speculation that he might have gussied it up a little bit. Oh, 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.280 like the ball was telling him what pitch to throw 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.559 and maybe when he took the acid. Um, so supposedly 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.040 took it at noon and he was pitching it like seven, yeah, 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.079 six thirty. So I mean he still would have been 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.520 on acid, he just wouldn't have been speaking on acid 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.000 or something. But it's a great documentary. You should check 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.400 it out. Yeah, it's good. Okay, you threw me off 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.800 with that. When you got me I was like, Chuck, wait, 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.000 we did an internet round up on that. Yeah, that's right. 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.880 So there was another thing, chuck, that I remember growing 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.960 up with is that acid. If you took acid, it 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.040 would mess up your chromosome so that when you had 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:30.040 offspring kid they would be all kinds of messed up, disfigured, deformed, 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:35.760 would have severe developmental defects, all sorts of terrible stuff. 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:37.360 That's what we call it back in the early eighties, 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.280 by the way. Um, it could put holes in your brain. Yeah, 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.040 that's another one too, that everybody ringing around and believing, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.360 and one of the reasons everyone ran around believing all 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.840 of these weird myths. By the way, no, LSD doesn't 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.160 affect chromosomes. That actually is metabolized. It out of your 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.480 system faster than just about any other drug on the planet. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.880 You pee it up very quickly, your liver starts breaking 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.840 it down immediately. Um, so it certainly doesn't affect your 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.600 chromosomes and it doesn't put holes in your brain. But 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.360 the reason why these myths are around and the reason 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:09.920 why people believe them is because the authorities are the 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.960 ones who either made up these myths or latched onto 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.800 them and basically amplified them through these kind of public 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.280 service announcements and through the media, and so a lot 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.720 of people walked around believing this and and on the 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:25.720 one hand you can say, well, that's fine, it kept 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.680 some kids maybe off of heroin or something. Lying to 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.880 kids is fine when it comes to drugs. You can 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.280 make that case right, but at the same time you 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:39.679 can also point to the real chilling effect that the 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:48.440 LSD hysteria had on Um understanding consciousness, potentially treating mental 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.640 illness which were just now starting to realize, like yeah, 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:56.080 it has that a lot of potential for that, treating alcoholism. Um, 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.679 there's a lot of people whose lives could have been 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.439 helped had at the very least uh science been allowed 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.679 to continue his inquiry into LSD. But the the the 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.760 fear of LSD was so widespread and so profound that 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.000 even science was clamped down. Yeah, the CIA was like 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.480 only week and good people LSD, not you scientists in 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.520 controlled settings. There's this one guy. I don't know where 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.000 the lawsuit is now, but he uh, I don't think 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:24.920 we covered it on our show about the CIA, but 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.320 the family of a guy that supposedly jumped from a 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:32.959 window after being dosed. Yeah, but his family is suing 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.040 the CIA saying no, he was beaten up and shoved 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:41.000 out the window because he had information. I think he 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.760 was actually dosed, though, and he was losing his stuff. 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.120 I don't know he was dosed, but they're there. Their 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.240 contention the families that he was thrown out is that 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.960 he was murdered. I saw that too. Yeah, yeah, that's 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.520 the Frank Olsen Project DOT org. Maybe is what the 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.240 website is, and we definitely covered that. The CIA thing, 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:00.480 because he definitely he was around at the time. That 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.080 happened at that time, because that was the time when, like, 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.520 if you went to a party with CIA, maybe we 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:08.800 were all just dosing one another for fun. If you 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.760 went to a San Francisco CIA party, you're a hardcore 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.240 at that. You'RE gonna drinking acid unwittingly. All right. So 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.760 we should, uh, even though we've covered it before, the 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.559 story is so wonderful, we should go over the creation 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:26.560 of LSD by Albert Hoffman again, do you think? Please begin. 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:28.720 You didn't want to skip this, did you know? I was? 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.120 I was. I think we should put in like a 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.720 little accompanying music or some of the yeah, like uh, 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:40.199 some Jefferson airplane maybe. So, Um, a Swiss chemist. His 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.400 name was Albert Hoffman. Like we said a few times. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.360 He was working at a lab called Sandoz. Uh. They 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.560 were a farmer company and now they're uh, they're still around, 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.520 but there's a subsidy or I can't remember who. They're 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.160 not making drugs anymore. Okay. Uh. So he was working 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.800 on a project involving something called Ergot. It's a fungus, 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:02.240 it grows on Rye and it's and blamed, uh, notably 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:06.120 this woman named Linda L oh. I know what you're 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.520 talking about. Yeah, she put forth a theory that the 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.280 Salem witch trials were kicked off by a round of 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.160 Ergot poisoning, and she has a lot of good evidence. Um, 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.040 we'll go over it all. It's it's cool to look up, though, 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:20.880 and a lot of people came out and like, you 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:22.719 know what, I bet she's right. So you're going to 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.960 talk about the Hoffman? Yeah, so he was working with Ergot, 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:30.440 which grows on Rye and Um, did a lot of 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.280 poisoning over the years, notably in the Middle Ages. Even 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.600 though they used it medicinally, midwives used it to help 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.959 speed up labor until they decided in the nineteenth century. 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.800 That's pretty dangerous actually. Maybe we should just not poison 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.760 these pregnant women with Ergot. Well, they were. They were 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:50.800 not just giving them ergant to poison him for fun. 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:56.320 Apparently it um contracts muscles, right, so it would speed 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.320 up labor, right, exactly. Um, and they figured out that 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.760 they would actually prove it would slow bleeding, I think 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.000 by dilating blood vessels. Maybe. So they would give it 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.200 to a woman after Labor still, but they stopped giving 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.000 it to him, like to to create, to put a 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:17.760 woman into Labor. But it was it was remarkable enough 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:22.760 that even after this level of medicine Um went away, 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.840 scientists were still figuring out there like there's something with Ergot, 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:28.480 we've got to be able to do something with it. 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.240 It's just too potent, you know. So, uh, in the 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.880 nineteen thirties. This was the nineteen thirties. It's just so 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.400 crazy to think about when you see pictures of the 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:41.640 nineteen thirties. Yeah, they're like wires hanging everywhere, new electric lamps, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.520 like experimenting with LSD. But it happened. Um at the 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.920 Rockefeller Institute in New York City, they isolated lysurgic acid 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.000 from ergot and Um. This is where Hoffman kind of 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:58.680 started his work resulting in ninety eight and the derivative, 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.040 the number twenty five, is and he did twenty four previous. 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:08.440 He finally landed on LSD and uh, that was kind 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.680 of it. Yeah, and LSD, we should say, stands for 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:15.560 lysergic acid die ethyl minde. And Uh, basically he started 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:19.800 with this lisergic acid um and just basically tinkered around 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.600 with it until he, like you said, arrived at LSD. 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.960 And again, he wasn't looking for the most potent psychedelic 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.200 known to humankind. No, he's looking for medicine exactly. He 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:34.600 was looking for, I think, a respiratory Um um stimulator, 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.320 something like that, maybe with asthma. So yeah, give these 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.600 kids some LSD twenty five right up. And Uh, he 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.080 the first time he messed around with it, he sent 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.600 it off to the pharmacologists to look because he was 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.800 a chemist at Sandos. Chemists at Sandos they figure out 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.200 processes to extract stuff, to make new compounds, that kind 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.560 of thing. But that's that's the sum of their job. 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:01.080 Once they come up with a new pound that they're satisfied, 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.920 but they send it off to the pharmacology department. The 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:08.120 Pharmacology Department says Uh Yeah, actually this made that frog's 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.240 leg jump by itself all the way across the room. 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.360 I think there's some potential here. The pharmacologe just got 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:17.240 their hands in on LSD, examined it, said we don't 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.080 think there's any pharmacological potential here. Throw it away, and 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:25.760 Hoffman did as he was told. Five years later, he 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:31.000 um suddenly just thinks about LSD tent again and it's like, 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.880 you know what, I think they missed something. I'M gonna 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:39.000 make a new batch just on my own. Later on 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.480 he was quoted as saying I did not choose LSD. 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.360 LSD found and called me. So him deciding to make 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:47.360 a batch on his own is highly irregular. For the 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.320 first for one, he's a chemist. You know, the chemist 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.360 don't go and tell the pharmacologist they missed something. They 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.080 certainly don't have a hunch five years later they missed something. 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.440 And then, thirdly, for him to make a batch of 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:04.920 LSD was very weird. It was contrary to his work orders, 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.840 and also Ergot was very expensive and Sandoz was trying 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.919 to keep a lid on expenses. So it was really, 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:13.639 really weird that five years later he mixes up another 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.960 batch of LSD. That is true. But while he was 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:19.399 mixing it up, it was a sort of a little 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.119 like a Peter Parker experiment gone wrong. He got a 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.359 little inside of him somehow. Uh, they think now he 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.720 probably got on his fingers and maybe like licked his 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.440 finger while he was he had been eating KFC for lunch. 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:37.280 Maybe so. And Uh, it got into his body. Uh, 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.159 and he, you know, he had a acid trip. He 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.359 had an accidental one at first, the world's first acid trip, 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.440 that's right. And that happened unless one of those pharmacologists 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.480 I was keeping something on the download. He's like, yeah, 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.400 this is useless, throw all this away, except to save 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.199 me like tab since my head stats. So that was 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:03.280 April eighteen, nineteen, prety three. and Um, the next day 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.840 Albert Hoffman's like, I got to try that again. So 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.720 he takes some LSD. I think he took two fifty 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.800 micrograms at PM. YEA or not. I noticed that too, 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:20.000 almost on four nineteen, but that's a marijuana thing. Yeah, 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:21.800 I just I just it kind of jumped out at me, 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:23.560 is like, I thought I saw that too. I'm sure 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.560 everyone who's ever read that was like, Oh, dude, nineteen, 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.520 oh he was so close. That's the universe. So he 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.720 took two fifty micrograms, is that right, which is about 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.520 ten times the minimum dose that an average person takes 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.479 these days, and that's a lot. And he he shot it. 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:45.720 He injected it intravenously, I believe. Yeah, didn't he? Or 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:47.560 did he take it orally? I'm sorry, no, he took 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.239 it orally. Yeah, I don't I don't see in there 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.919 where he injected it. And Uh, he started to have 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.960 a wild ride. He did. He went to the doctor. 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.320 At first, he asked his assistant. He was like, Um, 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.119 I am tripping pretty hard. You don't know what that 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.919 is yet, but I do. And he said I think 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:06.159 I should go to the doctor. And he went to 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.119 the doctor and the doctor was like, Dude, you're fine. Uh, 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.720 you're not fine, but there's nothing physically going on with you, right, 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:14.879 and we should say he was that. He made it 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.840 to his house with his assistant and they were on 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.280 their bikes. This is why where bicycle day comes from. 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.120 And he was like, Oh my God, how long did 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:25.639 it take for us to get home? And as the 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.199 system was like actually, we made it home really fast, 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.280 and he's like what, he's freaking out, he's like go 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.879 give me some milk from the neighbor. Ends up drinking 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.080 two liters of milk that night. Yeah, because milk could 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.840 supposedly quell the effects of different drugs at the time. Ye, sense, 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.720 it did nothing for this no and his neighbor. Later 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:49.600 on there's a couple of stellar quotes. Let me jump back. Sorry, 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.400 Jump Back Jack, that's all right. After forty minutes after 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.040 that initial dose, He wrote down in his journal Seventeen 0:19:55.160 --> 0:20:01.200 hundred hours beginning dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortion, symptoms 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:07.240 of paralysis, desire to laugh full stop. Uh. And then, 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.320 following that closely, I was able to write the last 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:15.520 words only with great effort. And then who wrote that 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.879 last lot? And when he got the milk, he said, Um, 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.680 the lady next door, whom I scarcely recognized, brought me milk. 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.200 She was no longer Mrs r but rather a malevolent, 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.080 insidious witch with a colored mask. So people think now 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.560 he was fearful going into this experiment, and that's what 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.160 you know. We'll talk about setting, setting and your mindset 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:38.040 going in has a lot to do with what kind 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.639 of trip you have. And people think now like he 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:44.040 went into it fearful and ended up, by all accounts, 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.080 having a bad trip. He had a bad trip, but 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.320 then the doctor came and was like look, man, uh 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:53.879 you're something wacky's going on with you, but physically you're fine. 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.639 You don't have to worry about it, and I believe 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.280 that's what kind of freed Hoffman up to have a 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.679 good time, have a good trip. After that he uh, 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.359 really started to go oh wow and really took in 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:08.800 what he was seeing, what he was thinking, what he 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:13.639 was experiencing and Um, moved from dysphoria to euphoria. Is 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.280 it the way he would have put it? That's right. 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.520 And he goes into work the next day tells everyone 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.840 about this amazing experience and uh, everyone else tries it. Well, 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.360 not everyone, but other people at Sandos. His two bosses did, 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:28.760 I think, his boss and his boss's boss, and the 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.520 reason they were like Nah, uh was because he said 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:36.920 I took two and fifty micrograms. They're like that's astounding. 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:41.119 Two fifty micrograms right that they've never heard of a 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.680 compound having the kind of effects that Hoffman was reporting. 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.399 And he's like, I measured it myself. I know what 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.560 I was doing. And it was two D fifty micrograms. 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.800 These guys each took a third of that and they 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.560 tripped pretty hard themselves, and from that moment on sandals 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.000 was like we're onto something here. Yeah, he also experimented 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.600 on animals. He started dosing boy, you name it. He 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:05.960 gave it to mice and he said they moved radically 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.720 and showed alterations in licking behavior. They taught themselves to 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:14.119 tide cats. Cats hair stood on end and they salivated. 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.000 He put cats and mice together and instead of the 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.560 cats attacking the mice, said the felines would ignore the 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:25.119 rodents or sometimes even appear frightened by them. How about that? 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.679 That's a cat on a trip. It said chimpanzees did 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:29.920 not show any obvious signs of being affected, but normal 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:34.080 chimps around them became upset, which he his theory was 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.840 they failed to maintain these weird social norms that are 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:44.680 only perceptible to other chimps. Fish swam oddly and finally, 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.040 spiders altered web building patterns. At low doses the webs 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.240 were even better proportioned and more exactly built than normally, 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.000 but in higher doses the webs are badly in rudimentary, 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.880 rudimentarily made. Yeah, so he would give it like look, 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:00.080