LSD

It was one of the signature drugs of the 1960s-era counterculture in America and other nations, but lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has not gone the way of love beads and bell-bottom jeans. In fact, the drug (which is commonly referred to by the street name “acid”) remains among the most commonly abused hallucinogens today.

About LSD

LSD was first synthesized in 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman – but the drug’s psychoactive properties were not discovered until five years later, when Hoffman accidentally absorbed a small amount of the substance when it came into contact with his skin.

Sandoz Laboratories (which employed Hoffman) originally marketed LSD as a psychiatric medication, and in the 1940s and 1950s the drug was used as a component of psychotherapy, as well as in the treatment of – and research into – a wide range of mental and emotional disorders, including schizophrenia, sexual perversions, and alcoholism. The U.S. military also explored LSD’s potential as a “truth drug” that could be used as an aid in the interrogation of enemy prisoners.

In the 1960s, outspoken advocates such as Dr. Timothy Leary and author Ken Kesey gave LSD considerable publicity and praise, and the mind-altering effects of the drug became the centerpiece of much of that era’s art and music.

LSD was outlawed in the United States in 1966, and 1971’s United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances required all member nations to ban the drug.

Street LSD is usually in tablet, capsule, or liquid form. An odorless and colorless drug with a slightly metallic taste, LSD is usually administered by mouth. The drug is often added to an absorbent blotter paper, which is divided into small squares, each of which represents one dose. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reports that common street doses today contain between 20 and 80 micrograms of LSD, a significant reduction from the 100-200 mg doses that were prevalent in the 1960s.

Extent of Use

According to the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), about 1.1 million individuals ages 12 and above reported that they had used LSD or another hallucinogen for the first time during the previous 12 months.

NIDA’s most recent Monitoring the Future report indicated that LSD usage levels among 8th-, 10th- and 12th-graders has remained constant over the past two years. However, students who believe that the drug is dangerous declined significantly, primarily among 10th-graders (from 60.7 percent to 56.8 percent). NIDA reports that this perception shift “could signal a subsequent increase in use, an outcome that would be of great concern after the large decreases seen since the mid-1990s, when LSD use peaked among youth.”

Health Hazards

Within about an hour of ingesting LSD, most users begin to experience physical effects that include raised body temperature, increased blood pressure and heart rate, dry mouth, tremors, and dilate pupils. Depending upon the amount of the drug that was taken, psychological effects include impaired perception, auditory and visual hallucinations, and rapidly changing intense emotions.

The drug is particularly long-lasting with “trips” (LSD-influenced experiences) taking up to 12 hours before the effects subside.

The primary hazards related to LSD use involve psychological or emotional damage, some of which results from “bad trips” – experiences involving terrifying hallucination and crushingly dark emotions. Bad trips may also involve fear of losing control of one’s mental faculties, visions of impending death, and glimpses of insanity.

Heavy users of LSD and other hallucinogens may also experience “flashbacks” – re-living the disorienting aspects of an acid trip days, weeks, or months after having taken the drug. These experiences can occur suddenly and with little or no warning.

Mental health and drug-abuse experts warn that heavy LSD use may also be at increased risk for longer-lasting psychological damage, including severe depression or the development of schizophrenia – though they acknowledge that, in most cases, it is difficult to ascertain the degree to which the LSD use contributed to the mental impairments.

LSD is not considered to be an addictive drug, and its use is not associated with the compulsive, drug-seeking behaviors that are characteristic of substances such as alcohol, nicotine, and heroin. However, since it does not produce compulsive drug-seeking behavior as do cocaine, amphetamine, heroin, alcohol, and nicotine. However, the drug does produce tolerance, which means that users may find it necessary to take increasingly larger doses in order to experience the same effects.

Treatment

Though it does not result in physical cravings, LSD obviously poses – or may be indicative of – a number of problems for those who use the drug on a regular basis. Depending upon the degree to which a person is involved with LSD, treatment options may involve outpatient therapy, a stay in a residential treatment facility, or other mental health, addiction recovery, and personal support services.