The Guardian recently printed an excerpt of Stephen Kinzer’s book. The “tl;dr” version of the article is that a scientist working for the CIA named Frank Olson, whose specialty was “the airborne distribution of biological germs”, had been given LSD without his consent, and subsequently went out a hotel window. His death was ruled a suicide. But his children later came to the conclusion that he’d been thrown out the window, because he was disturbed about the CIA’s biological warfare program, and the CIA was afraid he’d spill the beans.
Another case of the government doing highly unethical things under the rubric of National Security.
I feel like the movie about Whitey Bulger with Johnny Depp really missed out on this part. I just went and checked up - like - was it really the same guy?! - sure enough! It is. Granted, the movie missed out on a lot of stuff. So there’s that.
I wonder where then we would put the first acid trip, taken when the chemist Albert Hoffman accidentally absorbed some Lysergic acid diethylamide that he had synthesized in his lab. He knew a very powerful organic compound had crossed into his bloodstream, but that’s about it!..talk about harrowing! If memory serves, he returned to his lab and took the first intentional trip shortly thereafter. Hoffmann revisited the LSD experience periodically throughout his life, right up until his death at the ripe old age of 92.
As I understand it, Hofmann initially absorbed a small dose through the skin and noticed unusual effects. He then took what would typically be considered a small dose for experimental purposes (which turned out to be quite a large dose for LSD), and that’s how we got Bicycle Day.
Whatever you think of how Whitey turned out, the psychic disturbances he wrote about were real. I knew a guy who went through MK Ultra when he was in the army, and it definitely mangled his view of himself and the world. When I knew him, he was a shut-in who disguised himself when he had to go outside.
These “experimenters” are akin to the Tuskegee syphilis criminals.
Supposedly, at the climax of the siege of Srebrenica, the Serbs dropped hallucinogenic gas shells on the fleeing Bosniak defenders.
However, like most events of that time, this history is somewhat disputed.
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Also:
Thanks to an overdose of something that is not usually hallucinogenic in normal dosages, I once spent a night in hospital tripping balls while I was also at imminent risk of having an arm amputated.
Not recommended.
(I got through it largely by focusing on a Terry Pratchett book while trying to ignore the purple lobsters climbing the walls)
I’m missing the chum box because I recently turned on an ad blocker for BB, something I never thought I’d do. All the new ads had literally made the site unreadable. It was like a parody of bad advertising practices.
I kind of like chum boxes, though - they’re funny.
There’s a healthy contingent of folks who stay “disappointed” in boing boing… but never enough to actually stop frequenting the site, and commenting on it.
