Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD (19 page)

One reason the medical establishment had such a difficult time coping with the psychedelic evidence was that LSD could not be evaluated like most other drugs. LSD was not a medication in the usual sense; it wasn’t guaranteed to relieve a specific symptom such as a cold or headache. In this respect psychedelics were out of kilter with the basic assumptions of Western medicine. The FDA’s relationship with this class of chemicals became even more problematic in light of claims that LSD could help the healthy. Most doctors automatically dismissed the notion that drugs might benefit someone who was not obviously ailing.

In 1962 Congress enacted regulations that required the safety and efficacy of a new drug to be proven with respect to the condition for which it was to be marketed commercially. LSD, according to the FDA, did not satisfy these criteria. From then on, authorized distribution of the drug was tightly controlled. Anyone who wanted to work with LSD had to receive special permission from the FDA. The restrictive measures were supposedly designed to weed out “the bad apples,” as one report put it, and thereby insure against the misuse of regulated substances. The FDA maintained that it did not want to inhibit legitimate researchers who were “sensitive to their
scientific integrity and moral and ethical responsibilities.”

By designating LSD an “experimental drug,” the FDA had in effect ruled that it could only be used for research purposes and never as part of general psychiatric practice. Consequently it became nearly impossible for psychiatrists to obtain psychedelics legally. Some of the most distinguished and experienced investigators were forced to abandon their work, and the conditions that might have demonstrated LSD’s therapeutic potential virtually ceased to exist. “It was a very intense period,” Dr. Oscar Janiger recalled. “The drug experience brought together many people of diverse interests. We built up a sizeable amount of data. . . and then the whole thing just fell in on us. Many who formerly were regarded as groundbreakers making an important contribution suddenly found themselves disenfranchised.”

Certain officials suggested that those who practiced psychedelic therapy were themselves to blame for the crackdown on LSD research. In a thinly veiled reference to Leary, Drs. Jonathan Cole and Robert Katz of the National Institutes for Mental Health expressed concern that some investigators “may have been subject to the deleterious and seductive effects of these agents.” AMA president Roy Grinkler harped on the same theme, proclaiming, “At one time it was impossible to find an investigator willing to work with LSD-25 who was not himself an ‘addict.’”

As far as Grinkler was concerned, the elimination of psychedelic studies was necessary to insure the health and safety of the American public. In a widely circulated editorial that echoed the psychosis-producing view of hallucinogens, the AMA president stated, “Latent psychotics are disintegrating under the influence of even single doses; long-continued LSD experiences are subtly creating a psychopathology. Psychic addiction is being developed.” He issued an urgent warning to the psychiatric profession that “greater morbidity, and even mortality, is in store for patients unless controls are developed against the unwise use of LSD-25.”

Many LSD researchers were quick to point an accusing finger at Leary for bringing the government’s wrath down on everybody. But is it plausible that one wayward individual was single-handedly responsible for provoking a 180-degree shift in official government policy with respect to psychedelic research? Was the FDA simply overreacting to Leary’s flamboyant style, or were there other forces at work?

Up until the early 1960s LSD studies had flourished without government restrictions and the CIA had sponsored numerous research projects to enhance its mind control capabilities. In 1962, however, the Technical Services Staff, which ran the MK-ULTRA program, began to orient its behavioral activities exclusively toward operations and away from peripheral long-range studies. This new strategy resulted in the withdrawal of support for many academics and private researchers. Extensive LSD testing was no longer a top priority for the MK-ULTRA crew, which had already learned enough about the drug to understand how it could best be applied in selected covert operations. They had given up on the notion that LSD was “the secret that was going to unlock the universe.” While acid was still an important part of the cloak-and-dagger arsenal, by this time the CIA and the army had developed a series of superhallucinogens such as the highly touted BZ, which was thought to hold greater promise as a mind control weapon.

The CIA and the military were not inhibited by the new drug laws enacted during the early 1960s. A special clause in the regulatory policy allowed the FDA to issue “selective exemptions,” which meant that favored researchers would not be subject to restrictive measures. With this convenient loophole the FDA never attempted to oversee in-house pharmacological research conducted by the CIA and the military services. Secret arrangements were made whereby these organizations did not even have to file a formal “Claim for Exemption,” or IND request. The FDA simply ignored all studies that were classified for reasons of national security, and CIA and military investigators were given free reign to conduct their covert experimentation. Apparently, in the eyes of the FDA, those seeking to develop hallucinogens as weapons were somehow more “sensitive to their scientific integrity and moral and ethical responsibilities” than independent researchers dedicated to exploring the therapeutic potential of LSD.

In 1965 Congress passed the Drug Abuse Control Amendments, which resulted in even tighter restrictions on psychedelic research. The illicit manufacture and sale of LSD was declared a misdemeanor (oddly enough, possession was not yet outlawed). All investigators without IND exemptions were required to turn in their remaining supplies to the FDA, which retained legal jurisdiction over psychedelics. Adverse publicity forced Sandoz to stop marketing LSD
entirely in April 1966, and the number of research projects fell to a mere handful.

The decision to curtail LSD experimentation was the subject of a congressional probe into the organization and coordination of federal drug research and regulatory programs. The inquiry in the spring of 1966 was led by Senator Robert Kennedy (D-N.Y.), whose wife, Ethel, reportedly underwent LSD therapy with Dr. Ross MacLean (a close associate of Captain Hubbard’s) at Hollywood Hospital in Vancouver. Senator Kennedy asked officials of the FDA and the NIMH to explain why so many LSD projects were suddenly canned. When they evaded the issue, Kennedy became annoyed. “Why if they were worthwhile six months ago, why aren’t they worthwhile now?” he demanded repeatedly. The dialogue seesawed back and forth, but no satisfactory answer was forthcoming. “Why didn’t you just let them continue?” asked the senator. “We keep going around and around. . . . If I could get a flat answer about that I would be happy. Is there a misunderstanding about my question?”

Kennedy insinuated that the regulatory agencies were attempting to thwart potentially valuable research. He stressed the importance of a balanced outlook with respect to LSD: “I think we have given too much emphasis and so much attention to the fact that it can be dangerous and that it can hurt an individual who uses it. . . that perhaps to some extent we have lost sight of the fact that it can be very, very helpful in our society if used properly.”

Kennedy’s plea fell on deaf ears. The FDA steadfastly refused to alter the course it had chosen. In 1967 a Psychotomimetic Advisory Committee (a joint FDA/NIMH venture) was established to process all research applications. Members of this committee included Dr. Harris Isbell and Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, two longtime CIA contract employees. Shortly thereafter the NIMH terminated its last in-house LSD project involving human subjects. In 1968 the Drug Abuse Control Amendments were modified to make possession of LSD a misdemeanor and sale a felony. Responsibility for enforcing the law was shifted from the FDA to the newly formed Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Two years later psychedelic drugs were placed in the Schedule I category—a classification reserved for drugs of abuse that have no medical value.

While aboveground research was being phased out, the CIA and the military continued to experiment with an ever more potent
variety of hallucinogens.
*
In effect the policies of the regulatory agencies were themselves “regulated” by the unique requirements of these secret programs. As an official of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (of which the FDA was part) explained, “We are abdicating our statutory responsibilities in this area out of a desire to be courteous to the Department of Defense. . . rather than out of legal inability to handle classified materials.” The same courtesy was proffered to the CIA. The FDA collaborated with the Agency in other ways as well. FDA personnel with special security clearances served as consultants for chemical warfare projects. Information concerning new developments in the field of psychopharmacology was exchanged through confidential channels. The FDA also provided laboratory facilities and samples of new drugs that might prove useful to the CIA.

In light of the FDA’s relationship with the intelligence community, it is highly unlikely that a major policy decision regarding LSD would have been made against the wishes of the CIA. If the Agency had wanted aboveground LSD studies to proliferate, they would have. But this type of research was no longer essential as far as the CIA was concerned. The spymasters viewed LSD as a strategic substance, as well as a threat to national security, by virtue of its psychotomimetic properties, which had been fully explored during the 1950s. Creative or therapeutic considerations were not part of the covert game plan. When push came to shove, the medical establishment implemented a policy based on the psychosis-producing view—that is to say, the CIA’s view—of hallucinogens, even though this perspective was vigorously contested by many scientists.

By the early 1960s, when the new regulatory policy was enacted, a large number of people had already heard about LSD. Some were
eager to try the drug, but they no longer had access to psychedelic therapists, who were the original “gatekeepers,” so to speak. “The whole thing was just moving geometrically,” Dr. Oscar Janiger recalled. “Obviously those people who couldn’t get it from us would be seeking to get it elsewhere.” A certain momentum had been generated—thanks in no small part to the CIA—and it quickly reached a point where the government could no longer contain it. Black market acid began to turn up on the street to meet the growing demand. This remarkable social phenomenon continued to gather strength despite the repeated admonitions of educators, doctors and politicians. Soon the “laboratory” would stretch across the entire continent as millions of young investigators undertook their own experiments with this consciousness-quaking chemical.

4
Preaching LSD

HIGH SURREALISM

After their expulsion from Harvard, Leary and Alpert were determined to carry out additional studies in the religious use of psychedelic drugs. They set up a grassroots nonprofit group called the International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF), whose ranks quickly swelled to three thousand dues-paying members. Local offices sprang up in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. IFIF believed that everyone should be allowed to use mind-expanding chemicals because the “internal freedom” they provided was a personal and not a governmental matter. They envisioned a society in which large numbers of people would seek higher consciousness, ecstasy, and enlightenment through hallucinogens. “It’s only a matter of time,” Leary stated confidently, “until the psychedelic experience will be accepted. We see ourselves as modest heros, an educational tool to facilitate the development of new social forms. . . . We’re simply trying to get back to man’s sense of nearness to himself and others, the sense of social reality which civilized man has lost. We’re in step with the basic needs of the human race, and those who oppose us are
far out
.”

In the summer of 1963 IFIF moved its headquarters to a hotel in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, a lush tropical paradise two hundred miles north of Acapulco. There they sponsored an experiment in transcendental living based on the Utopian writings and visionary insights of Aldous Huxley. Leary invited Dr. Albert Hofmann to participate in a seminar on drug research at the hotel, emphasizing that broadcast and print journalists from the most important mass media would be present. Hofmann demurred; he was disturbed by Leary’s publicity-conscious approach. Huxley declined an offer to join the fledgling movement on similar grounds. He was seriously ill at the time. On November 22, the same day President Kennedy
was assassinated, Huxley passed away after receiving his last request: an intravenous injection of LSD-25 given by his wife. As she administered the psychedelic, Laura Huxley saw “this immense expression of complete bliss and love.” She whispered, “Light and free you let go, darling, forward and up. . . you are going toward the light.”

During its short but spectacular career the chemical utopia at Zihuatanejo was deluged with over five thousand applicants—far more than IFIF could handle. The group’s activities revolved around a tower on the beach in which at least one person at all times maintained a solemn vigil while high on LSD. The ritual changing of the guard took place at sunrise and sunset, and to be chosen for a stretch in the tower was considered a privilege. Beatnik and bohemian types were not allowed to participate in the program, but that did not stop them from pitching tents nearby. Smoking marijuana and lounging in the sun, these scruffy uninvited guests did little to enhance IFIF’s reputation; nor did rumors of the all-night orgies that were supposedly commonplace in the hotel. Scarcely six weeks after they had arrived, lurid reports in the Mexican press led to the expulsion of the LSD colonists.

Leary and Alpert returned to the US with their small but energetic band of followers and began to look for an alternative base of operations. During this period they rubbed shoulders with some of the richest jet-setters on the Eastern seaboard, including William Mellon Hitchcock, a tall, handsome stockbroker in his twenties. Hitchcock was the grandson of William Larimer Hitchcock, founder of Gulf Oil, and a nephew of Pittsburgh financier Andrew Mellon, who served as treasury secretary during Prohibition.