Legal History

The legality of LSD was not a conversation that lawmakers were having in 1943 when Hoffman first reported the findings of his acid trip. It was considered a chemical curiosity by academics until the 50s and early 60s. A government project titled MKULTRA was devised by the FBI and CIA to test the potential of LSD as a mind control drug. In this experiment subjects were unintentionally dosed with LSD and prodded to see if the drug had the potential to get the subject to reveal sensitive information. The ethics of this experiment are extremely questionable and it is a black mark on the record of both the CIA and the FBI. The British government was involved as well and conducted similar experiments. It is interesting to note that the criminalization of LSD occurs only shortly after the MKULTRA experiments were considered to be failures.

The first LSD legislation appeared in California and Nevada in 1966. These states mandated that the substance was illegal to have, produce, and sell. This legislation was a direct response to the psychedelic movement that dominated California's counterculture. In 1970 LSD was placed on the schedule 1 drug list along with several other substances. This made the drug federally illegal and led to the crash of a large part of the LSD culture and community as it ceased to be manufactured industrially and was demonized by anti drug campaigns. LSD experienced a revival in the 80s and 90s and is still prevalent in todays society to a lesser degree. The heyday of the Haight Ashbury LSD craze is over for good.