Flashback: Psychiatric Experimentation With LSD in Historical Perspective

[HuckleB]

Flashback: Psychiatric Experimentation With LSD in Historical Perspective

http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/CJP/current/InRevDyck.asp

"The therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs have recently resurfaced as a topic of debate in neuropsychopharmacology. Recent research with the psychedelic drug MDMA, known popularly as “ecstasy,” suggests that this psychoactive substance may affect serotonin levels (1). Research units in the US are currently examining the usefulness of MDMA in treating pain in medical conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and cancer and in psychotherapy with individuals suffering from PTSD (2). The current debate over the recreational drug ecstasy mirrors a debate that occurred in the 1960s, that is, the debate over the therapeutic uses of LSD. MDMA and LSD share active ingredients, and both alter perception, cognition, and mood (3). Both drugs incite debate as to whether their therapeutic benefit derives from the often- described feeling of heightened self-awareness produced by a psychedelic experience or whether the credit belongs to some as-yet-unknown or, at best, poorly understood metabolic reaction. Given the current preoccupation with rediscovering the possible therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs, a reconsideration of the controversial history of LSD research in psychiatry is long overdue.

LSD-25 first appeared in the scientific literature in 1943. For nearly a decade, it attracted attention from the medical community for its potential contributions to psychiatric research. Throughout the 1950s, over 500 articles on LSD appeared in scientific journals, and none described the drug in terms of addiction or abuse. During this period, stories of LSD experimentation also occasionally appeared in the North American news media and depicted similarly promising summaries of the drug’s contributions to medical research. When Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary was fired in 1962 for his indiscriminant promotion of the drug, the story was national news, but even then, the balance of the articles on LSD remained positive. In 1966, this situation changed dramatically. Newspaper articles about LSD increased, and most warned of the drug’s dangers. Medical research soon followed with reports that LSD caused chromosomal damage, fetal abnormalities, and potential memory impairment. That same year, LSD took centre stage in a moral panic over drug use. Federal governments in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, France, and the UK banned the use of LSD—in some cases, without significant debate. Nevertheless, despite the moral panic and political diktats, some medical researchers continued to maintain that LSD had important therapeutic benefits. In fact, they argued that withdrawing LSD from mental health research programs would eliminate one of the most progressive therapy options introduced in the 20th century.

The history of LSD experimentation in psychiatry has been dominated by stories of its covert use by the US military and by the widespread abuse of “acid” by a predominantly US youth culture in the 1960s. These popular images, however, distort its history of clinical experimentation and the professional attitudes in the 1950s toward its medical value (4–7). When archived records from Canadian mental health researchers are examined and oral interviews are conducted with psychiatrists, patients, and volunteers from the early LSD trials, a much more complex history of LSD in psychiatry emerges.

In postwar Saskatchewan, with support from the newly elected Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, LSD experimentation was received positively. Based on their studies of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs, psychiatrists Humphry Osmond in Weyburn and Abram Hoffer in Saskatoon developed a biochemical theory of schizophrenia. During the 1950s, they applied their research to the treatment of alcoholism and subsequently reported unprecedented rates of recovery after giving alcoholism patients a single intense therapy session culminating with a megadose of LSD. Clinics in British Columbia, California, New York, and Illinois employed similar techniques with analogous results. A small sample of patients’ perspectives on the trials, collected more than 40 years after their treatment, offer intriguing personal testimony confirming that LSD cured their alcoholism (anonymous patient, personal communication, 2003 June 16). Although follow-up studies of this nature are fraught with interpretive, ethical, and methodological challenges, the role of LSD in postwar psychiatric experimentation merits a balanced historical reconsideration.

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Yes, it's quite long, but it's a journey (er, I mean trip) worth taking.

[HuckleB]

1. Whoops! I tripped.

[deutsey]

2. Read "Acid Dreams" if you haven't

Excellent (and unsettling) history of LSD and the CIA.

http://www.levity.com/aciddreams/