LSD

The history of LSD and the law§

History

The fungus that LSD is made of is ergot, a very poisonous fungus. At the end of the middle ages the fungus got a medical purpose. Among others, it was used by midwives to start the contractions for childbirth. Ergot was becoming more and more interesting, eventually also for chemists. They started working with it and isolated different compounds from ergot. In the 1930’s, lysergic acid was discovered. This is what led to the discovery of LSD. LSD was made for the first time in 1938 by the chemist Albert Hofmann. Although not until April 19^th 1943 did he discover the psychedelic effect. In the 1960’s, LSD became the drug of the worldwide hippie-culture with the famous psychologist Timothy Leary as the prophet of the psychedelic revolution. Nowadays the mainstream character of LSD has disappeared, but it’s still very much loved by psychonauts and in specific scenes.

Check ATTN‘s video about the history of LSD in the US:

The law

LSD has been on list 1 of the Opium Act since the 1960’s (drugs that, according to the government, form an unacceptable risk to one’s health). The Opium Act is the Dutch law that controls certain substances. Producing, dealing and owning LSD is punishable. The government been very strict with LSD dealers. Selling the drug illegally is heavily punished.

Check the theme Drugs and the law for more information on the law.

Route of administration of LSD§

The route of administration (roa) of LSD is dependent on its form, but mostly happens orally, so through the mouth. If LSD has been put on a papertrip you put this on or under your tongue so that you can ingest a part of the active substance via your oral mucosa. In microdot form (as a pill) you swallow it with water. In liquid form it’s best to mix it with a bit of water and drink it or by putting a tiny bit on your hand and licking it. It’s also common to put it on a sugar cube or a rolling paper and eating it. Don’t drop it directly in your mouth, because then if you accidentally press harder than you meant to, you’ll have immediately ingested multiple drops instead of 1.

Intake via the skin is only possible if we’re talking about very large quantities (so holding a papertrip in your hand won’t lead to a trip).

Dosage of LSD§

Because LSD is such a strong drug, you only need a very tiny amount for it to have an effect. With a lot of drugs you count the dosage in milligrams, but LSD is counted in micrograms, that’s a 1000 times less.

The first effects can be noticed with a dose of 20 micrograms, but you won’t really trip from this. 50-150 micrograms are enough for a normal to heavy trip. This is usually the amount that is on a papertrip. Just to make it clear: one microgram is one millionth of a gram; 1000 micrograms is 1 milligram (mg).

It’s not much use to use LSD two days in a row, because your body immediately builds tolerance for LSD. To get the same effect you would have to take quite a lot more LSD. The tolerance will be pretty much gone after three to four days. Apart from the tolerance, it’s also important to process the whole experience before starting a new trip. That’s why most users wait several months before planning their next trip.

You can test LSD at the drug testing service. It sometimes happens that papertrips or drops don’t contain LSD, instead they contain another drug. The drugs that are present instead of LSD can be more dangerous. The drug testing service can check if what you bought and thought was LSD also actually is.

The drugs that the drug testing service sometimes comes across are, amongst others, “NBOMe’s”, like 25B-NBOMe or 25I-NBOMe. NBOMe’s are very heavy variants of the 2C-family, like 2C-B or 2C-E. But also DOC or variants like DOM and DOB are found on papertrips. DOC is a psychedelic that lasts a very long time. It could last between 15 and 20 hours. There’s very little that’s known about these substances. So, we strongly advise against using it. To know what’s actually on your papertrip it’s best to visit the drug testing service.

Effects of LSD§

The effects of any drug are dependent on your mental and physical wellbeing (set) and the situation/surroundings (setting) that you’re using in. Personal factors also play a role. For example, one person can get aggressive from alcohol whilst another person relaxes. Everybody, every human being and every situation is different. For psychedelics the set and setting are especially important and can be very defining for your trip.

In general, one could say that the effects of LSD are very similar to other psychedelics like magic mushrooms and psychedelic cacti (mescaline). If you don’t like tripping, then LSD is not for you!

The effects start appearing within 20 minutes to an hour after ingestion, sometimes it could take a bit longer. The intensity of your trip increases during the first two hours. The peak phase takes three to six hours and during this peak phase the psychedelic effects are the strongest. After this you get a sort of ‘coming down’ phase of three to five hours.

The whole LSD trip takes between six and twelve hours. This depends on the dosage, if you take more it will last longer.

If you take LSD, you will ‘trip’. This means that your awareness changes. How this feels exactly is difficult to put into words. You experience things around you differently. Things look different, sounds and smells are different and things can feel different to the touch. LSD causes a different state of awareness, changes in the sensory perceptions and mental thought processes. The state that you are in that is caused by psychedelics is called a ‘trip’ or ‘tripping’. It’s a reference to the mental journey you experience. Even though the changes in the sensory perceptions are the most obvious, psychedelics also have other important effects.

Psychic effects

• Changes in sensory perceptions
• Changes in mood: positive as well as negative feelings can (continuously) alternate each other.
• Time is experienced differently.
• Changes in mental thought processes.

Physical effects

• Dilated pupils
• Mildly elevated heartbeat and blood pressure
• Sweating
• Dizziness
• Sometimes nausea

Sensory perceptions

• You get hypersensitive for sensory impressions. The part of your brain which processes the sensory incentives (seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, tasting) is working differently than usual.
• Colours, sounds and forms can be experienced more intensely.
• Objects can distort (for example, you can see table legs more rounded or walls can seem to be breathing and can seem to be vibrating, or they start to glow)
• It’s possible that you can perceive very sharp relief
• You could see turning, swirling or moving patterns or structures in a wooden floor or a grass field for instance, sometimes these can be three dimensional.
• An ‘afterimage’ could occur with moving objects (tracers)
• Colours can overlap
• You could see coloured speckles in your field of view, like a kind of pixels
• Objects could have coloured, breathing auras
• When looking at faces, facial features could appear more pronounced (like in cartoons), which could mean that someone looks older or younger
• When you close your eyes a lot of different coloured images could appear (‘closed eye visuals’)
• With a higher dosage sounds can be seen, visible things can be heard and smells can be felt. For example, music could be seen in a changing pattern of light. Visual things could be heard in strange sounds.

Change of mood

All psychedelics, and therefore also LSD, can have a strong effect on your mood. You might feel very happy and feel like you’re in a kind of ecstasy. But you could also feel very calm and quiet and harmonious and peaceful. Intense laughing fits can also be a part of your trip. But psychedelics can also have the opposite effect and make you feel very anxious and confused.

Perception of time

The feeling of space and time changes – time sometimes seems to stand still. It could feel like you’re spending hours on something when in fact only half an hour has passed.

Thinking processes

During a trip your thought process become more associative and unusual cross connections and links can be made. This could lead to surprising insights, but also almost to psychotic ideas. For instance, you could have the idea that your thoughts keep coming back to you in loops or that you’re thinking in circles. If those thoughts are nasty thoughts, you can imagine how that could lead to a negative experience (bad trip).

With a higher dosage the limits of you as a person start to fade, this is called ego dissolution. In a manner of speaking, you don’t know where you yourself stop and another person or your surroundings start. You have the feeling that everything is connected, sometimes also on a spiritual or religious level. This could be an amazing experience, but it could also be scary if you don’t know what is happening to you.

Risks of LSD§

The physical risks of LSD are, as far as we know, negligible. There is no scientific evidence that show that LSD causes brain or memory damage. LSD also doesn’t harm the chromosomes, which is what used to be said. It also doesn’t stay in your spinal cord.

Short-term risks (while using it)

• Nausea and vomiting
• Trigger of a psychosis
• Difficult experience (bad trip)
• Accidents because of impaired judgement

Difficult experience (bad trip)

Possibly you are completely overwhelmed by the intensity of the psychedelic experience, due to a dosage that was too high for example. Such an experience, especially for inexperienced users, could be scary, not only because of the confusion that follows such a high dosage, but also because someone might not feel in control of the stream of their own thoughts anymore. In these situations, it’s important to make someone feel comfortable and calmly explaining to them that it’s the effect of the drug that’s causing it and that everything will be okay when the drugs wear off in a while. Give the person this is happening to as much peace and quiet as possible, preferably in a trusted environment. Accepting the situation is often the first step someone must make to be able to experience the rest of the trip more calmly. If you feel bad during a trip it’s very important not to try to fight that feeling, but let it happen to you. Go with the flow of the trip. You can try to change surroundings, dim the lights and put on some different music.

Using psychedelics when you’re not feeling well mentally (or physically) increases the risks of a bad experience during your trip and is therefore inadvisable.

The biggest danger of LSD is losing your sense of judgement. Especially inexperienced, but also experienced, users could get very anxious and suspicious. Users can also get experiences of grandeur. This could also lead to dangerous behaviour. You could start worrying a lot or get completely caught up in your negative thoughts. This can also cause a bad trip.

Psychoses

LSD could trigger a psychosis. It could function as a trigger to people that are sensitive to them and start or worsen a psychosis. People with a psychotic past, or who have close family members with a psychotic past, should definitely not use LSD. Scientific evidence that LSD causes brain damage or that you can ‘stay’ in your trip forever after single use, has never been found, except if one means that it was the trigger for an underlying psychosis. But then it’s an LSD triggered psychosis and not a forever on-going LSD trip.

Read more on drug psychosis in Menno’s article on drugs, delusions and hallucinations.

Long-term risks§

Flashbacks

The long-term risks are not very well known. It occasionally happens that some experiences from an LSD trip come back later. The use of cannabis, fatigue or situations that remind someone of their previous use could cause these flashbacks. The trip is then experienced again momentarily, like a very vivid memory, even though you’re not using the psychedelic at that time.

Addiction

Because of the intense effects the chance of psychological dependence is very slim, most people use it a couple of times in their life or some just a couple of times a year. Physical dependence on LSD doesn’t happen. The body gets used to LSD very quickly. Very quickly no psychedelic effects will come up and one will have to wait three to four days before being able to experience a new trip. The tolerance also decreases quickly.

When you’re psychologically dependent on a drug your desire for the drug becomes stronger and stronger and it means you can’t feel comfortable without it. This hardly happens with LSD. So taking it in quick succession doesn’t work. If someone seems to not be able to go without, then it’s probably also the experience that a trip comes with that they are desiring.

Detection of LSD in the body§

The amount of time that a drug can be found in your blood or urine after ingesting depends on a few factors. How often and how much you’ve used and your personal metabolism (how quick the drug is broken down, mainly by your liver) are all of influence. Drugs can be found for a longer time in your urine than in your blood.

LSD can be found in your urine up until 48 hours after intake.

Unity tips LSD§

All psychedelics are risky because of the chance of worsening psychiatric problems. Especially to people who are prone to develop psychoses or other psychiatric problems the use of LSD is highly discouraged. If, even so, you still want to use you could reduce the risks by:

• Use moderately.
• Use a small dosage first and always stick to your maximum dosage.
• Prepare yourself well; use in a trusted environment with people that you trust, most people definitely don’t like tripping at a party! If you’re taking psychedelics for the first time take it in nature or at home, but better not at a party!
• Make sure there is someone close by who is sober (trip sitter), so that there is always someone around who can think clearly.
• Only use when you’re physically and mentally feeling well.
• Keep an eye on the effects; if they are too strong or unpleasant, eat something substantial. You could take some vitamin C, dextrose or a sweet drink. Eating or taking some sugar could give you energy. With enough energy in your body it’s a lot easier to enjoy the trip.
• If you don’t feel well during your trip then don’t fight those feelings, but let them come. Go with the flow of the trip
• Don’t combine psychedelics with other drugs, medicine or alcohol. Especially cannabis can strengthen, change and prolong the effects, so watch out! If you drink alcohol you might not notice that you’re getting drunk. So take care and drink something without alcohol.
• Make sure you are free the day after so that you can process your experience.
• Don’t participate in traffic while you’re tripping or if you’re still dreamy and unconcentrated.
• Test your LSD

Watch our Unity College: Psychedelics with Joost Breeksema of the OPEN foundation

Do you want more information, have you got a question or do you want to talk about this or another drug? Look for contact details in your neighbourhood or send an e-mail to [email protected]

Read more on LSD:

• Erowid
• Wikipedia
• Psychonautwiki
• Talk to Frank

Would you like more information, do you have a question or would you like to chat about this or another drug? Look for contact details in your area or send an email to [email protected].