Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)M. Olivia Pena

Lance Brown

Outline•History•Ergot the Source of LSD•Government Uses•Societal Uses•Structure•Effects on the body•Experiences•Legal Implications•Famous LSD Influence•Potential uses

Introduction

• One of the reasons for picking LSD as our research project was it’s potential for use in migraine treatment.

• Because LSD has the same basic shape as a serotonin, it target’s the centers which cause migraines.

• On the other hand, LSD has interesting effects on the human body that made it worth studying.

Introduction

• Among these effects were psychedelic mental properties, memory supression, as well as possible memory resurfacing.

• Also interesting was it’s past as a mind control agent as well as it’s potential for PTSD treatment.

• This chemical compound has many properties which could possibly be used for a benefit in the medical field.

History

• Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was invented in 1938 by Albert Hofmann.

• Story of Hofmann’s hallucinations• Experimentation process, 25th synthesized

molecule, analeptic• LSD is made from ergotamine, a grain fungus.

Hoffman’s Story

• Albert Hoffman synthesized LSD in 1938 in Switzerland. He did not, however; discover it’s psychotropic properties until 1943. This occurred when he accidentally ingested some of the drug. Hoffman said that his compound was a useful revelatory aid in contemplating your oneness with nature. He argued that it could help you to better understand things. Also among his compounds was methergine, which was used to treat postpartum hemorrhaging.

• After ingesting LSD purposely Hoffman experienced the effects on his bike ride home.

LSD-25

• LSD-25 was so named because it was the twenty-fifth synthesized compound and was developed for use as a probable analeptic and circulatory and respiratory stimulant because of it’s structure like that of other alkaloids.

Ergot the Source of LSD• LSD is made from ergotamine, a grain fungus. • Salem Witch Trials, traced back to ergot poisoning. • The fungus Claviceps purpurea, affects rye, wheat and other cereal

grasses. First-flowering head of a grain will spew out sweet, yellow-colored mucus, called "honey dew,“ Second-the fungus invades the young kernels turning them into purplish-black sclerotia, wich look like discolored grains. In these are ergot alkaloids, including lysergic acid and ergotamine The alkaloids affect the central nervous system and cause the contraction of smooth muscle — the muscles that make up the walls of veins and arteries, as well as the internal organs.

• Ergot used as an ecobolic, inducing childbirth.

Government Uses

• Project MKULTRA- CIA plan for "extensive testing and experimentation" with College students.

• Included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign. LSD tests to "unwitting subjects in social situations."

Government Cont.

• “April, 1953, experiments included administering LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions. LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject's knowledge or informed consent, a violation of the Nuremburg Code that the U.S. agreed to follow after WWII, In one case, volunteers were given LSD for 77 consecutive days”

Government Secrets• 1951, Project Bluebird: CIA conducted an LSD pilot study to measure the effects of

the compound on the subjects' ability to suppress experimental or nonthreat secrets. (Lee & Shalin)

• Shortly after this experiment, CIA researchers designed a study to determine optimal dosage levels of LSD for interrogation. This study included at least twelve subjects of below average intelligence. The subjects were informed that a new drug was being tested on them and that it was not dangerous. Even after the experiment, they were never given any further details. The researchers concluded that 100 to 150 micrograms was an optimal dosage. (Lee & Shalin)

• After determining this dosage range, the CIA began to further investigate the potential of LSD to act as a truth serum. They held a series of mock interrogation proceedings, and initially obtained promising results. CIA scientists prepared a memorandum entitled "Potential New Agent for Unconventional Warfare." This document stated, among other things, that LSD was useful for "eliciting true and accurate statements from subjects under its influence during interrogation" (Lee & Shalin). The researchers also noted that LSD aided in the recovery of repressed memories.

Society uses• U.S. Government Testing• English Government Testing• Society of Enlightenment• Aldus Huxley 1953, used LSD till his deathbed

in 1963 so he could “enter the afterlife, with his doors of perception wide open.

• Freethinking, Creativity, Appreciation• Albert Hofmann named #1 out of 100 in

Telegraph's magazine 2007 "Top 100 Living Geniuses" list

• Escape from reality, good and bad ex) addictions..., stress, life.

The anti-Cultural Side

• LSD was used as a recreational drug during the 1960’s

• This compound has been linked to the counterculture of the time.

• It may have been a likely cause of some of the anti-war riots.

The Good and the Bad

• LSD, like any other toxin, has it’s good and bad sides. This compound is good in the sense that it can ease pain, cause happiness, improve quality of life, and help with PTSD.

• It also has side effects which do not include addiction, but do include things such as hypothermia, and high blood glucose levels.

Ergot/LSD Affects

• Ergot prescription drug, Sandoz' Parlodel (bromocriptine by generic name).

• Conventional medication, bromocriptine and other dopamine enhancing ergot derivatives have a clear potential as life-style drugs. Many are used for Parkinson's Disease and have a profound sexuality enhancing (side) effect.

Structure

Serotonin Lysergic acid diethylamide

• There are many similarities between the molecules of serotonin and LSD which allows this process to occur, the most obvious being their close structural similarities, particularly the indole ring shown highlighted in blue.

• Another close similarity between LSD and serotonin is the electron density of the highest occupied molecular orbital. The electron density is lowest in the areas around the indole ring in both molecules. This is indicated by the blue areas in the diagrams.

More LSD Effects

• Also made possible by the structure of LSD as a seratonin analogue is the affect which it can have on headaches.

• When this chemical reaches the brain it targets that specific region of the brain which causes migraine headaches. This causes immediate relief.

Effects on the Body

LSD

• LSD is sensitive to O2 and UV light and Cl in solution. Lasts for years if stored away from light and moisture at a low temperature. In pure form it is a colorless, odorless, and mildly bitter solid. LSD is typically delivered orally, usually on blotter papers, sugar cubes or gelatin. In liquid form, it can be injected. LSD is very potent, with 20–30 micrograms being the threshold dose.

“Trips”• “Trips” vary from person to person• LSD trip can have long-term psycho-emotional effects; some users cite the LSD

experience as causing significant changes in their personality and life perspective • Radiant colors, objects and surfaces ripple or "breathe", colored patterns behind

the closed eyelids (eidetic imagery), an altered sense of time (time seems to be stretching, repeating itself, changing speed or stopping), crawling geometric patterns overlaying walls and other objects, morphing objects, a sense that one's thoughts are spiraling into themselves, loss of a sense of identity or the ego and powerful psycho-physical reactions. Many users experience a dissolution between themselves and the "outside world". This unitive quality may play a role in the spiritual and religious aspects of LSD. The drug sometimes leads to disintegration or restructuring of the user's historical personality and creates a mental state that some users report allows them to have more choice regarding the nature of their own personality

• LSD provides an altered experience of senses, emotions, memories, time, and awarenes for 6 to 14 hours, depending on dosage and tolerance

Bad Trip• People going through a bad trip are hostile or

otherwise unsettling environment, or is not mentally prepared for the powerful distortions in perception and thought that the drug causes, effects are more likely to be unpleasant than if he or she is in a comfortable environment and has a relaxed, balanced and open mindset

Ratio of Bad Trips and Mystical Experience

Legal implications• Like most illicit drugs, LSD use is typically not prosecuted in the federal criminal system. More common

prosecutions are for the manufacture and trafficking of the drug. Because LSD is mostly manufactured domestically, there are considerable penalties for the trafficking of LSD. Following are some examples of federal sentencing for LSD:

• Trafficking 1-9 grams mixture (one dose is roughly .5g): – First Offense

• Not less than 5 yrs, and not more than 40 yrs. • If death or serious injury results, not less than 20 years or more than life. • Fine not to exceed $2 million.

– Second Offense • Not less than 10 yrs, and not more than life. • If death or serious injury results, life imprisonment. • Fine not to exceed $4 million

• Trafficking 10 grams or more mixture: – First Offense

• Not less than 10 yrs, and not more than life in prison. • If death or serious injury results, life imprisonment. • Fine not to exceed $4 million.

– Second Offense • Not less than 20 yrs, and not more than life. • If death or serious injury results, life imprisonment. • Fine of not more than $8 million.

– More than Two Prior Offenses: Life in Prison

Famous LSD Influence• On April 19th Albert Hofmann (the inventor of LSD) ingested 250 micrograms of the drug ,

today 20 micrograms is the general dose given.• Ray Charles LSD usage “made the blind man see”• Eric Clapton used every night throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. • Chris Farley (Actor)• Fat Boy Slim (Recording Artist)• Doc Ellis (Baseball)• Bill Hicks (Comedian)• Steve Jobs (Apple)• John Belushi (Actor)• Eminem (Rapper)• Jack Nicholson (Actor)• Cary Grant (Actor)• Angelina Jolie (Actress)• Francis Crick (Scientist)• Aldous Huxley (Writer)• Jimmy Hendrix (Musician)

Potential Uses• Studies are being done in order to reduce anxiety levels of terminally ill patients.• Psyciatric uses and follow up.• Alcoholics Anonymous Study with 50% success rate. The Experimental Use of Psychedelic (LSD) Psychotherapy JAMA.

1970;212(11):1856-1863. • The potential for medical use, but the huge risk of illicit use, outweighing the progress.• experiments in 1964 showed that a single session with LSD could reduce pain in the terminally ill for days or even weeks,

breaking the cycle of anticipating pain and dramatically reducing the fear of death. But prohibition, led by the US, with the rest of the world following, in effect put a stop to all research on the positive effects of psychedelics.

• Zurich research group, headed by Franz Vollenweider, uses brain scans, visual illusions, tests of attention and other methods to investigate its effects. LSD and psilocybin both have structural similarities to the neurotransmitter serotonin and affect its pathways in the brain, and both can create a kaleidoscopic world of extraordinary colour and movement. But oddly enough brain scans do not reveal increased activity in the visual cortex. Rather, the increase is seen in prefrontal, parietal and temporal regions. It seems that the cortex can become overloaded with sensory information, with psilocybin affecting high-level motion detection systems but not low-level ones in the visual cortex. The result can be effects similar to those observed in schizophrenics

• therapeutic potential • Psychiatrist Charles Grob says that he has wanted to do such research since 1972 and is at last beginning to, although it

took him more than ten years to get approval for his study. He is using psilocybin rather than LSD, partly because its action is rather shorter and its effects more controllable, but partly because it is politically less sensitive. He has redecorated a drab hospital room for the purpose and is beginning to treat anxiety and pain in 12 patients with end-stage cancer, giving them either the drug or a placebo. So far the results are very promising. This is the kind of research that might eventually confirm what Huxley and so many other users have seen for themselves, that just one or a very few meetings with a psychedelic can - under the right circumstances - enhance life and abolish the fear of death.

How Often Would You Take LSD if it were Legal?

Conclusions

• This chemical compound most deffinitely has had a very interesting past with all of the government secrets and social uses which brought it to where it is today.

• This chemical may still have a possible life today as well as in the future.

Conclusions

• Though we don’t agree with the use of this drug as a something to be used for recreation, there is still the possibility that it could be used in order to improve the quality of life for terminally ill patients.

• With further and better laboratory research of this drug, we may be able to find similar chemical compounds which could have the good effects without the bad.

Conclusions

• We may yet be able to use this drug as a way to head off migraine headaches, help those with PTSD, or even to help decrease pain.

• Who knows, maybe indirectly we can find some way to help with things like depression.

• Perhaps through studies of this compound we can find compounds which may be related but work better.

Works Cited• D.B. BLEWETT, Ph.D. & N. CHWELOS, M.D. (1959). HANDBOOK FOR THE THERAPEUTIC

USE OF LYSERGIC ACID DIETHYLAMIDE-25• INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP PROCEDURES• Dyck, Erika (2005). Flashback: Psychiatric Experimentation With LSD in Historical

Perspective. Can J Psychiatry, Vol 50, No 7, June 2005 Pg. 381- 387.

• Fredrickson, Anne (1998). Mechanisms of LSD: a Glimpse • into the Serotonergic System. Serendip 1994-2012 - Last Modified: Monday, 07-Jan-

2002• Pfeufer, H.-Peter (2007). The Story of LSD.

http://www.researchhistory.org/2012/04/16/the-history-of-lsd/ Accessed April 24,2012

• Smith, Craig S. (2008). Albert Hofmann, the Father of LSD, Dies at 102 The New York Times April 30,2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/world/europe/30hofmann.html

• http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c000.htm Accessed April 17,2012