Did you know that LSD was accepted and used in scientific studies in the US between its advent in the 1930’s through the beginning of the 1960’s? Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann created it as an artificial means of simulating the natural psychedelic highs of traditional ceremonies of bygone or faraway cultures in order to treat various addictions, mental illnesses, and mood disorders, such as alcoholism, schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression. Even housewives were dosing up. It wasn’t until the hippie culture of the 1960’s that psychedelics started to get a bad rap with LSD taking the reins as a symbol of cultural degradation.
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Reports were coming out of Haight-Ashbury of the loss of lives through the use of LSD. Joan Didion, in her famous essay "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," chronicles these tribulations, noting one four-year old girl that she met along the way whose mother consistently kept her on acid and peyote and who, when questioned by Didion, reported that she went to “High Kindergarten.” These were the sorts of stories that terrified the rest of world and halted the conversation about LSD and psychedelics in general. A veil of fear was lowered and blinded American society to any potential benefits the drugs might possess for psychological ailments. According to Neal Goldsmith, psychotherapist and co-founder of Horizons Media, Inc., “In the 60's society got dosed. You know, they slipped it a mickey and society freaked out… and said 'I'll never do it again and you can't either' and clamped down.” On the reemergence of psychedelics today, he tells The Creators Project, “Now, after a generation the researchers and the enthusiasts said: Well, read this book, look at this research, and society said: Well, alright. And then in the early 90's they agreed to allow research again.”
Neal Goldsmith, Ph.D. Photo courtesy, Horizons Media, Inc.
If you’re a New Yorker, you might have happened upon Goldsmith giving one of his presentations on Psychedelics and Death in the basement of the Morbid Anatomy Museum. Filled with random factoids and drug charts, Goldsmith provides an in-depth history of psychedelics both globally and locally then enters the discussion of the benefits and incredibly low risk of smart psychedelics. His words will be heard alongside those of many other experts in the field this weekend in NYC at Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics, a weekend-long conference that covers topics like Psychedelic-assisted Treatment of Addiction, Psychedelic Drug Policy Activism: Why Cognitive Liberty Matters, and Reclaiming Religious Freedom and Family Values: A Conversation on Psychedelic Parenting. Speakers hail from research institutions like Johns Hopkins and NYU where conversations around psychedelics aid the field in expanding its reach into clinical trials and other research. It serves to strengthen the argument for smart psychedelics and once again attempt to pave an avenue for widespread acceptance of the drugs to treat those common ailments that occur in crippling numbers in our country.
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