I read a book by the philosopher, Terrance McKenna, in high school. I can’t remember the name of it right now, but I would suggest any of his books. He has some interesting thoughts. Anyway, in this one book he talks about building a bomb that emits a huge dose of LSD when it hits. All the people in the bomb area would trip their faces off and the society would just crumble and the bombing country could move in and take over. I think it’s a great idea. Any thoughts?
Don’t forget the bit about everybody thinking they were carrots, jumping out 3rd story windows like an afterschool special and ruining their DNA…
[Towelie The Towel] Oh man, I’m so high. I don’t know what’s goping on[/TTT]
there’s somesort of giant electric snake in the sky…
I wonder if you could be sure that everyone would ingest enough to be affected. If so, it would probably work.
Well, that idea sounds like it’s playing on the old fear of “commies putting LSD in the water supply.” It’s pure FUD-mongering.
And technically, there are more than a few problems with such a delivery system.
First of all, LSD is a very dilute solution in water. Atomizing that much liquid would indeed require a “bomb” but it wouldn’t be dispersed evenly. The effect would be more like a cloud, and it wouldn’t travel far before it precipitated out and/or dispersed. A “crop duster” type of delivery would probably be more efficient, but then you’re not going to suprise your enemy either. Wide dispersal of small bombs might make an OK compromise, but the coverage would be spotty.
Second of all, you have to give someone a rather large dose to totally incapacitate them. It’s been a decade or so, but in my college “daze,” a starting recreational dose was usually 100 micrograms (“mikes”). At that level you can still perform complex activities like riding a bike, rockclimbing, playing video games, etc. A dose like that is not going to render soldiers unfit for combat. In fact, I’ve taken four times that and, after the “peak,” gone boulder climbing.
The psychological effects are completely unpredictable. Not everyone is going to “freak out.” Soldiers especially. And hell, some of them may actually enjoy it! 
Also, given a dose delivered all at once, any real incapacitating effects will happen within about an hour, and the “peak” will have subsided within two to three hours. The lingering effects interfere with only the most complex mental functions, and the lingering euphoria, energy boost, and resistance to pain would probably make for a more effective soldier in some situations (e.g., infantry combat).
This timing would make the logistics of the attack nearly impossible. You’d have to be on the enemy’s doorstep when you delivered the dose, and move in immediately, possibly subjecting your own forces to the stuff. In any modern scenario, your enemy will know you are coming and be prepared for you.
It might work on a theatre scale for an individual battle, but you’re not going to “crumble” anyone’s civilization by dosing them…
Bob Dylan will be performing in my town…TONIGHT!.. about 6 blocks away from my office. AAAAAhhhhhh I can’t go because I spent all of my money on Slayer / Pantera tickets. Let me repeat…
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Wow! bughunter you have done some research on this. Yeah it might not work, but if they try it i hope they test it on my town
As bughunter said, it wouldn’t work using LSD. However, it could with other drugs.
My favorite McKenna bit is in “True Hallucinations”, the story of he and some compatriots doing “research” down in South America. Said research involved eating daily huge amounts of psilocybin, and questing for ayahuasca, a local hallucinogenic tea made from boiling the bark of a certain vine. Along the way, he had a relatively harmless psychotic break (or enlightened burst of insight into the hidden guts of reality, depending on one’s credulity (or open-mindedness, depending on one’s cred…you get the picture)) in which he became convinced the world was going to enter a new aeon, and he (and his bro) were going to bring it about.
How? Well, by humming.
Bear with me. You see, the ayahuasca/psilocybin in his system was bonding at the molecular level with his neural DNA. The inherent harmonic vibrations of them, coupled with humming a specific note, rendered a very localized temperature of abosolute zero on the shroom/DNA matrix, which of course rendered it superconductive. I probably don’t even have to mention it, but when you’ve got a superconducting psilocibe-neural network in your head, you can produce purple ectoplasm, and bring about a new aeon where people may shed their bodies and exist as enlightened pure energy. Goes without saying, really.
I loved that book.