Alrighty then, our experiences differ. Where I live, LSD is still absolutely associated with hippiedom, and I’d wager most people around here do not know about the drug’s, uh, “post-patchouli phase,” and the mainstream research being done, etc.
And hey, glad you liked the article, Renee.
I suppose you live in California, or some such place where hippiedom still actually exists? In most of the country, hippies now are things known only from books and old media.
Just go walk up to a co-worker and ask them their thoughts on LSD research if you all are so convinced that the public has evolved on the issue…
Depends on where you work. Some will ask, “Well, how much are you charging for this ‘research’? I won’t go above $20 a tab.”
I live in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Here, there’s a part of town called Christiania - a hold-over from the hippie era, looking like this. So, yes, they’re still around over here, and the idea of the christianitter - the Christiania hippies - is well-known all across the land.
I’d wager that if you gave a thousand random Danes a questionnaire about what they associate with the word “LSD” and put “Christiania” or “christianitter” as an option, that’s the one they’ll go for, far far far above “the palliative-care unit at Mt. Sinai Hospital, N.Y.C.”, “psychopharmacology research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,” or “the latest issue of The Lancet.”
Not sure about Timothy, but I hear his brother, Really Leary, is highly regarded in some circles.
Despite being a usually avid reader of the New Yorker, I had somehow missed that article, so I join others in saying thanks for posting it. But I disagree with your optimistic assessment, and perhaps to some degree those of the author (much as I respect the New Yorker).
Such findings as there were from the first wave of research with psychedelics in the 60s were almost entirely negative, and those findings still stand today. No one believes any more that drugs like LSD might help give us useful insights into schizophrenia, for instance, or that they might be of assistance in psychotherapy. The article really seems to focus on “research” whereby such drugs might be of palliative use for the terminally ill. While this could be a very noble cause if it proves broadly beneficial, it’s also a path fraught with peril (the emotionally stressed might be vulnerable to psychosis in those conditions, for instance). It is, in any case, less “scientific research” than a kind of ad hoc experiment in palliative medicine. Consider these quotes from the article:
David Nichols, an emeritus professor of pharmacology at Purdue University—and a founder, in 1993, of the Heffter Research Institute, a key funder of psychedelic research—put the pragmatic case most baldly in a recent interview with Science: “If it gives them peace, if it helps people to die peacefully with their friends and their family at their side, I don’t care if it’s real or an illusion.”
Telling the subjects apart was not difficult, rendering the double-blind a somewhat hollow conceit: those on the placebo sat sedately in their pews while the others lay down or wandered around the chapel, muttering things like “God is everywhere” and “Oh, the glory!”
It’s all very interesting, and maybe even genuinely useful, but what it really amounts to is pharmacologically induced spirituality. It’s being justified for the terminally ill, and perhaps quite rightly so, but far from an illustration of “showing real promise” it seems to me that it is at its core right back full circle to tie-dyed T-shirts, Haight-Ashbury flower children, and the smell of patchouli – even if these things are now figurative rather than literal.
This assertion is not accurate and is contradicted by the text of the article as well as by the research itself; the results were generally positive.
The key is that last sentence: the studies were poorly designed; they lacked sufficient controls to be considered truly scientifically rigorous.
Well-written, wolfpup, but I disagree on several points.
First, you don’t mention LSD’s or psilocybin’s potential use in curing addiction to more harmful drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco. The article, however, does:
So there’s one potential area of use. (Of course, more research is needed: Fifteen people ain’t much.)
You mention the risk of psychosis. So does the article:
So, with proper screenings, comfortable circumstances and the guidance of a well-trained therapist, the risk of psychosis seems very low indeed, and entirely manageable. Certainly nothing to justify shutting down - or limiting - the research.
You also mention the risk of “pharmacologically induced spirituality.” I think that, as with any drug, potential patients should be informed about risks, possible side effects, adverse reactions, etc. Part of the screening process could perhaps include a question along the lines of “knowing that the drug might induce moments of ‘spiritual’ or ‘quasi-spiritual’ rapture, would you still like to partake of it?”
However, the article also has that bit about how “a spiritual experience does not by itself make a spiritual life.” One might, in the course of an LSD trip, have moments of “spiritual” or “quasi-spiritual” rapture, and yet remain an atheist.
Speaking of, that would indeed be an interesting area for further study: Do people who self-identify as theists report different kinds of “trips” than people who self-identify as atheists? Are atheists who take LSD just as likely, or perhaps less likely, to report having “seen God”? Are they at risk of dropping their atheism? Is “ideology” affected in the first place - morals, beliefs, etc.?
Again, of course, more research is needed.
With regards to Leary’s reputation, here’s a nice little gem (from here):
Zing! 
Fantastic deadpan delivery by Ewan McGregor in “Men Who Stare at Goats.”
