The Reality of LSD Myths Revealed

First synthesized by chemist Albert Hofman in 1938, LSD (“Acid”, Lysergic acid diethylamide) is one of the most exaggerated, sensationalized and misunderstood “drugs” that exists. I can remember when I was growing up, that I actually believed all the mainstream blown out of proportion myths about it because they were all I had ever heard. So what’s the truth?

There has actually been real clinical research on LSD over the years, some credible, some not. Newsweek.com just published an article about a new placebo controlled clinical studypublished in the Journal of Neuroscience on 3/19/18 where researchers found that using LSD dissolves the boundaries between your experiences, and those of others.

Apparently we have now measured with physical science that LSD alters brain activity in regions that are responsible for differentiating the line where your own self stops and other people begin. Obviously since the study was completed successfully, they also found LSD to be safe and cause no adverse side effects with the participants. A step forward to the eventual acceptance of psychedelic medicines, and a great opportunity to dispel some common misconceptions (lies) about Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).

(Image Credit: rawstory.com)

Can LSD make you go crazy and jump off a rooftop to your death? Does it cause DNA damage and birth defects? Will it collect in your spine for the rest of your life? I’ve heard all of these horror stories and even naively believed them myself before doing my own research, so let’s look at the facts.

LSD is dangerous for society!

Really? According to every study I have found from a wide variety of independent institutions comparing various substances both legal and illegal, and their levels of danger both to self and to others, LSD scores as one of the lowest. In fact, two Norwegian medical researchers Pål-Ørjan Johansen and Teri Suzanne Krebs say that psychedelics like LSD "induce profound experiences while at the same time having a safety profile comparable to many activities of daily life, such as riding a bicycle or playing soccer."

As you can see, LSD is basically nothing compared to the real danger of legal drugs like Alcohol and Tobacco:

(Image credit: cognitivelibertyuk.wordpress.com)

LSD will make you go crazy!

The first myth was just naively unfounded misinformation. This is in my opinion one of the most pervasive, exaggerated and damaging misconceptions of all. The US government, media and police organizations have done an excellent job of demonizing LSD to the point where the average uneducated person actually believes that using LSD can cause either short term (doing something dangerous or life threatening that you would not normally do, such as jumping off a rooftop to your death) or long term (you will never function as a normal human again after using it) insanity. Both have a small degree of reality to them, but are grossly exaggerated in mainstream awareness.

(Image Credit: independent.co.uk)

Pål-Ørjan Johansen and Teri Suzanne Krebs published a large scale study that found no evidence of any link between LSD and mental health problems. In fact, an American nationwide study by John Hopkins University of 190,000 people’s health records found evidence that some degree of psychedelic use was associated with less symptoms like suicidal thoughts and depression.

The short term negative experience is what some would call a “bad trip.” This can easily be controlled by being mindful of the setting, mindset and situation that the LSD is used in. If a person has a “bad trip” or actually does something harmful to themselves that they would not have normally done, they did not properly prepare the setting, situation and their frame of mind going into the experience. If one does prepare properly, the chance of them doing something stupid or harmful is non-existent.

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And even if you don’t prepare properly, the real risk of doing something so stupid that it’s harmful to you is very, very unlikely. For example, take the first time I tried LSD. I was just trying to party and get messed up, with no respect for the experience as a medicine or personal development tool. I would call it a “bad trip” because it was filled with discomfort and was not enjoyable at all. Still, the worst thing I actually did was lay in bed paranoid about whether I was breathing normally. Silly, but certainly no risk to myself or anyone else.

The Psychedelic Experience Guide says this about the “bad trip” experience:
“Because of the highly suggestible nature of the LSD experience, belief in the myths can contribute to [a] self-fulfilling prophecy and increase the likelihood of having an adverse reaction. Cohen [Dr. Sidney Cohen, a researcher from the 1950s] called this the phenomenon of ‘excessive initial apprehension’ and cited it as a significant factor contributing to bad trips. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that the number of reported bad trips increased markedly during the media blitz of the late 1960s. After media coverage died down at the close of that decade, so did the number of negative experiences. This occurred despite the fact that the total number of LSD users was still increasing into the early 1970s.”

In the 1950s, Dr. Sidney Cohen administered about 25,000 doses of LSD to 5,000 participants and reported that “the incidence of acute and chronic problematic reactions was extremely low when LSD was administered under controlled therapeutic conditions to individuals not having preexisting severe psychopathology.”

(Image Credit: Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast)

Contrary to the terrifying description of lifelong “Phantom Acid Trips” pushed by the US government and media, these don’t actually happen, and if they do they are very short and hardly noticeable. In some very rare instances psychedelic experiences like LSD have been followed by the onset of HPPD, or Hallucinogenic Perception Persistence Disorder, but this is extremely rare and poorly understood at this time.

Symptoms of HPPD include audiovisual and sensory experiences like flashing colors, fractals and other illusory phenomena long after the LSD has been fully metabolized by the body. In 2002, psychiatrist John Halpern concluded in this review that previous studies on HPPD hadn't properly established whether the reported symptoms could be linked to factors like other drug use or neurological and psychological disorders.

Psychiatrist Henry David Abraham told the magazine “Popular Science” in 2013 that "I think the majority of people could trip relatively safely, but there's a discrete percentage… Maybe one person in 20 will develop serious, continuous problems related to the hallucinogenic experience," and went on to conclude, "But that's true for virtually any drug."

LSD causes DNA damage and birth defects!

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In 1967, the journal “Science” published a study claiming that LSD added to cultured human white blood cells produced chromosomal abnormalities. Birth defects and genetic mutation? As you can imagine, this publication in such a mainstream legitimate foundation of science supported the mass hysteria and fear pushed by the United States government, media and police.

An excerpt from the Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide explains:
“Later and more careful studies demonstrated that the conclusions drawn from the initial research were ill-founded. A comprehensive review of sixty-eight studies and case reports published in the four years following the initial 1967 article appeared as a major article in Science in 1971. The review concluded that ‘pure LSD ingested in moderate doses does not damage chromosomes in vivo, does not cause detectable genetic damage, and is not a teratogen or carcinogen in man.’”

LSD collects in your spine and stays there for the rest of your life!

If you’ve heard of LSD, I am confident you have also heard this terrifying warning associated with it. “If you take LSD once, it will collect in your spine and you will forever test positive for it with a spinal tap,” cries the establishment. This is also the purported explanation they posit for the haunting “Phantom Trips,” from the latent LSD leaking from your spine for the rest of your life.

(Image Credit : drugfoundation.org.nz)

First of all, let’s get a grasp on the actual amount of LSD you are consuming with typical doses. LSD doses are measured in micrograms. Most of your average drugs or medications are measured in grams or miligrams. To put that in perspective, a 100 microgram LSD blotter (like pictured above) is equivilent to .1 miligrams or .0001 grams of substance you are ingesting. This is an incredibly small amount of active substance you are ingesting.

(Image Credit: sciencelearn.co.nz)

In tandem with the microscopic volume of LSD you are ingesting, the half-life of LSD in the human body is very short, with an average of only 3-5 hours depending on individual metabolism. This pairing results in the entire dose being fully metabolized by the body in less than 24 hours.

That’s right. LSD is entirely metabolized by the body in a very short time, especially in comparison to other substances which take as long as days to fully metabolize, and which also leave measurable metabolites in the blood for as long as days or weeks.

I hope that this helps to clear the stigma around LSD and encourages you to learn more about psychedelics. I don’t believe Psychedelics are necessarily good for everyone in every situation, but I do know for a fact that psychedelics like LSD can be a wonderful healing medicine for those who use them appropriately in tandem with the internal work that goes along with psychedelic healing. If you have any questions, feel welcome to ask in the comments.

(Image Credit: learning-mind.com)

Ultimately, do your own research, and make your own judgment for yourself. I have personally experienced extraordinarily accelerated personal development through the safe use of psychedelics, including LSD, as a tool of growth and expansion and I hope to inspire curiosity and exploration on whatever level you feel comfortable with or drawn to. In future posts, I will chronicle some of my experiences and how they have helped me grow in real life.

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