Word: lsd
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...pharmacology of LSD is not yet fully understood. The tracing of injected radioactive LSD shows that only an infinitesimal amount ever reaches the brain-and that is gone before the effects begin to be felt. It is generally thought, therefore, that LSD does not act directly but triggers an unknown series of metabolic processes. These in turn somehow affect the midbrain, seat of the intimate interchange between emotional response, awareness of external and internal stimuli, and the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Tranquilizers or barbiturates halt LSD's effects, while stimulants like amphetamine tend to elevate them. LSD...
...mild ones are morning-glory seeds, nutmeg and marijuana. The moderately potent ones are the mescaline of Weir Mitchell's experiment, psilocybin (derived from the Mexican Indians' "sacred mushroom"), bufotenine (a constituent of Amanita muscaria), and dimethyltryptamine (found in cohoba). By itself on the third level is LSD. It has 100 times the potency of psilocybin and 7,000 times that of mescaline, which is itself considerably more powerful than marijuana...
...first theories about LSD was that it was a psychotomimetic-a mimicker of psychoses. The idea offered hope of finding a chemical cure for schizophrenia, as well as of increasing the psychiatrist's empathy with a schizophrenic by giving himself "madness in miniature" and thereby knowing what his patient was going through. Some of the LSD-induced symptoms are indeed similar to psychoses-the feeling of being outside one's body, for instance, or of coming apart. But the all-important difference is that the LSD taker almost always knows that the hallucination he is experiencing is caused...
...psychiatric hopes for LSD were followed by the spiritual ones. British-born Orientalist Alan Watts, who spent six years as an Episcopal priest, says flatly that "LSD is quite emphatically a new religion. The God-is-dead thing is not unconnected. The standard brands have not been delivering the goods. This is technological mysticism...
...sentenced him tentatively to 30 years in jail and a $40,000 fine for transporting half an ounce of marijuana and failing to pay tax on it (he is out on bail). He still runs the International Foundation for Internal Freedom (I.F.I.F. for short), which is dedicated to making LSD and psilocybin as available as chewing...