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Friday, January 03, 2020
Monday, May 05, 2008
Albert Hofman, R.I.P.
"I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD. It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be." Albert Hofman
Hofmann was disappointed when his discovery was removed from commercial distribution. He remained convinced that the drug had the potential to counter the psychological problems induced by "materialism, alienation from nature through industrialisation and increasing urbanisation, lack of satisfaction in professional employment in a mechanised, lifeless working world, ennui and purposelessness in wealthy, saturated society, and lack of a religious, nurturing, and meaningful philosophical foundation of life".
Albert Hofman died last week at the age of 102. Albert Hofman was a Swiss scientist best known for having been the first to synthesize, ingest and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and became the first person in the world to experience a full-blown "acid trip" – that was on April 19 1943, which became known among aficionados as "Bicycle Day" as it was while cycling home from his laboratory that he experienced the most intense symptoms.
By 1965 more than 2,000 papers had been published offering hope for a range of conditions from drug and alcohol addiction to mental illnesses of various kinds. But the fact that the chemical was cheap and easy to make left it open to abuse, and from the late 1950s onwards, promoted by Dr Timothy Leary and others, LSD became the recreational drug of choice for western youth.
An outbreak of moral panic, combined with a number of accidents involving people jumping to their deaths off high buildings in the belief that they could fly, led governments around the world to ban LSD. Research also showed that the drug, taken in high doses and in inappropriate settings, often caused panic reactions. For certain individuals, a bad trip could be the trigger for full-blown psychosis.
Hofmann was disappointed when his discovery was removed from commercial distribution.
Hofmann laid some of the blame at the door of Dr Timothy Leary. In his autobiography he described meeting Leary in 1971 in the snack bar at Lausanne railway station. Hofmann began by voicing his regret that Leary's experiments had effectively killed off academic research into LSD and took Leary to task for encouraging its recreational use among young people.
Leary was unabashed. "He maintained that I was unjustified in reproaching him for the seduction of immature persons to drug consumption," Hofmann recalled. Leary further insisted that American teenagers "with regard to information and life experience, were comparable to adult Europeans" and were able to make up their own minds.
Canada and LSD:
Shortly after World War II, English psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond began studying the potential use of psychedelic drugs in psychiatry. He found that these drugs antagonized adrenaline receptors, inducing a temporary psychosis, perhaps even a model psychosis. According to Dyck, Osmond was amazed at the drugs’ ability to “suspend his sense of logic and comfort” by altering his perception of reality. If we accept schizophrenia as a distortion of perception, then experiencing drug-induced psychosis could allow psychiatrists great insight into mental illness.
“A doctor often wishes he could enter the illness and see with the madman’s eyes, hear with his ears, and feel with his skin,” explained Osmond at the time. “This may seem an unlikely privilege but it is available to anyone who is prepared to take a…minute amount of…lysergic acid.”
Meanwhile, on another continent, a psychiatrist in Saskatchewan, Abram Hoffer, was examining LSD’s biochemical effects. He discovered that the LSD molecule contains nicotinic acid.
“[Nicotinic acid] blocks the metabolism of certain enzymes…appearing to cause changes in perception, changes in effect, and changes in thinking,” Hoffer explained at the time.
By controlling the levels of this blocking agent, Hoffer controlled these psychosis-like symptoms. These studies eventually lead him to propose treating schizophrenic patients with nicotinic acid, commonly known as niacin or vitamin B3.
An interesting medicinal use for LSD
More than 4 decades after the original studies, Dr. Erika Dyck has exposed some surprising facts about studies conducted with LSD as a treatment for alcoholism.
Dr Erika Dyck of the University of Alberta has recently published her research on LSD treatment for alcoholism studies, performed in Saskatchewan during the 1950’s and 1960’s by Humphry Osmond, Abram Hoffer, Colin Smith, and Sven Jensen. This incredible paper brings to light some fascinating studies, and generates even more questions for those brave enough to ask.
Dr Dyck provides a substantial background on psychiatrist Humphry Osmond, whom she credits with being a pioneer in the acceptance of alcoholism as a disease based on biochemical causes. After moving from England to Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Osmond met Abram Hoffer, who became a close associate in his research efforts with d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and other hallucinogens like mescaline.
The professor continues on to explain how the researchers came to the idea of treating alcoholism with this drug, based on the similarities between the effects of LSD and alcohol withdrawal delirium tremors (commonly known as the “dt’s”). As trials progressed with alcoholic patients, the researchers realized that there was another aspect to the experience other than physical that they had not considered – that of a personal and sometimes spiritual awakening that was reported during the patient’s LSD session. Follow-up to treatment confirmed that this had a lasting, positive effect on the subjects. The relatively informal first group of studies by Osmond and Hoffer resulted in a roughly 50/50 success rate of abstinence for a follow up period of six months.
The study’s close work with the organization Alcoholics Anonymous is also discussed in Dr. Dyck’s work. In an attempt to follow up with patients and utilize as much feedback as possible, Hoffer and Osmond found local groups helpful and even quite supportive of clinical trials. It is also noted that co-founder Bill Wilson was a proponent of the treatment, especially in regard to its implications regarding the spiritual experience.
Dr. Dyck cites two additional researchers that entered the scene after additional pressure was placed to provide more empirical evidence in favor of the treatment method. The first of these was conducted by psychiatrist Colin Smith in 1955, on two dozen patients. The results of this concluded that half remained about the same, a quarter were improved, and the other quarter had shown significant improvement, classified as exhibiting “complete abstinence from alcohol for the duration of the follow-up period…with changes in lifestyle, including more stable personal relationships and regular employment.”
Obituary in Telegraph.
A couple other of my posts related to this subject:
Farms, Drugs and Mental Health
Lyle Thurston
Friday, March 28, 2008
Dr. Lyle Thurston, R.I.P.
About ten years ago while visiting my sister in Vancouver her and her hubby convinced me to go to a remote island off the coast of Tofino with no electricity or running water except for solar panels in a house that only played opera.
I was skeptical. I'd found myself in various communes and monasteries and remote alternative living situations that ranged from wonderful to nerve-grating in my youth and I wasn't particularily sure I wanted to roll the dice on this trip. The destination wasn't somewhere you could just call for a taxi. I didn't want to get trapped in the middle of nowhere with granola and corn and conspiracy freaks.
She sold me on the idea because she said I'd get used to the opera, it suited the ambiance, she wanted me to see some wilderness like we grew up in on Quadra Island...a sort of revisit of our childhood adventures...and she assured me there would be a glass of red wine served in a bath tub raised over a wood burning fire on the beach to watch the stars.
She also said I'd love the company, especially our host.
I was still skeptical, but hey...the idea of a week or two on the farthest land of the west coast of Canada did kind of appeal to me. She also knew I had a weakness for Tofino.
Four of us hopped into the car and caught the ferry to Nanaimo and just as we pulled off the ferry a CBC biography of Chet Baker began and it set the tone for the following days. We were ecstatic. We happened to be listening to the CBC because two of us were full time reporters and my sister and I had done various stints for the CBC. Loyalty to the Canadian institution which has been good to us all. I don't know why but it took us about four hours to get to Tofino...where we had to scrabble to the grocery and liquor stores and hire a water taxi. We spent something like 600 bucks on food and 400 bucks on booze.
I realized the sober part of the journey was way behind us...Don't even ask me how the four of us managed to carry all the supplies. I can tell you at some point about 45 minutes into grovelling over the rainforest gnarly floor I was creating some world class swearing combinations. I felt I had made a grave choice...I was not interested in adventure any more.
Don't get me wrong the rainforest is gorgeous, but it would have been a lot more beautiful if I hadn't had 200 pounds of vodka and beer on my back. How much could these bloody journalists drink?! I realized I didn't even hardly know my brother in law or his wildly decadent friend, who seemed to be suffering even more than myself hiking on mossy rocks and tree trunks. Who cared if he was some well known international reporter. Shit.
Half knackered we finally arrived at Lyle's house. It was ungodly quiet not even an aria. Inside was the most gorgeous young French man half naked and suddenly...the bitchingly hilarious international reporter and I woke up afresh. We both said "He's MINE!"
I was about to have one of the most fabulous holidays of my life. The host was everything my sister said and more. His name was Lyle and he made me initiate my visit by climbing a ladder and sliding down into some kind of macrame birth canal and then we all drank like Hemingway for the rest of the night. Lyle kept me charmed with stories about Greenpeace and taking acid in an experimental program when he was in med school in Saskatchewan. (I've written here about that LSD experiment as a treatment for mental illness along with vitamin therapy)
Among Lyle's houseguests were two other young men who were planning on buying the property. I was surrounded by my gay peeps and in heaven. Lyle needed the place painted so we all pitched in...his house was built with wood that was flown in from the mainland by helicopter in the 60's or 70's. We caught fish all day and ate them for supper or my sister cooked up other marvelous meals. One evening she dug a pit on the beach and cooked a lamb buried a couple feet under hot rocks. Like butter. We took turns at night sitting in the aforementioned tub under the stars with the Pacific ocean pounding on the stoney beach. The cast iron tub, also flown in by helicopter was so hot we had to have a sheet of plywood protect our bottoms...and it was glorious like sitting on a surf board in a spa. The islands neighbours popped by or we went on small walks to visit them, the one thing everyone had in common aside from nature-loving, was a love of good food and cooking and we all took turns impressing and feeding each other.
Lyle was a member of a commune that lived on Long Beach back in the day. When the B.C. government wanted to preserve the area as a National Park, they had to negotiate with these pranksters and so offered them an entire island as compensation for kicking them off what is now called Pacific Rim National Park. Can you imagine that there were areas of Canada that were so wild and available as recently as the 70's? It breaks my heart and amazes me and where Lyle had his house is one of the last great places in Canada.
Lyle was an incredible host and conversationalist and he turned me on to opera. When I was rummaging around his place I found a box of acrylic paints and some brushes. He said he wanted to try to paint in his retirement and he hadn't but I could go ahead and use some. I carried the box down to the beach and painted on empty food boxes all day. He was the kind of person you read about but rarely actually get to meet in life. A free spirit, a gay man who lived out of the closet years before Stonewall he loved people and interesting people were intensely attracted to him, and he didn't suffer fools. I also felt a huge kinship with him because he seemed to love my bro-in-law so much and my sister and he had a seasoned delight her cooking.
I was very sad tonight when my sister e-mailed me about his passing away, and I am grateful to have met such an amazing person even for such a short time. I feel bad for my sister and brother in law. Lyle was huge inspiration to them both especially when my brother in law was a young journalist starting out: He was a kind of metaphysical uncle to him.
Lyle was an inspiration to a lot of people and his reputation as a real life "character" seemed to be international. Remember that young French man? He had showed up at Lyle's the week before from France with a scrap of paper bearing a faint map drawn on how to find Lyle's remote cliff hanging house. Someone in France told him if he was ever in Canada he had to get to Lyle's place. He just showed up and Lyle put him to work repairing odds and ends.
I realize I have written perhaps too much about someone I didn't know for a long time or as dearly as a close friend...but I feel as if such a rare soul demands extra appreciation.
Thank you Lyle and I hope the spirits in the sky turned up the opera and had the party favours in full supply for your safe passage.
Here is an obituary from a Vancouver paper:
Greenpeace Founder Lyle Thurston dead
Dr. Lyle Thurston dies in hospital Tuesday. He was 70
The Province
Published: Thursday, March 27, 2008
Dr. Lyle Thurston, a founding member of Greenpeace, has died. He was 70.
Thurston was among the motley band of protesters who sailed from Vancouver on the Phyllis Cormack to a remote island off Alaska to protest against U.S. nuclear testing in 1971. Thurston was the ship's doctor.
For years Thurston lived in a North Vancouver commune with other environmentally conscious residents, among them lawyer Dave Gibbons, Dr. Myron McDonald and his wife Bobbie, all of whom played pivotal roles in the development of Greenpeace.
He later joined the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in several campaigns, including sailing to Washington in 1998 to save grey whales from a native hunt.
A pharmacist and physician, he sat on the board of the Window Pane Society, a Vancouver organization that helped young people beat their drug habits.
Thurston died in Victoria's Royal Jubilee Hospital on Tuesday after battling emphysema and a chest infection.
Family and friends respond
1972, Greenpeace Visits The Pope
I was skeptical. I'd found myself in various communes and monasteries and remote alternative living situations that ranged from wonderful to nerve-grating in my youth and I wasn't particularily sure I wanted to roll the dice on this trip. The destination wasn't somewhere you could just call for a taxi. I didn't want to get trapped in the middle of nowhere with granola and corn and conspiracy freaks.
She sold me on the idea because she said I'd get used to the opera, it suited the ambiance, she wanted me to see some wilderness like we grew up in on Quadra Island...a sort of revisit of our childhood adventures...and she assured me there would be a glass of red wine served in a bath tub raised over a wood burning fire on the beach to watch the stars.
She also said I'd love the company, especially our host.
I was still skeptical, but hey...the idea of a week or two on the farthest land of the west coast of Canada did kind of appeal to me. She also knew I had a weakness for Tofino.
Four of us hopped into the car and caught the ferry to Nanaimo and just as we pulled off the ferry a CBC biography of Chet Baker began and it set the tone for the following days. We were ecstatic. We happened to be listening to the CBC because two of us were full time reporters and my sister and I had done various stints for the CBC. Loyalty to the Canadian institution which has been good to us all. I don't know why but it took us about four hours to get to Tofino...where we had to scrabble to the grocery and liquor stores and hire a water taxi. We spent something like 600 bucks on food and 400 bucks on booze.
I realized the sober part of the journey was way behind us...Don't even ask me how the four of us managed to carry all the supplies. I can tell you at some point about 45 minutes into grovelling over the rainforest gnarly floor I was creating some world class swearing combinations. I felt I had made a grave choice...I was not interested in adventure any more.
Don't get me wrong the rainforest is gorgeous, but it would have been a lot more beautiful if I hadn't had 200 pounds of vodka and beer on my back. How much could these bloody journalists drink?! I realized I didn't even hardly know my brother in law or his wildly decadent friend, who seemed to be suffering even more than myself hiking on mossy rocks and tree trunks. Who cared if he was some well known international reporter. Shit.
Half knackered we finally arrived at Lyle's house. It was ungodly quiet not even an aria. Inside was the most gorgeous young French man half naked and suddenly...the bitchingly hilarious international reporter and I woke up afresh. We both said "He's MINE!"
I was about to have one of the most fabulous holidays of my life. The host was everything my sister said and more. His name was Lyle and he made me initiate my visit by climbing a ladder and sliding down into some kind of macrame birth canal and then we all drank like Hemingway for the rest of the night. Lyle kept me charmed with stories about Greenpeace and taking acid in an experimental program when he was in med school in Saskatchewan. (I've written here about that LSD experiment as a treatment for mental illness along with vitamin therapy)
Among Lyle's houseguests were two other young men who were planning on buying the property. I was surrounded by my gay peeps and in heaven. Lyle needed the place painted so we all pitched in...his house was built with wood that was flown in from the mainland by helicopter in the 60's or 70's. We caught fish all day and ate them for supper or my sister cooked up other marvelous meals. One evening she dug a pit on the beach and cooked a lamb buried a couple feet under hot rocks. Like butter. We took turns at night sitting in the aforementioned tub under the stars with the Pacific ocean pounding on the stoney beach. The cast iron tub, also flown in by helicopter was so hot we had to have a sheet of plywood protect our bottoms...and it was glorious like sitting on a surf board in a spa. The islands neighbours popped by or we went on small walks to visit them, the one thing everyone had in common aside from nature-loving, was a love of good food and cooking and we all took turns impressing and feeding each other.
Lyle was a member of a commune that lived on Long Beach back in the day. When the B.C. government wanted to preserve the area as a National Park, they had to negotiate with these pranksters and so offered them an entire island as compensation for kicking them off what is now called Pacific Rim National Park. Can you imagine that there were areas of Canada that were so wild and available as recently as the 70's? It breaks my heart and amazes me and where Lyle had his house is one of the last great places in Canada.
Lyle was an incredible host and conversationalist and he turned me on to opera. When I was rummaging around his place I found a box of acrylic paints and some brushes. He said he wanted to try to paint in his retirement and he hadn't but I could go ahead and use some. I carried the box down to the beach and painted on empty food boxes all day. He was the kind of person you read about but rarely actually get to meet in life. A free spirit, a gay man who lived out of the closet years before Stonewall he loved people and interesting people were intensely attracted to him, and he didn't suffer fools. I also felt a huge kinship with him because he seemed to love my bro-in-law so much and my sister and he had a seasoned delight her cooking.
I was very sad tonight when my sister e-mailed me about his passing away, and I am grateful to have met such an amazing person even for such a short time. I feel bad for my sister and brother in law. Lyle was huge inspiration to them both especially when my brother in law was a young journalist starting out: He was a kind of metaphysical uncle to him.
Lyle was an inspiration to a lot of people and his reputation as a real life "character" seemed to be international. Remember that young French man? He had showed up at Lyle's the week before from France with a scrap of paper bearing a faint map drawn on how to find Lyle's remote cliff hanging house. Someone in France told him if he was ever in Canada he had to get to Lyle's place. He just showed up and Lyle put him to work repairing odds and ends.
I realize I have written perhaps too much about someone I didn't know for a long time or as dearly as a close friend...but I feel as if such a rare soul demands extra appreciation.
Thank you Lyle and I hope the spirits in the sky turned up the opera and had the party favours in full supply for your safe passage.
Here is an obituary from a Vancouver paper:
Greenpeace Founder Lyle Thurston dead
Dr. Lyle Thurston dies in hospital Tuesday. He was 70
The Province
Published: Thursday, March 27, 2008
Dr. Lyle Thurston, a founding member of Greenpeace, has died. He was 70.
Thurston was among the motley band of protesters who sailed from Vancouver on the Phyllis Cormack to a remote island off Alaska to protest against U.S. nuclear testing in 1971. Thurston was the ship's doctor.
For years Thurston lived in a North Vancouver commune with other environmentally conscious residents, among them lawyer Dave Gibbons, Dr. Myron McDonald and his wife Bobbie, all of whom played pivotal roles in the development of Greenpeace.
He later joined the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in several campaigns, including sailing to Washington in 1998 to save grey whales from a native hunt.
A pharmacist and physician, he sat on the board of the Window Pane Society, a Vancouver organization that helped young people beat their drug habits.
Thurston died in Victoria's Royal Jubilee Hospital on Tuesday after battling emphysema and a chest infection.
Family and friends respond
1972, Greenpeace Visits The Pope
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