Albion Dreaming (43 page)

Media publicity brought over three hundred other complainants forward and headlines such as “Did LSD Kill My Father?” and “LSD Wrecked My Life” soon began to appear. Some of the stories related in the newspapers were a far cry from the positive
impression given by the LSD psychotherapists of the Fifties and Sixties.

One of the claimants, Valerie Bateson of Radcliffe, in Lancashire recalled how she was given LSD for post natal depression in 1964. “It was like a bad dream. I drank it the first time and I just blacked out and I was paralysed. It took twenty-four hours before I got the feeling back into my body. I was so frightened. I used to take Holy Communion in the hospital chapel before a treatment as I really did not think I would live another day.”
³³

Bateson had six treatments of the drug, but claims after being discharged she developed monophobia, the fear of being alone, as well as panic attacks that prevented her taking medication or starting employment. Similar accounts came from patients who were treated at all the major LSD psychotherapy centres in the Fifties and Sixties, including Powick, the hospital in Worcestershire where LSD therapy began in 1953.

The investigation lasted until 29 February 2000 and Ronnie Sandison, who pioneered the psychotherapeutic use of LSD at Powick Hospital in Worcester, became involved in going through the files of many former patients. In 2006, reflecting on what he called a “sensitive” time for him, Sandison commented: “The really sad thing was revealed when I read the notes on some of the patients, from which it was evident that their doctors subsequent to their LSD treatment had all made every possible effort to help these unfortunate patients, condemned as most of them were, to a lifetime of mental disturbance, often cloaked as physical disorder.”
³⁴

It’s hard to know just how many of the claims represented genuine problems caused by LSD therapy and how many were either just extensions of the initial illness or problems developed independently of the treatment. Both sides were aware of this, Vizard Oldham of the solicitors acting for the NHS stating: “We are defending the action and are gathering expert evidence. The difficulty with the case is that these things are alleged to have happened thirty or forty years ago, and not all the NHS staff involved are still alive.”
³⁵
Head of the NHS litigation authority, David Towns, was more bullish: “Investigations and expert evidence led the
authority to believe that there were no legal liability and the claims were defended.”
³⁶

The NHS knew it would be difficult for the claimants to conclusively prove LSD therapy had caused their alleged problems. But they also knew they had no defence when it came to less abstract matters including whether patients were told what drug they were taking and what its effects would be. In most cases this either didn’t take place or the patient wasn’t asked to sign a consent form.

After five years of legal and medical argument, by November 2000, only forty-six claims were still outstanding. Despite their earlier stance the NHS decided to make an out of court settlement of £195,000 to the remaining claimants. David Towns still believed the litigation authority at the NHS could have won the legal argument but said the NHS had decided on a settlement to save the taxpayer a protracted and expensive court battle.

The legal conclusion to the experimental LSD psychotherapy of the Fifties and Sixties cast a long shadow over the achievements and breakthroughs made by people like Ronnie Sandison; their sincere attempts to free people from mental imprisonment thrown back in their faces. Thus, the new century began with LSD again at the centre of a media furore. Sixty-seven years after Albert Hofmann’s serendipitous discovery his “problem child”, as he referred to the drug, was still causing difficulties, still an answer in search of a question.

It is my wish that a modern Eleusis will emerge, in which seeking humans can learn to have transcendent experiences with sacred substances in a safe setting.

Albert Hofmann
¹

I
n the years that have passed since Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first synthesised LSD in November 1938, the drug has passed through a number of distinct phases in Britain. The medical and military establishments’ use of LSD was initially sanctioned by the government, with high hopes that this new chemical would be the key to unlocking the secrets of the subconscious. But support for investigating LSD’s potential quickly halted once the young people started to use the drug and it became one of the driving forces responsible for the cultural changes of the Sixties. As a result, LSD was made illegal in October 1966.

No robust medical or legal argument was offered as to why LSD should be illegal. The government’s decision was not based on controlled medical tests, or evidence from the military or medical experiments with the drug. It appeared that legislators were swayed more by the opinion and influence of the British media, as well as the lurid horror stories about LSD emanating from America, as the scientific facts. Hansard, the official journal of parliamentary record, shows the legislative process was conducted in an atmosphere of flippancy, with parliamentarians
displaying ignorance and disinterest in a drug they apparently knew nothing about.

At the time LSD was outlawed, only a few thousand members of the public in Britain, at most, had used the drug. At a conservative estimate, at least a million British citizens have tried LSD in the fifty-nine years since the first record of its recreational use. Bad practice at Porton Down and the failure of psychotherapists to inform patients about the drug they were taking aside, few seem to have been forced or coerced into using the drug. Indeed, the evidence suggests the reverse is true; people have gone out of their way to obtain, use and to pass on a drug that they believed has consciousness enhancing properties.

Of those who have taken LSD, a small percentage developed mental health problems. Opinion is divided whether these individuals had a pre-existing or latent illness, which LSD exacerbated, and whether or not the problem would have emerged had they never taken LSD. This has proved an impossible question to answer, but the negative personal effects of LSD cannot be overlooked, as it is this aspect of the psychedelic experience employed most often in media or political debate. But the numbers of those affected are small, and must be balanced against the multitudes of people who suffer serious physical and mental problems from the use of legally sanctioned drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.

Of those who have taken LSD, some have tried it once and found the experience to be so awe-inspiring they did not feel the need to repeat it, but are glad they tried it. This is often the origin of the maxim “everyone should take LSD once in their life”. Others found it to be a drug worth taking repeatedly, if only for the dazzling trip into the synaesthesic wonderland it provided. For them it was a drug to be used to have the most intense mental and physical fun imaginable.

At the other end of the spectrum, some LSD users have had the course of their lives permanently changed for the better by LSD. These changes are as varied as are the individuals themselves but the insights offered by LSD have stimulated tens of thousands of people into a radical change in lifestyle, broadly involving
some form of religious or spiritual practice. In and among these extremes, the majority of those who have taken LSD have found the drug to be a mixture of these primary reactions. For these, the psychedelic foot soldiers, LSD proved to be a signpost to a novel way of perceiving the world, a new way of living and, as they incorporated the drug into their lives, an entrée into the social grouping we broadly refer to as the counter culture. And it is the counter culture’s use of LSD which has been the main focus of this book.

The counter culture’s overarching conclusion about LSD, drawn from published sources and interviews, is that it is a powerful, mind-expanding drug. Acid is viewed within the counter culture as a sacred substance whose careful use will result in a permanent change in the consciousness of the user. Few who have used LSD believe its use should be restricted by law and most believe that it should be the choice of each individual whether or not they wish to use the drug.

At the start of the twenty-first century, public interest in LSD was at an all time low. Free festival culture had been all but legislated out of existence and Ecstasy and its analogues were the drug of choice among young people. LSD was scarce and what there was tended to be of low quality. Young people, it seemed, no longer wanted a drug that required a degree of discipline to reap its optimum effects, and dance culture tended to favour LSD of a weaker dosage, enough to provide the motivating power for endless dancing but not enough for the user to experience the full psychedelic effect.

This downturn in LSD’s fortunes was echoed in Home Office statistics, which revealed that in 2000, the proportion of people committing crimes involving LSD was less than one quarter of one per cent of total drug offences. Seizures of the drug had plummeted too, from 1859 (representing 143,000 doses) in 1990, to 292 (representing 25,000 doses) in 2000. The Home Office commented: “The popularity of LSD appears to have been waning in recent years ...”
²

LSD was further made unpopular in the public eye by the very public results of legal action taken by former NHS patients and
former military personnel. Almost abandoned by the counter culture and vilified by the legal and medical professions, in the early years of the new millennium LSD appeared to be yesterday’s drug, a once powerful agent for personal change whose time had passed, a relic of headier, more liberal days.

But there was still an enormous groundswell of interest in and demand for LSD. That the counter culture had moved on to other drugs was only partly because of the Acid House and Ecstasy movements. The fact was, if good quality LSD was not available then it could not be taken. The combination of time, money and scientific knowledge required to manufacture LSD was available only to a very small number of people. Add to that the high risk of arrest and imprisonment and it is easy to see why usage of LSD was at an all time low. LSD manufacture relies on highly motivated individuals or small groups. Its production tends to go in cycles, when major laboratories are put out of business a period of time elapses before another evangelical chemist steps forward to fill the gap.

Signs of a new cycle in illicit British LSD manufacture and use became evident in February 2004 when police arrested Casey Hardison at Ovingdean, near Brighton. Acting on a tip off from American customs officials, who had found Ecstasy in a parcel, Hardison, an American citizen, was placed under surveillance for several months prior to his arrest. When enough evidence was gathered to suggest he was involved in making drugs the police raided his rented house, discovering the most complex illicit drug laboratory since Kemp’s in 1977. They also found 146,000 doses of blotter based LSD as well as quantities of the psychedelic drugs DMT and 2CB. The police were so concerned about the amount of chemicals in the lab they sealed the street off and a large team of specialists clad in protective clothing was sent in to gather evidence and dismantle the laboratory. Hardison was escorted from the premises wearing a hooded boiler suit, as the police believed there might be a serious risk of contamination from his clothes and body.
³

During his ten-week trial at Lewes Crown Court, Hardison revealed he had made £125,000 from his illegal activities. But
money, he said, useful though it was to fund his activities, was not the motivating factor for making psychedelic drugs. His defence was, like the Operation Julie chemists, he was driven to make LSD for ideological reasons. Although caught red-handed, Hardison refused to plead guilty and told the judges that being arrested and imprisoned for making LSD denied him autonomy over his body. He argued that the manufacture and use of psychedelic drugs was a victimless crime and he appealed to the jury to find him innocent.

Prosecutor Richard Barton told the jury Hardison had come to Britain “... in order to set up and run illegal laboratories manufacturing Class A drugs, and to put his beliefs about these drugs being readily available and widely distributed into effect in this country.” This was countered by Hardison’s defence who claimed: “His actions were not motivated by greed. He didn’t do it to buy a villa in Spain but in order to acquire further experience to continue to push forward the frontiers of knowledge.”
⁴

In his summing up, Judge Niblett refuted Hardison’s claims that he had little interest in making a profit, saying, “You realised the potential profit was huge, running possibly to millions of pounds. I am quite satisfied that was your goal.” In LSD manufacturing trials, the judiciary has always stressed to the jury and the media the potential profits. In most cases, they have been far off the mark of the real amounts involved, using multiples of street prices to extrapolate what an LSD chemist could, in theory receive for his troubles.
⁵

It is self evident that profit can be made from making and selling any form of drug. Yet even when it is obvious, as with Richard Kemp in the Seventies and now Hardison, that the drug is being made primarily for ideological reasons the judiciary refute this explanation. Prior to his arrest in Britain, Hardison was known in America as a psychedelic pioneer, having published several articles attesting to his search for knowledge through psychedelics. However, the judiciary effectively represents the views of the Establishment and not the counter culture. If judges were to accept ideology as the reason for the use of psychedelic drugs it would feed the wrong message to the public. Consequently, their reasoning goes, the only reason anyone can
have for manufacturing LSD is to make a profit, the inference being that those who take LSD are in some way manipulated by the manufacturers and distributors. As the previous chapters have demonstrated, nothing could be further from the truth. Those who take LSD do so because they have chosen of their own free will.