Acid Dreams: LSD's Profit Potential Continues to Grow
By John Persinos
There's a connection between CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia and the corner of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. In a minute, I'll explain why this improbable connection could represent "the next big thing" for investors. First, a spy story.
In 1943, a scientist at drug giant Sandoz dosed himself with an experimental substance that gave him remarkable mind-bending sensations. The U.S. government learned of these experiments and procured a supply of the new drug for federal research. After World War II, this powerful hallucinogenic substance was studied by the CIA as a potential "mind control" weapon to fight the Cold War.
The substance? Lysergic acid diethylamide, otherwise known as LSD. Although still illegal, LSD is experiencing a surge of investor interest that shows no signs of letting up.
The CIA conducted LSD experiments on hundreds of human beings (often without their knowledge or consent) during the 1950s and 1960s in a program called MK-ULTRA.
The covert CIA program was rife with abuses. Some individuals who were deliberately given massive overdoses either died or suffered permanent psychic scars. The program eventually was discontinued, without the CIA ever achieving its goal of finding a drug that could render humans into obedient automatons.
The great irony? The CIA inadvertently popularized LSD and in so doing, revolutionized civilian society. People who safely took LSD under the auspices of MK-ULTRA went on to become enthusiastic advocates of the drug. Their evangelizing for LSD kick-started the psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s.
Notably, LSD was used in the early 1960s by beat author Ken Kesey (author of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) as part of his participation in MK-ULTRA and then later with a group of San Francisco-based friends that included rock musicians such as The Grateful Dead.
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