Lysergic acid diethylamide to be specific.
Discovered By Albert Hoffman in 1938, but not the hallucinogenic properties until 1943.
You can bet your bippy the CIA, KGB, all the way down to XYZ were feverishly experimenting with nefarious uses.
But we don’t care about that, no, no no no, no no no.
♫
Along the coast you'll hear them boast
About a light they say that shines so clear.
So raise your glass, we'll drink a toast
To the little man who sells you thrills along the pier.
♫
He'll take you up, he'll bring you down,
He'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground.
He flies so high, he swoops so low,
He knows exactly which way he's gonna go.
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.
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THERE’S A GUY in San Francisco who has more than 33,000 sheets of LSD in his house. Just how many more isn't clear, because no one's done an inventory since the feds last tried to bust him 13 years ago. What is clear is that because each sheet, or "blotter," can be perforated into hundreds of little acid-imbued tabs, this guy, Mark McCloud, has amassed several million hits of LSD over the years. He doesn't collect these tabs to sell them. He collects these SIM-card-sized artifacts because, weirdly enough, they’re tiny works of art.
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McCloud calls his house the Institute of Illegal Images. Scan the Institute's collection—a fraction of which is published on its website, Blotter Barn, and you’ll find a wide-ranging spectrum of art that McCloud’s been collecting since the 1970s. There’s some predictable new age iconography (like dolphins and zodiac caricatures) and some equally predictable goofiness (think pre-Emoji smiley faces and Mickey Mouse in his sorcerer's apprentice garb). These icons often appear hundreds of times on a single blotter, so when the sheet is perforated into individual hits, each tab features the same little decal—a calling card for the dealer who sold it.
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McCloud's hobby has a way of attracting law enforcement's attention. Leonard Pickard, who was convicted in the largest-ever LSD manufacturing case, is serving two consecutive life sentences for producing and distributing the drug. McCloud has managed to dodge the law. Twice. He’s framed as many sheets from his collection as his walls can hold, and he says that exposure to ultraviolet rays of light and oxygen has neutralized the psychotropic chemicals that once permeated the papers. The rest of his blotters live in many, many binders. He’s collecting less methodically these days, but blotter art is still out there. People are still making, buying, and using acid. “It’s still happening, like at those [Grateful] Dead shows going on recently,” McCloud says. “But it looks different now. I saw one that looked 3-D. Lenticular.”
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Dr Seuss, Timothy Leary, and my mother went to the same high school.
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