LSD In 1960s America

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Use of LSD in 1960s America In early 1960s America, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was being used and prescribed by doctors for psychotherapy and terminally ill patients.[1] Not long after, the use of the hallucinogen had seeped into the public and was being used by prominent pop culture figures such as The Beatles, Donovan Leitch, and Keith Richards.[2] In the later part of the decade however, people began to see America’s seemingly alarming rate[3] of LSD use as a social problem and by the end of the decade, the drug was made illegal for recreational use and heavily restricted for research purposes.[4] The construction of LSD use as a social problems deals with evidence from researchers about the dangers of LSD us, the American…show more content…
The reason LSD causes a person to trip is because of its psychoactive agents. Through chemical analysis, LSD has been discovered as a close relative to the “magic” plants of Mexico, in particular, the sacred mushroom ololiuqui.[8]The psychoactive principles of ololiuqui were found to be lysergic acid amide and lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide, which are nearly identical with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). These agents caused trips that had been virtually unknown to the civilized world, with the sense of “leaving the familiar, known environment and going to a place foreign and…show more content…
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson was the nation’s president and he was “vehemently opposed to hallucinogenic drugs, holding them responsible for the social turmoil of the 1960s”[17] even singling LSD out and denouncing it in a later State of the Union address. LBJ had some policymaking to undertake. He passed The Drug Abuse Control Amendments in 1965 which amended the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938 by prohibiting depressant, stimulant, and hallucinogenic substances. These amendments saw a drop in the use of LSD, but a black market emerged and flourished, much the chagrin of the claimsmakers and people who wanted to wipe out the problem of LSD use. Hearing the cries of the public and trying for better policy outcomes, President Johnson cracked down harder on LSD. In 1967, President Johnson introduced a complete and federal ban on hallucinogens which was the first bill he proposed. This forced the National Institute of Mental Health to end its research programs on hallucinogenic drugs. When the decade came to a close hallucinogens, including LSD, had been declared illegal as Schedule I[18]
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