🌈 LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide

Class: Lysergamide · Duration: 8–12 hours · Onset: 30–90 min · Active dose: 50–200 µg

Overview

LSD is one of the most potent psychoactive substances known — active in microgram quantities. It produces vivid visual hallucinations, altered sense of time, emotional amplification, and at higher doses, ego dissolution. The experience is typically longer and more stimulating than psilocybin.

History

Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938 at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, while researching ergot alkaloids. He accidentally discovered its psychoactive properties on April 19, 1943 — "Bicycle Day." Through the 1950s–60s it was widely studied in psychiatry before being criminalized in 1968. The counterculture adopted it; Timothy Leary evangelized it; the CIA tested it (MKUltra). It went underground and stayed there until the current psychedelic renaissance.

Pharmacology

LSD is a partial agonist at 5-HT2A receptors (like psilocybin) but also interacts with dopamine and adrenergic receptors, contributing to its distinctive stimulant quality. A unique feature: LSD gets "trapped" in the 5-HT2A receptor by a lid-like structure, which may explain the unusually long duration. Tolerance develops rapidly and cross-tolerates with other serotonergic psychedelics.

Harm Reduction