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    Cover of LSD My Problem Child

    LSD My Problem Child

    Albert Hoffman Ph.D. · 2017

    This is the story of LSD told by a concerned yet hopeful father, organic chemist Albert Hofmann, Ph.D. He traces LSD's path from a promising psychiatric research medicine to a recreational drug sparking hysteria and prohibition. In LSD: My Problem Child, we follow Dr. Hofmann's trek across Mexico to discover sacred plants related to LSD, and listen in as he corresponds with other notable figures about his remarkable discovery. Underlying it all is Dr. Hofmann's powerful conclusion that mystical experiences may be our planet's best hope for survival. Whether induced by LSD, meditation, or arising spontaneously, such experiences help us to comprehend "the wonder, the mystery of the divine, in the microcosm of the atom, in the macrocosm of the spiral nebula, in the seeds of plants, in the body and soul of people." More than sixty years after the birth of Albert Hofmann's problem child, his vision of its true potential is more relevant, and more needed, than ever.

    Biography & MemoirPsychology & Behavior
    Open LibraryAmazon
    Stats for nerds
    9recommend
    21mentions
    18people
    2009–2025years
    48% recommend52% neutral

    Mentions per year

    200920112013201520172019202120232025

    What Hacker News says

    1. zer00eyzApr 2024
      And then 4/20... and that's just a coincidence?

      It's enough to make one a bit paranoid even without partaking.

      Edit: I just went and re ordered Albert Hofman's book LSD my problem child. Its been a long time but I remember it as being informative!

      thread
    2. omgCPhutureMar 2024
      So MANY things:

      * "I've heard" is a nonstarter, I have heard lots of things, like that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Santa Claus, etc. Do you take all your information about lurking dangers by hear-say? Anyone can have a psychosis, just stay awake for 72+ hours, hey presto.

      This chilling of public discourse has lead us to routinely do absolutely dumb stuff: Since WHEN did we IGNORE dangers instead of studying to understand, not ignore and think we just can avoid them cluelessly? This suicidal concept of ignoring a danger + "just say no" crap is insane, in fact, suicidal! If we identify a potential threat we should study it and make it easy to research and insights free of political stupidity should be easily available. Oh right, we kind of do... It just takes _a lot_ of reading:

      * https://nlm.nih.gov

      * https://maps.org - I recommend LSD: My problem Child. By one Dr. Albert Hofmann. It is available as a free download on PDF, legally.

      * https://unodc.org

      * Critical thinking, LEARN IT.

      Read and understand the subject matter.*

      LSD-25 refers for the base form of the compound of Lyseric Acid Diethylamid, the number 25 refers to the extraction # Dr Hofmann performed from his experiments on a fungi found on several crops that provide the key ingredient to bread. LSD is a psychotropic substance, not a narcotic. It had promising use in psychiatry treating many illnesses, such as alcoholism, it does not however form "Manchurian Candidates", quite the opposite. Most people become kinder. more considerate and if you give it to soldiers, they toss their guns to play in the grass and trees. There is a british army video showing exatly this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=776lDlNopJU

      LSD can come in several forms. LSD is also known as Lysergide d-tartrate, MM120 patent merely patents a fast delivery vehicle in consert with therapy. They use Lysergide d-tartrate, a form not new since last millenium. LSD itself as well as commonly known solid forms, such as tartrate cannot be patented. As any child, the ones we are fond of has many names:

      https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Lysergide-tartrate...

      The patent itself is not on LSD (lysergice d-tartrate). It has existed for a long time. again:It is on the delivery mechanism, a melting tablet, and the therapy treatment that follows.

      LSD-25 refers to a liquid base form as it was extracted in Dr.Hofmanns 25th extraction. It is then in liquid state. Most substances are really refered to in base form without a qualifier, this is often completely wrongly used. I will use a more familiar illicit substance to demonstrate:

      * Cocaine means cocaine base (an oil), often called freebase as it is derived by freeing the base from the hydrochloride salt thus returning it to the original cocaine oil form, or "freeing the base". Not water soluable.

      * Cocaine hydrochlorde is the nose candy. Once bound to the salt of hydrochloric acid itforms Cocaine Hydrochloride , which water soluble and sniffable.

      * Crack is simply freebase made by freeing cocaine base from hydrochloride salt in a boiling water solution using electrons from baking soda. Crack refers to thesound the rock makes as it is heated because it is an oil and has tiny droplets of water inside of that "crackles".. Throw oil in a hot pan and drop some water droplets on (careful). Crush and dry the rock, no more crackle sound and crack -> just calcified base cocaine (freebase). It is made by putting 20ml of water in a small glass in a water bath and letting it reach boiling temperature. 1g of cocaine is then added and let simmer a minute before the small glass is swirled around. The Cocaine HCL melts at 98C when dissolved in water. Now the oil has to be captured and moved into the same place. 0.3g of baking sdoa is added and the glass swirled until you see all the oil lumps collected in one place. The baking soda has free electrons easily availble a this tempterature, so we borrow some, Once cooled there will be a rock, solid at room temperature. If you taste the water, it is salty because the hydrochloride salt and most of the baking soda isleft behind. The rock formed inwater and thus has tiny amounts inside of, which causes the crackle sound that gives it the name Crack.

      * You can simply dissolve the "crack" rock in acetone and react with hydrochloric acid and Cocaine hydrochloride will appear like a blizzard. 1g (free)base, 20ml acetone, 5 drops of hydrochloric acid, 36% is enough(home depot), stir gently 4-5 times and stop the second the blizzard appears, it is Cocaine Hydrochloride appearing from the clear solution in front of your eyes, it is magical.. Let react 1hr. Filter off and let dry. Hey Presto: Cocaine hydrochlorde (the kind you sniff).

      * Same goes for Methamphetamine - base is liquid, crystal meth is d-methamphetamine hydrochloride. D refers to the Dextro enantiomer is the stereoisomer (meth)amphetamine- THe other one is called Levo. The Correct wording of (meth)aamphetamine is really therefore DL-Methamphetamine / DL-Amphetamine. Both are oils before being salt bound in an Acif-Base reaction. Typically Methamphetamine, often dextro-methamphetamine, is reacted with hydrochloride acid to form salt. The DL forms will always be powders since mirror images of molecules (stereoisomers, DL) don't fit to build crysaline structures seen in d-methamophetamine hydrochoride aka methaka Crystal, etc. Since it is all dextro enantiomers the salt crystals can stack and build crystaline structures aka "glass" aka "shards".

      While the above example uses the Acid-Base reaction as vehicle to show how a molecule can be changed back and forth, there are many methods one can make solid form from liquid base. A tartrate is a salt or ester of the organic compound tartaric acid, a dicarboxylic acid, which is what they react the liquid base LSD to make lysergide tartrate or LSD tartrate OR lysergid tartrate (crystals).

      Likewise LSD can be bound to any number of salts, etc. Any powder-form will be LSD+something. LSD is commonly found as a tartrate salt, which is water soluble. The Acid-Base reaction came to mind, but I digress:

      https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Chemical_struc...

      Samples were prepared at 250ug in liquid solution under the rand name Delysid, in liuquid solution. It works wether you absorb through tongue, skin, nasal membrane, eat it in, drink it, in base, salts or disolved liquid forms. LSD is sensitive to light, oxygen, touch, temperature. Since we are told it is 240ug, aka 250mikrogram, we know that they have taken the water soluble LSD-tartrate weighed it and dissolved it in water. The brand name was Delysid.

      The Sugar Cube provides protection from all that as well as a natural preservative, the blotters...no so much? If it comes on blotters, if nothing else it is degraded. Some of us pick it up in cute little bottles.

      The man behind "Turn On, Tune In, Drop out" also got the federal ban on marijuana overturned - in his own trial over a frame-up. They forgot they framed a Harvard professor, a Dr. Timothy Leary, and not "some acid junkie". Marijuana has since been demoted off the UN Narcotics list onto the psychotropic substances lists, there are 3. LSD exists here, along with MDMA, Caffeine, Alcohol & more.

      Most of the horror stories you have heard are absolute BS or stem from the psych wards they locked patients in cells on jumbo doses. It has Criminally Insane Assholes (CIA:) written all over it.

      Commonly distributed by blotter sheet, sugar cubes, microdots, and dripped on candy. AFAIK lethal dose in humans is not demonstrated. It is remarkably non-toxic to our health and active in the most minute of doses.

      There are non hallucinogenic LSD derivates like bromo-LSD that are shown to provide relief to cluster headaches.

      Many variants have appeared on the black market, 1P-LSD being exceedingly common, some things sold as LSD are highly toxic, nBOMEs, for example.

      It does not make you a zombie, murderer or even those eggs in that pan on your american healthcare-via-idiot-advertisement (eggs: this is your brain.on drugs:). In fact, YOUR brain LOVES DRUGS. It runs on them. Serotonin, Dopamine, bla, bla, and in fact doses you with opioids all the time, we call them endorphine, but really it is just morphine we call endorphine since "endo" means that it is made inside of us. I guess that makes us all junkies.

      You of course realise Tylenol kills over 100 000 people a year in the US alone? That is the numbers of deaths at the hight of of the ! "opioid crisis", which is..well Iran lives next to Afghanistan which produces 80% of the world's illocit heroin. 40% of that ends up in Iran and has so for decades. THey have a opioids crisis, one ongoing for decades now. Bayer, famous for their Aspirin product, invented it and heroin, just 11 days apart!. Chemically known as diacethyl morphine, 11 days apart. It was marketed as Oover-The-Counter (OTC) Cough Syrup for Children without that habit forming morphine.... You can treat heroin addiction using Ibogaine assisted rehabilitation.Ibogaine is another, powerful hallucinogen and makes for a introspective 24hr trip, it is not fun. It also helps kick-starting the natural enforphine production the heroin abuse shut off. You should look up the 3D version of the molecule, it iis insane and as off last I checked we have no chemical way to mass-produce it.Ironicallyopium poppiees can be legally grownwhere I live, you can buy the seeds at your local gardening shop. Mostly grown byold hosuewives for their flower. Nobody does it for the opium here.

      My $0.02:

      If you can do it safely, I highly recommend it. It is great, but there are other great psychotropic hallucinogens. I prefer N,N-Dimethyl Tryptamine. What is safely? Excellent, you are finally asking the right questions.

      I have had amazing help from LSD, but also great joy and fun. The inside tip on why psychedelics work is simple: It allows you to thread a new path instead of that one you are stuck on. This is where the THERAPY comes into the picture!:) In other words it makes you more susceptible.

      You may have a fearful horrible trip, but that is likely an indicator you did not follow the rules:

      * Set & Setting - Mind SET and trip SETTING. - and tripped recklessly.

      * Read up on the drug, trip experiences, lab rapports. * Be well rested. * Have a sitter. * Keep a stash of tranquilizers(xanax:), just in case someone panics and ruins the trip for everyone else! Most people will have great experince if "set & setting" rules are followed!:) * LSD MAY NOT BE FOR YOU, NOBODY IS FORCING YOU DO TAKE IT!

      * You can check your LSD purchase with labs such as Energy Control to verify you have the real deal. They take bitcoin.

      I like my trips inside, comfortable coushy seating, good music and absolutely no god damn un-muted cell phones. It is a 7hr-ish ordeal and you can feel having bent your mind when it is over, so I like to take a few valium and sleep.. When I wake upi make or ormyself a mega breakfast and venture outside to take in how "new" everything feels. I prefer Light surroundings, preferably daylight when tripping.

      I recommend reading Tom O'Neal's book CHAOS, it will shed ligh on much BS around LSD and blow your mind.

      Ignorance is dangerous & stupid.

      thread
    3. laserstrahlOct 2023
      LSD my problem child by Albert Hoffmann
      thread
    4. happycamper22Oct 2023
      * "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman (1 mention) * Summary: Postman contrasts the dystopian visions of George Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" to argue that western society is becoming a shallow, entertainment-driven culture shaped by television and other media. He discusses the profound effects of television on politics, education, and other aspects of society.

      * "Howard Zinn: A People's History of the US" by Howard Zinn (1 mention) * Summary: This book offers an alternative exploration of American history from the perspective of ordinary people and marginalized groups rather than from political leaders, emphasizing class struggles and systemic injustices.

      * "The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science" by Isaac Asimov (1 mention) * Summary: A comprehensive outline of scientific knowledge, covering fields like physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and earth science. It communicates complex scientific concepts in a way that is accessible to non-specialist readers.

      * "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx (1 mention) * Summary: A comprehensive critique of capitalism highlighting its inherent contradictions and imbalances. Marx diagnoses the capitalist system as one in which the rich get richer at the expense of the working class. The book has been influential in shaping socialist and communist thought.

      * "Handbook of Electronic Circuits" (1 mention, authors not specified) * Summary: An extensive reference guide that provides information on basic electronic circuits and components. It delves into the world of electronics with detailed illustrations and designs, making it a valuable resource for both beginners and professionals in the field.

      * "Simulacra and Simulation" by Jean Baudrillard (1 mention) * Summary: This philosophical work explores the nature and cultural implications of signs and images in contemporary society. Baudrillard posits that symbols and signs have replaced reality and meaning, creating a hyperreal world where simulations of reality have become more real than reality itself.

      * "LSD: My Problem Child" by Albert Hofmann (1 mention) * Summary: This autobiographical work by Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesized LSD, discusses his discovery and personal experiences with the drug, exploring both the positive and negative effects of LSD, its influence on society, and its potential therapeutic uses.

      * "Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power" by Noam Chomsky (1 mention) * Summary: Chomsky provides an extensive critique of inequality in America, arguing that the concentration of wealth and power among a small elite is undermining democracy. He lays out 10 principles of concentration of wealth and power that have led to this situation.

      * "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing (1 mention) * Summary: This true account of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton's 1914-1916 expedition turned survival story. When his ship, the Endurance, was crushed by ice and left Shackleton and his crew stranded, they embarked on a harrowing and miraculous voyage to safety.

      * "Hacker's Handbook" by Hugo Cornwall (1 mention) * Summary: A guidebook for computer enthusiasts that provides a look at the world of hacking. It covers a range of topics, including telephone and computer hacking, as well as legal implications.

      * "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan (1 mention) * Summary: This widely-admired book introduces the universe beyond the Earth. Sagan explores our place in the universe, the history of scientific discovery, and the crucial role of critical thinking in grasping our world and the vast cosmos we are part of.

      * "Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" by Nathaniel Branden (1 mention) * Summary: This book provides a comprehensive exploration of self-esteem, its importance, its sources, and how to cultivate it. It offers concrete strategies to enhance self-esteem, which Branden argues is a key component of psychological health and personal fulfillment.

      * "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler (1 mention) * Summary: Future Shock examines the psychological and sociological impact of accelerating technological and social change. Toffler introduces the concept of "future shock" as a form of psychological disorientation caused by a rapid change in society and advocates for a more measured and conscious approach to future planning.

      * "The Metropolis and Mental Life" by Georg Simmel (1 mention) * Summary: This seminal essay analyzes the effects of the urban environment on the individual's mind and social relationships. Simmel argues that the impersonality and money-centered economy of the metropolis lead to individuals feeling more alienated and adopting a defensive, blase attitude towards life.

      * "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power" by Shoshana Zuboff (1 mention) * Summary: This book provides an extensive critique of the commodification of personal data by corporations in the digital age. Zuboff explores the rise of surveillance capitalism, where businesses harvest and analyze customer data to predict and influence behaviors.

      * "Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden (1 mention) * Summary: In this powerful memoir, whistle-blower Edward Snowden tells his story on why he decided to expose the mass surveillance practices of the U.S. government. Permanent Record opens a broader conversation about free societies, privacy, surveillance, and what makes a country strong.

      thread
    5. NursieSep 2022
      I highly recommend "LSD - my problem child" by Albert Hofmann, the inventor/discoverer of LSD. It's an interesting insight into the origins of the substance, and the feelings of its 'Father' towards what happened afterwards.
      thread
    6. SynaesthesiaMay 2020
      Shulgin’s Book PIHKAL, the biographical one is excellent. What Albert Hoffman wrote about LSD is also worth reading (LSD my problem child)
      thread

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