Listen up folks, bicycle day is coming up on April 19th, but don’t let the name confuse
you, it’s not about bikes, this is a day honoring the colorful journey chemist Albert
Hoffman took from his laboratory after his first experiment with his “problem child”
molecule, LSD-25.
Today we’re talking the psychedelic history of LSD, so get ready turn on, tune in, but
don’t drop out – you might learn something.
The story starts right here, or rather, on a fungus that grows on rye known as ergot.
In the middle ages, ergot was responsible for a terrible widespread illness called St.
Anthony’s fire, which would later be known as ergotism.
Its symptoms include gangrenous limbs or convulsions with hallucinations and delirium.
Many pregnant women stricken with this illness would suffer miscarriages, and so later ergot
would be used as a folk medicine to induce labor and limit bleeding after childbirth.
When a natural substance is found to have medicinal effects, scientists try to understand
why, in an effort to create a drug.
So chemist Arthur Stoll working at the Swiss chemical company Sandoz isolated ergotamine
from ergot in 1918, and it was ultimately sold under the name Gynergen as a migraine
remedy.
By the 1930s, Sandoz had a pharmaceutical laboratory where chemists experimented with
naturally occurring molecules, developing new reactions in order to make synthetic products
that might become superior medicines.
Albert Hoffman was one such chemist working under Stoll who continued his boss’s research
into ergotamine.
Later, American chemists isolated the core structure of ergotamine, called lysergic acid.
This stuff proved to be difficult to work with due to its quick decomposition and so
Hoffman dedicated himself to making a more stable form.
He found that he could use the Curtius Synthesis, to add stabilizing amine groups.
Using this technique he was able to change lysergic acid into the much easier to handle
ergobasine, a compound that had been previously isolated from natural ergot.
This laboratory success told Hoffman he was on the right track.
So in 1938, he began a series of experiments, mixing and matching lysergic acid with different
organic molecules in search of new medicines.
On his twenty fifth attempt, Hoffman thought he might be able to create a new stimulant
drug to replace a circulatory stimulant called nikethamide.
This experiment lead him to synthesize for the first time, lysergic acid diethylamide,
or LSD-25.
This new molecule had a similar shape to nikethamide with not-so-similar effects in the lab.
Aside from some restless behavior in test rats, LSD-25 didn’t exhibit the appropriate
characteristics and was put on the wayside for the next five years.
But in that time, Hoffman continued to have a lingering suspicion that there was something
more to this otherwise not-very-useful chemical.
So In 1943, while synthesizing a new test sample, he found himself feeling quite strange,
in what he described as, “a remarkable restlessness combined with a slight dizziness.”
Concerned with his condition, he headed home early only to experience “fantastic pictures,
extraordinary shapes with intense kaleidoscopic play of colors.”
Hoffman was the first person on Earth to experience the psychedelic effects of LSD-25, Inspired
by both this novel experience and his intuition, he decided to take an up close and personal
look at the molecule.
Three days later on April 19th,Hoffman got his lab notes together and dosed himself with
LSD.
At 4:20pm, he consumed 0.25 milligrams, which he thought would not be enough to do anything.
To be clear, this was VERY BAD IDEA.
No one should EVER taste lab products.
Ever.
Forty minutes later he wrote that he was feeling dizzy, having visual distortions, and experiencing
the urge to laugh – this entry would also be his last that day.
Overcome by the experiment he asked his lab assistant to help him home but with WWII restricting
the availability of cars the only way was by bike.
Hoffman had the most memorable cruise of his lifetime, and thus Bicycle Day was born.
From that powerful experience and onward, Hoffman and his peers continued to chemically
experiment with LSD.
By the 1950s, researchers took interest in the potential therapeutic value for treating
schizophrenia, depression, and even alcoholism.
Word about the mind-altering powers of LSD began to leak outside of the lab and by the
60s its impact on pop culture became clear.
While this era was defined by a sense of freedom in expression, the unregulated, often irresponsible
uses of LSD led to a largely negative perception of the drug.
In the 1970s the United Nations started bans on psychedelics such as LSD, and labs generally
stopped working with it.
In the United States, LSD is a Schedule 1 drug which means that is it considered to
have a high likelihood of abuse and no currently proven medical use.
Hoffman was personally disappointed that LSD’s casual abuse overshadowed its scientific potential.
Recently however, new research has emerged revealing more about how LSD interacts with
our brains.
This research area is still very new, but it could open the door to new therapies for
depression, addiction, or anxiety.
If you want to learn more about what LSD does in the brain, we’ve got some links to recent
papers in the description.
As for Bicycle Day, we urge you to take a bike ride to honor the fantastic journey of
chemistry, and show your love for the exciting discovery that happens in the lab every day.
Hit thumbs up if you love chemistry, and now that you’ve tuned in until the end, you
can drop out.