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The Substance: Albert Hofmann's LSD
2011 · Film · documentary · 90 min
Directed by Martin Witz
By coincidence rather than by design, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann makes a sensational discovery in the spring of 1943. He realizes that he is dealing with a powerful molecule that will have an impact that reaches far beyond the scientific world. THE SUBSTANCE is an investigation into our troubled relationship with LSD, told from its beginnings to today.
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2 comments on Hacker News
Not only Bulgaria, in Czechoslovakia similar tests were done by the army in 70s with expected results [1]. I am not surprised - a powerful unknown item is discovered, so power structures take notice and do some digging.
Btw Czech Stanislav Grof mentioned in article is/was a big name in clinical research of LSD. He later moved to US. He also has some good screen time in great documentary about LSD invention by Hofmann - The Substance: Albert Hofmann's LSD [2]
Basically if Timothy Leary didn't abuse LSD so blatantly in everybody's face for so long, it might not have ended up in same category as heroin. Even after 60 years the damage he has done (albeit in good faith, but that doesn't matter much) is not completely reversed.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HXMHdhQL_8 [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2075352/
For those interested, there is a fantastic documentary called, "The Substance: Albert Hofmann's LSD" which was released in 2011 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2075352/) that covers a lot of the history of how LSD was discovered and then made its way to the US, and then subsequently how the proliferation of the drug shaped a lot of the cultural landscape in the US.