Essay Sample on Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD)

📌Category: Drugs, Health
📌Words: 1270
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 10 June 2022

Lysergic acid diethylamide is a chemical that was synthesized by a German chemist named Albert Hofmann in 1938. This period was during world war 2 and Albert was based in Basel, Switzerland. This substance is made from the ergot fungus that infects the rye crop. In its pure form, LSD or Acid is a white odorless crystalline substance. It is so potent that a dose that would get the average user high is hard to see with the naked eye. When Albert initially was creating this new substance he was doing so without gloves. He accidentally absorbed the substance through his fingertips, of course resulting in him getting high. Albert took interest in this new chemical he synthesized and decided to ingest it. However, he was ignorant of this new substance he created. So he accidentally ingested twice the amount that would be considered the average dose today. Fortunately, he wrote down some notes about the nature of the effects of this new creation, he described his experience with beginning dizziness, feelings of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, and a desire to laugh. When he ingested LSD for his first experiment he did so in the pure form. Nowadays it is much more common for users to ingest the drug by drying the substance on blotter paper, gelatin sheets, or sugar cubes. These routes can be taken by either swallowing the dosage or letting it dissolve on your tongue. Dosages often vary depending on each individual’s size and metabolism. It is very easy to create a tolerance to this drug, so when taken it is advised that to maintain the effects from your last ‘trip’ to wait at least 4 days. Although Albert was the first chemist to truly synthesize this psychoactive chemical, psychedelics were not a new topic in many South American cultures. Similar plants in the South American region such as magic mushrooms, peyote cacti, and Dmt were found to have very similar chemical structures to Lsd. They also resulted in very similar effects as well. These 4 substances are known to the world today as the classic psychedelics.

Lsd can create a high due to its similar molecular structure to the hormone serotonin, a neurotransmitter found in our brains that is in charge of regulating our mood and feelings. This hormone affects our entire being and is in charge of sending signals throughout the brain and the rest of our body. When a user ingests Lsd, the chemical binds to our serotonin receptors on the surface of our brain and when it binds our receptors fold over the molecule locking it in place. Which can explain why the effects can last for 8-12 hours, whereas other drugs do not last nearly as long. Lsd changes your perception of reality, and when I say this I do not mean you lose perception of the reality you are familiar with. It simply alters how you feel, and your thought processes. The higher the dose, the more altered your perception will be psychologically and visually. During the come-up stage, which is when you begin to feel the effects of the drug, you may feel a slight clench in your jaw which can be combatted by chewing gum. Users also feel bits of euphoria and changes in vision. Now during the peak of one’s trip, when the user is feeling the most effects from the drug. Effects are described as: feelings of euphoria, perceptual changes involving visual and auditory hallucinations, increase in creativity, confusion, and trouble concentrating, nausea, headaches, fast heartbeat caused by anxious feelings, increased body temperature, facial flushes, sweating, and chills. Most of the negative side affects are experienced during a so-called ‘bad trip’, but we will get into that later. Lastly, during the coming down stage when the drug is wearing off. Users experience both mental fatigue and insomnia. When taking a drug that makes your brain fire on all cyliders, your brain is naturally going to be exhausted from such a workout.

When Lsd first found its way to the mainstream populas it was abused as a way to get high and alter your perception in a fun way. Oftentimes, it was used at concerts and music festivals and mixed with other substances of ones choice to heighten the effects. This can be very dangerous and can cause you to make life threatening or just simply stupid decisions. Not all experiences that people had with the drug were good, and heres why; when taking Lsd it is important to have the right set, and setting. Set is your mental outlook before taking the drug and also your expectations of what is to come. Setting is who you are with, and what physical environment you are in. If your set, or setting induces any feeling of uncomfortableness, stress, sadness, or anxiety, it is advised you save the trip for a different time. When people go into the experience with any of the listed feelings it is likely they are going to have a bad trip. Which will significantly heighten any negative feelings you had beforehand and put you in an extremely negative headspace of overanalyzing yourself and others. This can induce feelings of panic, extreme anxiety, and depression. In heavy dosages to users who are new to the drug, these bad trips are way more likely to occur. It has also been proven that if you have a predisposal to any mental health conditions regarding anxiety and schizophrenia, it is way more likely that you will experience psychotic episodes, paranoia, and self-harm. 

Psychedelic compounds became feared by the government during the ’60s when Lsd became intertwined with rock and roll and the anti-Vietnam war movement. This pushed government officials away from the drug and especially the current president Richard Nixon. Nixon believed that psychedelics were fueling the counterculture and even stated that ‘drugs are public enemy number one, resulting in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 which placed Lsd and marijuana on the schedule 1 list. This cut any sort of funding for medical research for lsd and the Drug Enforcement Administration was created around the same time. Propaganda against Lsd was created that encouraged the belief of chromosomal damage and birth defects.

Before Lsd was criminalized, a decent amount of medical research was done on the drug. Studies concluded that in controlled doses, Lsd actually helped treat patients suffering from depression, Post-traumatic stress disorder, and patients who were suffering from a life-threatening disease actually experienced less anxiety. Lsd helped these patients see the bigger picture beyond the problems they faced themselves, so instead of being worried and sad, they could live their lives at peace and learn from their experience. Unlike other drugs, this substance allowed for patients to remeber the details from their experience, and use what they learned in their everyday life to better themselves. This substance expands your awareness and dissolves your ego, allowing you to merge with something larger than yourself. Users describe the dissolving of their ego to allow them to be more interconnected with their surroundings, and described feelings of closeness to other people. 

The sober brain can be described as a circle of dots all connecting with different dots across the circle. But when on a psychedelic, imagine these dots all firing different connections that they usually would not when sober. Regions of your brain that usually do not talk are now having conversations with each other like they have not before. A leading psychologist once said that you can think of your mind as a snow-covered hill with different paths to go sled down. These paths get deeper and deeper as they have already been sled down. A psych trip is a fresh snowfall that lets your sleds explore a new path. This explains how a trip can change an ingrained behavior, such as an alcohol or cigarette addiction. People with depression and anxiety often find themselves in this pattern of being stuck in loops of thought and narratives they have made about themselves. Psychs can break these loops and narratives to create a new path of thinking. By dissolving your ego you can dissolve these narratives you have. These drugs are not right for everyone, but they have great potential to help those who may need them.

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