PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

406___________
____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
thorities as a possible cure for alcohol-
ism, according to Radio Free Europe
monitors.
End of story, in the paper where I read it. Americans can
no doubt be thankful at least that they still have Radio Free
Europe to keep them posted.
Two news stories in particular were probably of major im-
portance in turning the tide of public opinion decisively
against LSD. They broke within a week of each other, in April
of 1966. One involved a five-year-old Brooklyn girl who suf-
fered convulsions after swallowing an LSD sugar cube that
had been left in a refrigerator by her uncle. The other con-
cerned a former medical-school student, Stephen H. Kessler,
who was charged with the stabbing death of his mother-in-
law, also in Brooklyn. "Man," he told police, "I've been flying
for three days on LSD. Did I rape somebody? Did I kill my
wife?" 1
Kessler vanished into Bellevue Hospital for mental tests,
and that was the last news I have seen about him. But the
case since then has been cited repeatedly in newspaper col-
umns to support the assertion that LSD "can lead to mur-
der." Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, of course. If indeed it was a
Case of post hoc.
Later in the year, in a story on the League for Spiritual
Discovery, writer Thomas Buckley noted rather wistfully in
the New York Times, "... the increasing use of LSD poses
social, medical, and religious questions that do not seem to be
receiving the attention they deserve." Soon after that, how-
ever, the drug was to receive considerable attention in the
very influential pages of the Times:
LSD SPREAD IN U.S. ALARMS DOCTORS AND POLICE
AUTHORITIES SEE EDUCATION AS
KEY HOPE IN CURBING PERIL
OF THE HALLUCINATORY DRUG
1 It was at this point that Sandoz Pharmaceuticals withdrew its
new-drug application, citing unfavorable publicity, and thus cut off
most legitimate LSD research in this country.