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Raz, Shlomi. “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide as a Prospective Multi-Target Disease Modifying Therapeutic in Alzheimer’s Disease.” White Paper, Eleusis Therapeutics Ltd., 2020.
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Reeves, Thomas C. The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy. Briarcliff Manor, New York: Stein and Day, 1982.
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Further Reading
Bernadac, Christian. Devil’s Doctors: Medical Experiments on Human Subjects in the Concentration Camps. Geneva: Ferni Publishing House, 1978.
Blackman, Shane. Chilling Out: The Cultural Politics of Substance Consumption, Youth and Drug Policy. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press, 2004.
Bobrenjow, Wladimir, and Waleri Rjasanzew. Das Geheimlabor des KGB: Gespenster der Warsonowjew-Gasse. Berlin: Edition q, 1993.
Bredekamp, Horst. The Lure of Antiquity and the Cult of the Machine: The Kunstkammer and the Evolution of Nature, Art, and Technology. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1995.
Briesen, Detlef. Drogenkonsum und Drogenpolitik in Deutschland und den USA: Ein historischer Vergleich. Frankfurt: Campus, 2005.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. New York: Grove, 2009.
Campbell, Nancy D., J. P. Olsen, and Luke Walden. The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts. Lexington, Kentucky: Limestone Books, 2021.
Courtwright, David T. Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Davenport-Hines, Richard. The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Social History of Narcotics. New York: Norton, 2001.
Davis, Erik. High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2019.
Davis, Steven L., and Bill Minutaglio. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD. New York: Twelve, 2018.
DeJong, David. Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties. Boston: Mariner Books, 2022.
De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium Eater and Other Writings. London: Penguin, 2003.
Dyck, Joachim. Der Zeitzeuge. Gottfried Benn 1929–1949. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006.
Erbacher, Felix. Pioniere der Basler Wirtschaft. Basel: Münsterverlag, 2014.
Fadiman, James. The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 2011.
Griffiths R. R., M. W. Johnson, M. A. Carducci, et al. “Psilocybin Produces Substantial and Sustained Decreases in Depression and Anxiety in Patients with Life-Threatening Cancer: A Randomized Double-Blind Trial.” Journal of Psychopharmacology 30, no. 13 (2016): doi:10.1177/0269881116675513.
Hanske, Paul-Philipp, and Benedikt Sarreiter, eds. Neues von der anderen Seite. Die Wiederentdeckung des Psychedelischen. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2015.
Hari, Johann. Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Hart, Carl L. Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear. New York: Penguin Press, 2021.
Hofmann, Albert, Carl A. P. Ruck, and Gordon Wasson. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2008.
Holiday, Billie, and William Dufty. Lady Sings the Blues. New York: Harlem Moon, 2006.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. London: Random House, 2022.
Huxley, Aldous. Speech to the Tavistock Group, California Medical School. 1961.
—————. The Doors of Perception. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009.
Iversen, Leslie. Drogen und Medikamente. Stuttgart, Germany: Reclam, 2004.
Janney, Peter. Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace. New York: Skyhorse, 2012.
Jarnow, Jesse. Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2016.
Johnson, Lyndon B. “Special Message to the Congress on Crime and Law Enforcement: ‘To Insure the Public Safety.’” February 7, 1968. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson (1968, Book 1). Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1970.
Jünger, Ernst. Annäherungen: Drogen und Rausch. Stuttgart, Germany: Klett-Cotta, 2021.
Ka-Tzetnik. Shivitti: A Vision. Trans. by Eli-yah Nina De-Nur and Lisa Harman. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
Kennedy, John F. “Commencement Address at American University,” Washington, DC. June 10, 1963.
Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Viking, 1957.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. New York: Viking, 1962.
Kraepelin, Emil. “Über die Einwirkung einiger medikamentöser Stoffe auf die Dauer einfacher psychischer Vorgänge.” 1883.
Kupfer, Alexander. Göttliche Gifte. Stuttgart, Germany: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1966.
Leary, Timothy, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner. The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. New York: University Books, 1964.
Letcher, Andy. Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom. New York: Ecco, 2007.
Lewin, Louis. Phantastica: Narcotic and Stimulating Drugs, Their Use and Abuse. London: Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1931.
Lüthy, Hans A. F. Hodler. Sechzehn Bilder aus der Sammlung Arthur Stoll. Lucerne, Switzerland: Kunstkreis, 1968.
Marinković, Milena. “The Future of Psychedelics in Alzheimer’s Disease Treatment,” MIND Foundation website. June 11, 2021. https://mind-foundation.org/psychedelics-alzheimers-disease-treatment.
McKenna, Terence. Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution. New York: Bantam Books, 1993.
Meyer-Wehlack, Benno. Schlattenschammes oder Berlin am Meer. Erzählung aus dem Nachkrieg. Berlin: Verlag Das Arsenal, 2015.
Moser, Jeannie. Psychotropen, eine LSD-Biographie. Konstanz, Germany: Konstanz University Press, 2013.
Pickard, William Leonard. “International LSD Prevalence—Factors Affecting Proliferation and Control.” Erowid website. https://erowid.org/culture/characters/pickard_leonard/pickard_leonard_article1.pdf.
Poulsson, Edvard. Poulsson’s Lehrbuch für Pharmakologie für Ärtze und Studierende. Leipzig, Germany: Hirzel, 1944.
Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity’s Rainbow. New York: Viking, 1973.
Reko, Viktor. Magische Gifte: Rausch- und Betäubungsmittel der neuen Welt. Stuttgart, Germany: 1938.
Roshani, Anuschka. Gleißen—Wie mich LSD fürs Leben kurierte. Zurich: Kein und Aber, 2022.
Schmidt, Ulf. Secret Science: A Century of Poison Warfare and Human Experiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Sessa, Ben. The Psychedelic Renaissance: Reassessing the Role of Psychedelic Drugs in Twenty-First Century Psychiatry and Society. London: Muswell Hill Press, 2017.
Shulgin, Alexander T. and Ann. Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley: Transform Press, 1995.
Stoll, Arthur, and Richard Willstätter. “Untersuchungen über Chlorophyll.” Berlin, 1913.
Streatfield, Dominic. Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007.
Szasz, Thomas S. Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003.
Taylor, Kathleen. Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. New York: Vintage, 1998.
Vannini, Claudio, and Maurizio Venturini. Halluzinogene, Entwicklung der Forschung, 1938 bis in die Gegenwart, Schwerpunkt Schweiz. Berlin: VWB, 1999.
Wade, Simeon. Foucault in California: A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death. Berkeley: Heyday, 2019.
Waldman, Ayelet. A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life. New York: Knopf, 2017.
Wasson, Valentina Pavlovna and Gordon R. Mushrooms, Russia, and History. New York: Pantheon, 1957.
Wittmann, Marc. Wenn die Zeit stehen bleibt. Wie Schrecksekunden, Nahtod-Erfahrungen, Drogen, Meditation uns an die Grenzen des Bewusstseins führen. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2015.
Wolfe, Thomas. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Picador, 2008.
Notes
1. The Zone
Washington Daily News reported: Curt Reiss, “Berlin Black Market Booming, Sky Is Limit on Watches, Dope,” Washington Daily News, 24 July 1945.
“the history of western civilisation”: Jähner, Aftermath, 180.
“form of law violation”: Arthur Giuliani to Branch Chief, Office of Military Government for Germany (US), Internal Affairs and Communications Division, Public Safety Branch, APO 742, 23 September 1946, “Narcotic Law Enforcement by German Police Agencies,” NARA, NND 978040.
and put into circulation: LAB/B 36/4/23–2/18, Report of Narcotic Control Situation, Berlin District, 3 June 1946, 1; depiction of the “Office of Military Government Berlin Sector” from 8 August 1947, 3.
pills of cocaine, 0.003 grams: “Submitted as an annex to a letter to the League of the Red Cross Societies in Geneva, Switzerland, forwarded to the Bureau of Narcotics on July 25, 1945, by the Civil Affairs Division of the War Department,” NARA, NND 978040; LAB/B 36/4/23–2/18, Report of Narcotic Control Situation, Berlin District, 3 June 1946, 5.
“by the Nazi underground”: Memorandum of conversation, “Narcotic Control in Germany,” 24 July 1945, NARA, NND 978040.
be wrong with that: Harry J. Anslinger, the son of German-Swiss immigrant parents, had taken office as commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930 to oversee the country-wide ban on alcohol during Prohibition. In being nominated to this position he had gotten help from his wife’s uncle, the immensely wealthy Andrew C. Mellon, finance minister under President Hoover and owner of the sixth-largest bank in America, the Mellon Bank. The family also owned the Old Overholt Whiskey Distillery, the oldest distillery in the US, for which reason Anslinger made sure that it received authorization allowing it to continue selling its high-proof product during the Prohibition years “for medicinal purposes”—medicinal whiskey. Anslinger’s attempt to keep Americans from drinking was a fiasco. Alcohol didn’t go away, but the mob became entrenched, raking in a fortune from illegal booze, and with the mob came corruption. Anslinger had to fire a third of his agents for taking bribes, and the alcohol ban’s repeal in 1933, three years after he took office, seemed like capitulation. His resources were cut, the fleet of cars at his disposal so radically reduced that gangsters like Al Capone, who had made it big thanks to Prohibition, left him in the dust: “They use fast cars—Lincolns or Cadillac cars,” he complained at a hearing before Congress (McWilliams, The Protectors, 64). Every year the budget was cut by another 10 percent, and the FBN was at risk of becoming insignificant. But Anslinger didn’t give up. He decided to create a new enemy, one that, unlike alcohol, didn’t have a lobby in Washington. To that end he set his sights on a plant that up until then no one had seen any harm in, cannabis, used for hundreds of years and available in large quantities both in the United States and in neighboring Mexico. Anslinger was supported in his crusade by William Randolph Hearst, head of what at the time was the largest media empire in the world, with over twenty-five daily newspapers and weeklies, a dozen radio stations, two news agencies, a film studio, and one of the first television stations ever. Again and again his news organs reported on Mexicans that came over the border illegally in order to defile white women while intoxicated on cannabis. From that point forward Anslinger no longer called cannabis by its common English name but rather engineered this reassessment of the medicinal plant turned devil’s weed on a linguistic level as well, using the Spanish term “marijuana” because it sounded foreign and Mexican, so therefore threatening.
“brief summer of anarchy”: Jähner, 186.
“not yet in sight”: Giuliani to Anslinger, date unknown, NARA, NND 978040.
“years of the war”: Letter from Mittelhaus quoted in Anslinger to Giuliani, 8 October 1946; the following two quotes as well. NARA, NND 978040. Cf. Holzer, Die Geburt der Drogenpolitik, 314.
“material for our organization”: Anslinger to Giuliani, 8 October 1946, NARA, NND 978040.
“entirely satisfactory”: “Submitted as an annex . . . ,” NARA, NND 978040; the following two quotes as well.
“in pre-war Germany”: Giuliani to Branch Chief, 23 September 1946, NND 978040.
territories during the war: Memorandum of conversation, “Narcotic Control in Germany,” 24 July 1945, NARA, NND 978040. Cf. Collins, Legalising the Drug Wars, 93.
“severity as in the past”: “Submitted as an annex . . . ,” NARA, NND 9788040.
FBN district supervisors: McWilliams, 84. The matter landed on the desk of President Roosevelt, who on the advice of the pharmaceutical lobby decided against firing his top drug enforcer.
“good as white men”: Newton, Marijuana, 183.
“when he is cleared”: Giuliani to Anslinger, 17 October 1946, NARA, NND 978040; the following three quotes as well.
policemen in active service: Giuliani to Anslinger, 27 October 1946, NARA, NND 978040; the following three quotes as well.
“central control authority”: Samuel Breidenbach to the Chief, Public Health Branch, G-5 United States Forces, European Theater, 22 September 1945, NARA, NND 978040, 0660, Folder 1; the following three quotes as well.
“not stop before frontiers”: “Submitted as an annex . . . ,” NARA, NND 978040.
“might have its origin”: Breidenbach to the Chief, Public Health Branch, G-5 United States Forces, European Theater, 22 September 1945, NARA NND 978040, 0660, Folder 1.
“Allied Control Authority”: Giuliani to Anslinger, date unknown, NARA, NND 978040.
newly founded United Nations: Cf. Holzer, 296: “The efficient management of drug control in occupied Germany was instrumental to underscoring the legitimacy of America’s claim to a leading role on drug policy in the eyes of the international community.”
consistent with his worldview: Ibid., 295.
“the face of ignorance”: Giuliani to Anslinger, 7 November 1946, NARA, NND 978040.
“part of the Soviets”: Giuliani to Anslinger, 24 December 1946, NARA, NND 978040.
“line with stupefying monotony”: Ibid.
“do business with” him: Giuliani to Anslinger, 3 December 1946, NARA, NND 978040; also the following quote. Cf. Giuliani to Anslinger, 15 January 1947.
“rough on the nerves”: Giuliani to Anslinger, 3 December 1946, 14 November 1946, and 24 December 1946, NARA, NND 978040.
“achieve uniformity of application”: Giuliani to Anslinger, 15 January 1947, NARA, NND 978040.
“be described as egotistics”: Giuliani to Anslinger, 14 November 1946, NARA, NND 978040.
“just about a washout”: Anslinger to Giuliani, 18 April 1947, NARA, NND 978040.
“far outpaced Giuliani’s assessment”: Statement by Harry J. Anslinger in Lake Success, New York, 9 December 1946, Barch-Koblenz/Z 45 F/5/329–1/10.
“I have ever had”: Giuliani to Anslinger, 24 December 1946. NARA, NND 978040.
2. From Paint to Medicine
“transforming psychedelics into medicines”: Eleusis company website, https://www.eleusisltd.com.
“disease modifying therapeutic” for Alzheimer’s: Raz, “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,” 1.
man with “community spirit”: Andreas Hofmann, conversation with author, 11 November 2021, Basel, Switzerland; Frank Petersen (head of natural substances research at Novartis), conversation with author, 24 March 2022, Novartis Campus, Basel, Switzerland; Brüschweiler, Diggelmann, and Lüthy, Sammlung Arthur Stoll, 1961, ix and x.
a unique, daunting task: Willstätter seemed not to take it amiss when Stoll left his research lab for the job at Sandoz. “I write you today to once more sincerely wish you luck with the new life path that you have chosen, with your position, your work, and your new home, and to once again extend my heartfelt thanks for all your work in these rich and scientifically fruitful years” (Willstätter to Stoll, 11 September 1917, ETH: Hs 1426a:71).
he later described: Arthur Stoll, “35 Jahre Mutterkornforschung und industrielle Mutterkornverwertung, Referat in der Sitzung vom 5.3.1953 des Verwaltungsrates der Sandoz AG Basel,” Novartis Company Archive: C 102.001 (1953–54), 1.
“imitating the competition’s medicines”: Ibid.
Stoll described it: Ibid., 2.
lower Rhine in 857: Bauer, Das Antonius-Feuer in Kunst, cited in Schmersahl, “Mutterkorn,” 48. The earliest proof of the toxicity of ergot came from experiments on animals conducted by Denis Dodart, one of the personal physicians to Louis XIV.
was becoming too protracted: Stoll, “35 Jahre Mutterkornforschung,” 2–3.
“drive doctors to despair”: Ibid.
“the one before him”: Ibid.
“impact of this discovery”: Ibid., 1, 6.
director of the company: Meanwhile, Stoll never forgot what he owed his mentor: “There was scarcely a scientific discussion with Professor Stoll in which he failed to mention his revered teacher Professor Willstätter and his work in Willstätter’s laboratory,” confirmed Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, whom Stoll hired in 1929 as a chemist at Sandoz (Hofmann, LSD, My Problem Child, 21). For Hofmann the fact that Sandoz’s lab worked with natural materials was a crucial factor in his decision to work at the company, even though he had had other options.
