One MK-ULTRA veteran wept in front of his colleagues at the end of his first trip. ‘I didn’t want to leave it,’ he explained. ‘I felt I would be going back to a place where I wouldn’t be able to hold on to this kind of beauty.’ His colleagues assumed he was having a bad trip and wrote a report stating that the drug had made him psychotic.

— Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlaine

Glossary

Mitochondria - The structure inside the cell in which energy is produced by respiration is called the mitochondria. The vitality of the mitochondria, their capacity for oxidative energy production, is influenced by nutrition and hormones.

- The structure inside the cell in which energy is produced by respiration is called the mitochondria. The vitality of the mitochondria, their capacity for oxidative energy production, is influenced by nutrition and hormones. Thyroid - Thyroid hormone is necessary for respiration on the cellular level, and makes possible all higher biological functions. Without the metabolic efficiency, which is promoted by thyroid hormone, life couldn’t get much beyond the single-cell stage. Without adequate thyroid, we become sluggish, clumsy, cold, anemic, and subject to infections, heart disease, headaches, cancer, and many other diseases, and seem to be prematurely aged, because none of our tissues can function normally.

- Thyroid hormone is necessary for respiration on the cellular level, and makes possible all higher biological functions. Without the metabolic efficiency, which is promoted by thyroid hormone, life couldn’t get much beyond the single-cell stage. Without adequate thyroid, we become sluggish, clumsy, cold, anemic, and subject to infections, heart disease, headaches, cancer, and many other diseases, and seem to be prematurely aged, because none of our tissues can function normally. Fermentation - The conversion of glucose to lactic acid, providing some usable energy, but many times less than oxidation provides. Lactic acid, produced by splitting glucose to pyruvic acid followed by its reduction, is associated with calcium uptake and nitric oxide production, depletes energy, contributing to cell death. The presence of oxygen normally restrains fermentation so that glucose is converted to carbon dioxide instead of lactic acid.

- The conversion of glucose to lactic acid, providing some usable energy, but many times less than oxidation provides. Lactic acid, produced by splitting glucose to pyruvic acid followed by its reduction, is associated with calcium uptake and nitric oxide production, depletes energy, contributing to cell death. The presence of oxygen normally restrains fermentation so that glucose is converted to carbon dioxide instead of lactic acid. Oxidative Metabolism (Mitochondrial Respiration) - The ability of cells to consume oxygen and produce useful biological energy.

Carbon Dioxide - Carbon dioxide, produced in the cells, releases oxygen into the tissues, relaxes blood vessels, prevents edema, eliminates ammonia, and increases the efficiency of oxidative metabolism.

Serotonin - Just friction, or scratching or stretching the intestine is enough to cause it to release serotonin into the bloodstream. Serotonin increases the permeability of the intestine and blood vessels, and so is likely to be a major cause of the absorption of endotoxin (and other harmful material) during intestinal irritation or stress. The biological meaning of serotonin might be very different without endotoxin, but that hasn't been investigated. In the brain, serotonin regulates circulation and mitochondrial function, temperature, respiration and appetite, alertness and learning, secretion of prolactin, growth hormones and stress hormones, and participates in the most complex biochemical webs. The simple availability of oxygen, and the ability to use it, are regulated by carbon dioxide and serotonin, which act in opposite directions. Carbon dioxide inhibits the release of serotonin. Carbon dioxide and serotonin are regulated most importantly by thyroid function.

A couple of weekends ago, I was able to witness a few friends drop acid and wander through the vineyards of Napa Valley. This was entertaining for two reasons, 1) many of my friends are ballet dancers and upon taking the drug began an assault on the senses with aerial acrobatics, and 2) lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a serotonin antagonist (Martin, 1985; Gaddum and Hameed, 1954; Savini, 1956), suggesting that their actions during that time were ostensibly related to their drowned out serotonin levels.

I've written about serotonin a few times, but the subject repeatedly draws me back in with its intricate history that coincides with LSD. While I'm not promoting the illegal use of LSD in this article per se, the drug's history and widespread use is helpful in understanding the genesis of serotonin's bizarre cultural identity as the "happy chemical."

LSD as a Psychotomimetic

In 1938, Dr. Albert Hoffman, a chemist working for Sandoz in Switzerland, synthesized LSD. Five years later, Hoffman accidentally absorbed the substance through his fingers and experienced, "a remarkable but not unpleasant state of intoxication ... characterized by an intense stimulation of the imagination and an altered state of awareness of the world."

The psychological properties of LSD were later discussed in the 1947 issue of Swiss Archives of Neurology, where a colleague of Dr. Hoffman's, Dr. Werner Stoll, reported that LSD produced disturbances in perception, hallucinations, and accelerated thinking. No unfavorable aftereffects were described.

According to the book, Acid Dreams, by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, alongside these discoveries was the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) quest to develop a speech-inducing drug, or "Truth Drug," for use in intelligence interrogations. General William Donovan, chief of the Office of Strategic Services, insisted that the need for such a weapon was so acute as to warrant any and every attempt to find it.

The CIA experimented with dozens of substances including marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, PCP, amyl nitrate, mushrooms, DMT, barbiturates, laughing gas, and speed in a multimillion-dollar twenty-five-year quest to conquer the mind. However, out of all these substances, none received as much attention or enthusiasm as LSD.

The CIA embraced LSD as a mind control drug and began testing the substance in doses of 100-150 micrograms in mock interrogation trials. Initial experiments with LSD were incredible, causing participants to unearth secrets while later forgetting the event ever happened. However, further studies revealed that those who were unwittingly subjected to high doses of LSD experienced "marked anxiety and loss of reality contact" and intense distortion of time, place and body image.

In 1949 Dr. Paul Hoch, a prominent psychiatrist, proposed that the symptoms produced by LSD, mescaline and related drugs were similar to those of schizophrenia. As Hoch put it, "LSD and Mescaline disorganize the psychic integration of the individual." Hoch dubbed LSD as a "psychotomimetic" or "madness-mimicking" agent causing a sensation in the scientific community leading to dozens of theories regarding the biochemical basis for the drug and experimental psychiatry in general.

Realizing that LSD was not the "Truth Drug" in the traditional sense, the CIA shifted gears and began looking for new ways to utilize LSD in clandestine warfare.

Spearheading new wave LSD research was Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who believed that there were strategic advantages for the use of LSD in covert operations. For instance, by dosing high ranking officials causing them to act foolishly in public. However, not much was known about LSD outside of the laboratory, so an effort was made to begin dosing LSD to CIA trainees in a "normal setting" without any warning or explanation whatsoever.