Characteristics of the “psychedelic renaissance” of recent years have included numerous studies indicating benefits of psychedelic drugs for therapeutic use—with substance use disorders, among other conditions—and policy developments predicated on these drugs’ ability to help veterans.
It’s therefore instructive to look back on an often-forgotten history of LSD, one of the most famous psychedelics, being used to treat veterans—specifically for alcohol issues—in the United States.
The first report of the use of LSD as a therapeutic drug was published in Switzerland in 1947—11 years after Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman had first synthesized the substance. Six patients with schizophrenia were given low doses of LSD, and reportedly showed temporary improvements in their emotional states, such as reductions in depression.
In the 1950s, two forms of LSD-assisted psychotherapy were developed: Psycholytic (mind loosening) therapy involved giving patients a low dose of LSD prior to the therapy session in order to allow them to talk more freely about past traumas, which could be integrated in later sessions. Psycholytic therapy was essentially a variant of narcoanalysis (aka narcosynthesis)—a method invented by J. S. Horsley in the 1930s using sodium amytal or pentothal (“truth serum”) to put the patients into an altered state and release the subconscious. Narcoanalysis has been nicknamed “short-cut psychotherapy,” since it could be done in a matter of days.
The first paper describing the use of LSD for psycholytic therapy was published in 1950. Psycholytic therapy was used for psychiatric disorders rather than for addictions.
After Osmond and Hoffer published their results in the 1950s, a number of other facilities began experimenting with psychedelic therapy for alcohol or other drug addictions.
Psychedelic therapy, under that name, was invented in 1953 at Weyburn Mental Hospital in Saskatchewan, Canada, by psychiatrists Humphry Osmond and Abram Hoffer.
During the 1950s, the myth that “alcoholics” had to “hit bottom” in order to recover was dominant. Osmond and Hoffer interpreted “hitting bottom” to mean experiencing delirium tremens (DTs). Moreover, in the 1950s, it was believed that LSD was a psychotomimetic drug—that it mimicked symptoms of psychosis found in patients with schizophrenia.
Osmond and Hoffer hypothesized that delirium tremens, which included unpleasant hallucinations, was essentially similar to schizophrenia. They further hypothesized that giving an “alcoholic” a high dose of LSD (500 micrograms) would duplicate the experience of DTs, thus helping the person to “hit bottom” and recover. (I use the historical, stigmatizing terms “alcoholic” and “alcoholism” in this article because they are conceptually different to the contemporary “alcohol use disorder.”)
Much to their surprise, Osmond and Hoffer found that high-dose LSD gave their alcoholic patients a mystical, transcendental experience rather than DTs. Moreover, their patients who had these experiences lost interest in alcohol and began abstaining.
Osmond and Hoffer dubbed this psychedelic therapy. They found a certain setting—including music, flowers, a trip guide, etc.—to be essential to consistently inducing the required psychedelic experience.
After Osmond and Hoffer published their results, a number of other facilities began experimenting with psychedelic therapy for alcohol or other drug addictions. In the US, these included Spring Grove State Mental Hospital in Maryland, Mendota State Mental Hospital in Wisconsin, Mendocino State Hospital in California, the Lexington Narcotic Farm, UCLA and five Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals.
VA hospitals had a long history of refusing admission for a primary diagnosis of alcoholism. Service members who were labeled alcoholics were given less-than-honorable discharges.
It is worth noting that prior to 1962, the only drugs strictly regulated by the federal government were opioids, cocaine and marijuana; regulation of other drugs was much looser, and any therapist could easily and legally obtain LSD for use in their office. After Congress passed the Drug Efficacy Amendment in October 1962, however, LSD research was strictly limited to facilities with FDA approval.
VA hospitals had a long history of refusing admission for a primary diagnosis of alcoholism, although a few alcoholic veterans were sometimes admitted under a false diagnosis. The military rejected the idea that alcoholism was a disease, and service members who were labeled alcoholics were given less than honorable discharges.
The Winter VA Hospital in Topeka, Kansas, was the exception to the rule, however, and had operated an alcoholism treatment program from the time it opened in 1946. What made the Winter VA Hospital different was that it operated in partnership with the famous Topeka Menninger Clinic and served as the training institute for all VA psychiatrists. Karl Menninger was the director of the hospital’s neuropsychiatric unit.
In August 1960, Samuel Kaim was appointed chief of psychiatric and neurological research for the VA Central Office, putting him in charge of psychiatric and neurological research for all VA hospitals.
Kaim had noted that about one third of patients admitted to the VA had a secondary diagnosis of alcoholism. He began funding research into alcoholism and drug addiction at VA hospitals, and by 1965, 30 VA facilities were conducting alcoholism research. In August 1964, organic disablement due to alcohol consumption was removed from the category of misconduct. From January 1967, new regulations allowed veterans to be admitted to any VA hospital for alcoholism treatment.
In the spring of 1963, VA psychiatrist Kenneth Eugene Godfrey initiated a trial of LSD for treating alcoholism at the Winter VA Hospital. At first, the researchers attempted a version of psycholytic therapy by giving patients small doses of LSD prior to group therapy; however, this just led to chaos in the groups.
At this point, Godfrey’s patients began having psychedelic insights—and success at quitting alcohol.
Next, the researchers attempted giving the patients a single dose of 300-400 micrograms of LSD during the sixth week of treatment and subjecting them to psychological tests; this also proved to be a failure. Godfrey finally consulted with Hoffer, Osmond and Sanford Unger, another psychedelics expert, and learned the importance of setting for the LSD experience.
The dose was upped to 500 mcg, and administered to patients with flowers, pleasant music and a trip guide. Psychological testing during the trip was eliminated. At this point, Godfrey’s patients began having psychedelic insights—and success at quitting alcohol.
At least, Godfrey considered the treatment to be a success; however, he was excluded from the final write up of the experiment, which was published in 1970, and which declared the LSD treatment to be a failure.
This paper has since been justly criticized for comparing the LSD group to an unmatched control group, and its findings may have been significantly influenced by the moral panic surrounding LSD in the late 1960s.
Around 1963 or 1964, VA psychopharmacologist Leo Hollister began conducting a trial of LSD treatment for alcoholism at the VA hospital in Palo Alto, California. Yet Hollister omitted all the setting elements that had been found necessary for inducing a suitable psychedelic experience; he simply compared a high dose of LSD (600 mcg) to a dose of amphetamine (60 mg), a common alcoholism treatment of the time. Hollister published his results in 1969; not surprisingly, there was no significant difference between the two groups.
VA psychologist Milam Tomsovic and VA psychiatrist Robert V. Edwards conducted a study of the LSD treatment of alcoholism between September 1965 and April 1968 at the VA Hospital in Sheridan, Wyoming. Results were published in 1970. There were 75 subjects in the LSD group, 75 in control group I, and 183 in control group II. Control group I consisted of patients who had volunteered for the LSD study but not been given LSD. Control group II consisted of patients who had not volunteered for the LSD study.
Control group I did the worst, probably because they had been denied the treatment which they had volunteered to take. Nonschizophrenic subjects in the LSD group showed significantly better outcomes than the other groups at one-year follow-up.
In the Highlights of the Twelfth Annual Conference Veterans Administration Cooperative Studies in Psychiatry (1967), VA psychiatrist Murray F. Ables and VA psychologist Erling W. Eng reported on an LSD alcoholism treatment trial which had been initiated at the VA hospital in Lexington, Kentucky in August of 1965. By the time of the report, 122 patients had participated (63 LSD treated patients and 59 controls); preliminary results indicated significantly more improvement for the LSD-treated patients than for the controls in both alcoholism (67 percent vs. 13 percent) and social adjustment (67 percent vs. 25 percent). A follow-up study was published in May 1970. The Lexington study was terminated in 1971.
VA psychiatrist Isham Kimbell also conducted a trial of LSD treatment for alcoholism at the VA Hospital in Houston, Texas. This was a collaborative project with Hollister of the Palo Alto VA Hospital, but I have found few details about this trial.
1966 was the year that kicked off the LSD moral panic. Scare stories appeared in the January 1966 issue of a national Sunday supplement titled This Week Magazine; in a March 1966 issue of Life Magazine; in May and June 1966 issues of the Saturday Evening Post; and many more.
If the future prospects of treating substance use disorders with psychedelics are as bright as they appear, we can blame moral panic for several wasted decades.
Producer Jack Webb also decided to revive the popular 1950s TV series Dragnet and use it as a propaganda weapon against drugs and the counterculture. The first episode of the new Dragnet, premiering in January 1967, was titled “The LSD Story,” and gave a lurid account of a teenage boy deranged by LSD, who painted his face blue and died of an overdose of barbiturates. The Dragnet episodes, which I remember watching as a pre-teen, hit the public between the eyes like a sledgehammer.
Later in 1967, Paul McCartney’s public confirmation that the Beatles had used the drug only added to the attention.
Meanwhile, the March 17, 1967 issue of Science reported that LSD caused chromosome damage—a major scare when the thalidomide tragedy was still fresh in the public’s mind. Although this claim would be debunked in the April 30, 1971 issue of Science, the damage to LSD research was already done.
Research on LSD for any usage at the VA largely ended in the early 1970s, although a few projects continued as late as 1975.
The federal government criminalized possession of LSD in October 1968, and when it created drug scheduling two years later, LSD was placed on Schedule I.
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of research on the treatment of addictions and other conditions with psychedelics. If the future prospects of treating substance use disorders with psychedelics are as bright as they appear, we can blame moral panic for several wasted decades.
Image (cropped) of the VA hospital in Topeka, Kansas, via US Department of Veterans Affairs