Double-edged blade

‘In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours,’ the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann mused of his first inadvertent, acid-fuelled trance. ‘After some two hours, this condition faded away.’

Five years before in Switzerland in 1938 Hofmann had chanced upon this semi-synthetic psychedelic while tinkering with derivatives of lysergic acid, a base template provided by the parasitic rye fungus, Claviceps purpurea. His toying, it would later turn out, would fix the psychoactive component, creating lysergic acid diethylamide—a drug known today as LSD.

Spurred by his serendipitous epiphany—allegedly by absorption through his fingertips—Hoffman consumed 250 µg of the nascent hallucinogen days later. ‘I was aware that LSD would have to be in use in pharmacology…and especiallyin psychiatry,’ Hoffmann jotted into his notebook.

Indeed, it was, and the 1950s saw LSDs adoption by the medical community. Its ability to induce psychosis and digest our emotions, psychiatrists envisioned, would complement psychotherapy. Meanwhile, partygoers and counter-culturists of the swinging 1960s also exploited its mind-bending properties, leading to its prohibition worldwide on the back of health concerns for even very small dosages.

Elusive

Despite its outright ban, the Class-A drug still remains the most used psychedelic worldwide. Clinical and forensic toxicologists are troubled by its elusive nature, which limits their investigations.

‘Analysis of LSD represents a major challenge,’ Dr Steuer and colleagues wrote in a paper published in Drug Testing and Analysis, citing its ‘instability, low drug concentrations’—as little as 25 to 200 μg is enough to alter consciousness—and ‘short detection