What the CIA can teach us about LSD
By Jack Allocca, PhD
Breaking Convention 2017 (BC2017) featured several lectures on the history of psychedelics, a topic dear to Martin Lee, who published several books on the subject. On the trail of his latest books, “The Complete Social History of LSD and The CIA”, and “the Sixties and Beyond”, Lee delivered a unique account of how LSD was first pursued by the US government before prohibition. Back then, in the 1960s, policy-makers were still largely unprepared on how to manage LSD, constantly swinging between seeing it as a threat, or as a resource. Many took advantage of this legal vacuum, from scientists, therapists, artists, military officers, and cloak-and-dagger operatives.
Martin A Lee spoke at Breaking Convention 2017 about how the CIA used LSD.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was initially very receptive to LSD, and tried to deploy its obscure properties to a wide array of purposes. LSD seemed to increase talking in initial subjects, who proceeded with elaborating an unpredictable array of topics, many of which of very personal nature. This compelled the CIA to consider LSD as a potential “truth serum”. This was then extensively experimented on both volunteers and prisoners. The ethics of these studies were often of dubious nature. Volunteers were often picked amongst heroin addicts, which were offered heroin in exchange for participation in these studies. However, experiments on prisoners often took an even darker turn. As facts delivered by subjects under the effectsf LSD became increasingly regarded to be unreliable, selected prisoners were subjected to escalating chronic injections of LSD, as a torture protocol. An offer to interrupt the dosing regimen was usually made only after the prisoner agreed to provide the information required.
The CIA underwent extensive experimentation on soldiers. The aims were several, from increasing focus, strength, stamina, discipline and strategic thinking. After results showed that all of the above metrics worsened under the effects of LSD an alternative use was envisioned: LSD as a “lie serum”. The idea was to provide all soldiers with an emergency dose of LSD, to be taken in case of capture, to ensure no plausible information could be retrieved from them.
A natural progression from this strategy was to weaponize LSD. The first strategy focused on sabotage. Due to the potency, high bioavailability and delayed effects, LSD was considered the best agent to destroy the stature and credibility of political opponents. With a well-timed delivery, just prior to a prominent public speech, LSD would turn the most apt orator into a madman.
The CIA also tried to weaponize LSD as an aerosol, to be sprayed over entire villages, to disable their military capacity. This led to the beginning of what was later defined psychochemical warfare. However, LSD did not prove effective enough in this form, as it did not seem to disperse well as a spray. LSD became scheduled and prohibited shortly after, but this did not stop research in this field. Active research continued until the development of the last known psychochemical agent, 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, also known as agent BZ. Agent BZ is an anticholinergic compound related to scopolamine. Rumors alleged that agent BZ was deployed in the Vietnam war, usually leading to death instead of the targeted delirium.
