Albert Hoffman, Discoverer of LSD, dead at 102

[FVZA_Colonel]

Source: Los Angeles Times

By Thomas H. Maugh II
4:39 PM PDT, April 29, 2008

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD and thereby gave the psychedelic generation the pharmaceutical vehicle to turn on, tune in and drop out, has died. He was 102.

Hofmann died this morning at his home in Basel of a heart attack, according to Rick Doblin, the head of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Assn. for Psychedelic Studies.

Al HofmannHofmann also identified and synthesized the active ingredients of peyote mushrooms and a Mexican psychoactive plant called ololiuqui and developed at least three related, non-psychoactive compounds that became widely used in medicine.

Those other feats would have been little remembered, however, had he not accidentally gotten a trace amount of an experimental compound called lysergic acid diethylamide on his fingertips and taken the world's first acid trip.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-hofmann30apr30,1,2950499.story?track=rss

[TheDebbieDee]

1. Have safe trip, man.............

RIP!

[slackmaster]

2. No, he's outside looking in

RIP Doctor Hoffman.

[Octafish]

25. Dr. Hoffmann lives!

A great man has passed into infinity.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. Well, bless Albert Hoffman...

Without him, my youth would have been a lot less colorful. :hippie:

[TomInTib]

6. I used to date Owsley Stanley's niece...

Remember "Purple Owsley"?

We had all we wanted. Made a living off it for quite some time.

God bless Dr. Hoffman.

[Blue_In_AK]

8. Oh, yes...

I remember it well. I loved that stuff.

I had a rather unlimited supply of orange sunshine at the time that I used for barter. It's better than money, really.

[panader0]

10. Owsley Stanley a blast from the past

and yes, his product was my first experience. Plus he produced the band "Blue Cheer" named for another one of his products.

[Webster Green]

31. Owsley's stuff was great!

I ate lots of the purple.

I still like to dose every year or two. You need to blow out the pipes once in a while, though I've been doing it more than that lately. Had a nice trip a couple of months ago on my 61st birthday.

R.I.P. Albert Hoffman!

One of my heroes.:hippie:

[TomInTib]

49. Every day. For the entire year of 1968.

Every day. I was bound and determined to pull it off.

[eridani]

32. Back when you could count on it being unadulterated

I'm in the been there done that mode re LSD these days, but even if I weren't, where could I possibly get anything that was any good?

[islandmkl]

4. zzzzzztttttt... ..zzzzzztttttt....

thanks for the trips, doc....

[Duke Newcombe]

5. Taking the "Ultimate Trip"... n/t

Duke

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Dang

With Gaia now...as always...

[panader0]

9. I ate a lot of it in the 60's and 70's

I should live to be 4 or 5 hundred.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Hoffman used more than you, I assure you

:-)

[ladywnch]

24. and still lived to 102...hmmmmm is there a message there?

[eridani]

33. Yep. If you have good longevity genes, you can do whatever you damned well please--

--and still live past 100.

[Trajan]

12. Sunshine ....

Windowpane ...

Orange Barrel ....

I remember those days ..... My last trip was 5 hits of Red Paper in Little Yosemite Valley in the 70's.

Wow ..... I had enough of acid after that ..... But it was a great way to finish my tripping career ...

RIP Mr. Hofmann

[Caretha]

15. awww........good ol' window pane

that's what I sent my friends in jail who had been busted for marijuana. A couple of tabs disolved on the sticky side of the stamp made a bunch of people happy. :)

[mitchtv]

26. don't forget the sugar cubes

straight from Havard. I don't know what I thought about before that day in Central Park. my first trip 2K micrograms

[Hissyspit]

13. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she's gone.

[librechik]

14. his birthday was just a few days ago--saw some video of him

he looked vigorous and sharp for his age

Opened the final door of perception, he has.

GBATFATTrips, Dr. Hofmann

[chknltl]

16. A true visionary has left us.

mmm I remember acid in the late '60s. Nothing like todays stuff thank God. Somehow we survived those days but many did not.

[stevedeshazer]

17. Acid Kills! Oh, wait.

102?

[slackmaster]

46. I'm old enough to remember "LSD causes irreversible chromosome damage"

Which turned out to be a one of many lies we were told back in those days.

[ikojo]

18. Deadheads the world over are in

mournung.

Say high to Jerry, Vince,Brent and Pig Pen!!

[FatDave]

19. So much for "that stuff'll kill ya"

R.I.P. Mr. Hoffman. You made my early adulthood much more interesting.

[rasputin1952]

20. Lately it occurs to me...

What a long, strange trip it's been....

[eridani]

34. Anybody's choice--

--I can hear your voice.

Still.

[diane in sf]

21. Goodbye and thank you

[goodgd_yall]

22. Thank you, Mr. Hoffman

for many wondrous trips.

R.I.P.

[conscious evolution]

23. Thaqnk you Dr Hoffman

You changed my life and I am grateful for it.

[kas125]

27. Fare you well, Dr. Hoffman -

and thank you for changing my life forever. May the four winds blow you safely home...

[laststeamtrain]

28. 102. That's pretty good. I wonder how long that 'seemed' to him?

I bet sometimes longer & sometimes shorter.

Best of luck Dr. Hoffman on the long bicycle ride...

[Kablooie]

35. My guess would be that it seemed 102 years to him.

[EFerrari]

29. It's not gonna happen.

[jeff30997]

30. Thanks Doc.

I hope there's acid in heaven.It certainly gave me a piece of heaven down here.

[David__77]

36. Despite enjoying it, the world would be better off without acid.

It really just causes regressive emotional states.

[sendero]

39. You must have done a lot of it..

... to know that.

[GliderGuider]

37. Happy trails to you!

Thanks, Doc, you gave the world a rare gift. I got my first taste of union with the One with the help of purple microdot and blotter. Though the urge to trip subsided, the trip itself continues.

[hollowdweller]

38. RIP His job was to shed light....not to master

[TaffyMoon]

40. It hasn't done much good.

It sure made my teenage years very strange.

[Fly by night]

41. My acid summer ...

Like many in my generation (coming of age in the 60s), acid was just one of many drugs available for the choosing. But it was one that I avoided, in part because two acid-loving friends in college took their final breaths after jumping from one of the high-rise dorms at Vanderbilt. I also occasionally was accosted by tripsters at concerts; and their loud, clumsy and wild-eyed antics just weren't very attractive.

I had always said that I would never use heroin or acid. But then in my late 20s, an undercover cop gave me a heroin-laced joint in Tyler, Texas (a small-town drug-cops-out-of-control situation dramatized in the movie "Rush"). So that cherry was busted, with the experience vivid (and uncomfortable) enough for me never to want to repeat it.

Then, in my early 30s, I returned to my farm in middle Tennessee to find that, in my absence, a tight community of merry pranksters had moved into the area to settle down. For my first few months home, I avoided the acid-laced wine bottle when it was passed around at parties and usually left when the energies unleashed by that bottle began to dance around the bonfire. But I did feel left out and more curious than I had been about this drug. Plus, unlike my college days, these acid-heads were all hard-working, pleasant, inquisitive, honorable and healthy.

So, on my next trip to DC, I had an acquaintance (who was the legal counsel to a House committee) give me five hits, with the assurance that it was "strong and clean". Those five hits allowed me and a few friends to have a pretty trippy summer. Two of the trips were extremely visual -- floating around a springtime lake watching the female bass swim languid, choreographed circles around their nests in the shallows; following chipmunks along the dirt banks of my driveway like they were costumed Dineh scampering among the cliff dwellings of Arizona. Trips that were so amazing that I can still "see" them now as I type this note.

But then there were the not-so-pleasant experiences caused by my naively thinking that acid was just strong pot. I dosed one evening before a date and then had the highway to my girlfriend's house turn into a ribbon floating skyward. I had to pull over to make sure my truck wouldn't fall off that undulating ribbon. Then I dosed again and went to the wedding party of people I did not know, where I monopolized the bride with conversations that were definitely fueled by something other than the punch. The last time I dosed (again at a bonfire with friends), I had to have someone drive me home because I didn't want to risk it. All the way home, I kept turning around and saying nervously "Someone is following us!!", even though my friend kept reminding me that his girlfriend was driving behind us to take him back to the party. That was enough for me.

Do I regret taking acid during that summer? Certainly not. But I also don't regret my decision to leave this particular drug alone. There are a number of drugs that are meant for more important things than partying hard. Acid (and psychedelic mushrooms IMHO) are two of those -- as are pharmaceutical opiates and amphetamines. But the restrictions that governments place on drugs seem to be there for two main reasons -- as an opportunity for social control and as a serious money-making venture for cops, prohibitionists, preachers and pushers (who sometimes are the same people).

RIP, Dr. Hofmann. You made my life more colorful, more informed and more respectful of my own limits. That's all good. Gary, thanks for this OP. Now to the Garden to get my springtime jollies among the broccoli and tomatoes. I only wish I had the fourth sacred plant (cannabis) growing along with the corn, beans and squash in my Garden. But then, that would be wrong (in the eyes of the "law" (sic)), and likely to give me another single bed in a dorm full of felonious strangers. That is another hallucinogenic experience I don't intend to repeat. (The last one lasted eighteen months and, unfortunately, changed my life forever (and not for the good).)

"When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the Garden." Minnie Aumonier

[april]

42. Thank You & Have a Wonderful Trip..... : ) oh Lucy in the sky

[Lost4words]

43. a seaker of knowledge and science. RIP, say hello to our ancestors

see you soon.....

[rocktivity]

44. He discovered LSD and lived to be 102?

That speaks for itself!

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[Echo In Light]

45. Many of my teenage yrs were spent under the influence of his mind food

Far goes your journey into the unknown...

[onenote]

47. what a long strange trip his life must have been!

[mitchum]

48. Happy trails

[uppityperson]

50. 102? Wow. RIP Mr Hoffman

edited for brain fart on name. who am I?