1970-2000 / Source

Lisa Bieberman's December 1970 bulletin explains the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, signed on October 27, 1970, which placed LSD and other psychedelics in Schedule I. She criticizes its penalties, its "continuing criminal enterprise" and "dangerous special drug offender" provisions, and its no-knock searches, then argues against the claim that drug-induced religious experience is "unnatural."

Lisa Bieberman's October 1970 bulletin reviews the two studies then available on whether heavy LSD use damages the brain: Sidney Cohen and Allen Edwards's 1968 neuropsychological tests of thirty users, and William McGlothlin's 1969 attempt to replicate them. Because their results disagree, she concludes there is no evidence of general brain damage. The issue also prints a social worker's letter about how taking LSD changed his work with drug-using teenagers.

Art Kleps's chapter on running an LSD session from The Boo Hoo Bible (1971), the Neo-American Church catechism and handbook. Hosted here is roughly the first half of the chapter: Kleps's advice on the session room, his distinction between 'Ivory' (spiritual) and 'Horny' (psychological) sessions, his view of what a guide needs to know, and his 'Good Answer / Bad Answer' examples for questions a subject might ask during a session.

Lisa Bieberman's February 1971 bulletin responds to news that the Black Panthers in Algeria had put the escaped Timothy Leary under house arrest. It prints a memo from Humphry Osmond recalling how he and Aldous Huxley met Leary in 1960 and later came to distrust his missionary zeal, followed by Bieberman's own memories of Leary at Harvard and a critique of press claims that LSD had ruined his mind.

Rockefeller Commission findings on CIA drug testing and domestic activities

The Rockefeller Commission's 1975 report was the first major presidential inquiry to put CIA drug experiments, including LSD-related episodes and the death of Frank Olson, into an official public account. It became a bridge between the commission investigation, the Church Committee, and the later Senate MKULTRA hearing.

Full Senate report including the chapter on chemical and biological agents

Book I of the Church Committee final report, Foreign and Military Intelligence, includes the committee's findings on CIA testing and use of chemical and biological agents. The full volume places MKULTRA and LSD-related experimentation within broader findings on covert action, intelligence oversight, and congressional accountability.

The Drug Enforcement Administration's order placing MDMA in Schedule I on an emergency basis from July 1, 1985, using powers Congress had given it the year before for so-called designer drugs. The notice cites rising recreational use, promotional parties, and a new rat study showing that the related drug MDA destroyed serotonin nerve terminals. It was issued while Judge Francis L. Young's hearings on permanent scheduling were still under way. Full text of the notice.

After seventeen days of hearings, Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young recommends placing MDMA in Schedule III rather than Schedule I. He finds currently accepted medical use and accepted safety for medical supervision based on psychiatrists' testimony, animal lethality studies, and clinical experience with supervised psychotherapy.

The First Circuit vacates the DEA's rule placing MDMA in Schedule I, holding the Administrator's interpretation of 'accepted medical use' was contrary to Congress's intent. Dr. Grinspoon, a Harvard psychiatrist seeking to research MDMA therapeutically, brought the appeal after the Administrator overruled the ALJ's Schedule III recommendation.

The Supreme Court holds that Oregon may deny unemployment benefits to two Native American Church members dismissed for sacramental peyote use, since a neutral criminal drug law requires no religious exemption. Blackmun dissents.

Congress restored a nationwide exemption for the ceremonial use of peyote by Indians in connection with traditional religions. The statute carves out exceptions for prison, military, and safety-sensitive positions.