1970-2000

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.

The Chemistry and Pharmacology of Piper methysticum and Related Species

Alexander Shulgin's review of kava, Piper methysticum, covering Pacific preparation practices, pharmacological classification, and the chemistry of kavalactones and related Piper species.

An FBI FD-302 interview (July 1974) in which recaptured Timothy Leary decodes the coded correspondence from his September 1970 prison escape. Leary identifies the Brotherhood of Eternal Love as the Laguna Beach LSD collective 'Group', Michael Randall as 'M', attorney Michael Kennedy, fellow inmate William Bellinger, and the Weathermen as 'Consultants' who staged the escape.

A short Brazilian natural-products chemistry article confirming the double use of Virola theiodora bark in Yomanê hallucinogenic snuff and arrow poison from the Tototobi River region of Roraima.

An Inspector General memorandum and attached summary paper on CIA behavioral-drug programs from BLUEBIRD (1949) through OFTEN/CHICKWIT (1967-1973). It includes the Agency's account of Frank Olson's death after being surreptitiously dosed with LSD at Deep Creek Lake in November 1953.

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.

Staff testimony by CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb before the Church Committee on MKULTRA. Gottlieb discusses LSD training for intelligence officers and contract research, and confirms TSS had no informed-consent policy for contracted experiments.

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.

An Army Inspector General review of volunteer drug testing at Edgewood Arsenal and in Intelligence Corps LSD trials (1958-1960). It finds that volunteers in the Intelligence Corps LSD program did not receive informed consent before their first dose.

1977 Senate joint hearing on LSD, behavioral research, and CIA records

A joint Senate hearing on Project MKULTRA after CIA director Stansfield Turner informed Congress that financial records had surfaced for previously destroyed behavioral-research files. The hearing and appendices document LSD-related projects, agency recordkeeping, and congressional oversight of CIA human-subjects research.

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.

An Update (NIDA Research Monograph 146)

Proceedings of a 1992 NIDA technical review on hallucinogen research, prompted by rising LSD use among teenagers. Includes Rick Strassman's account of the regulatory process (IRB, DEA, FDA) for his DMT study, the first human hallucinogen study approved since the early 1970s.