Government research

Experimental Compound MER 17 (Frenquel) and LSD-25

A 1955 medical film made for the drug company Wm. S. Merrell about Howard D. Fabing's experiments at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. A 22-year-old graduate student, "Ronnie," takes 100 micrograms of LSD; the film then shows Merrell's compound MER-17 (azacyclonol, sold as Frenquel) given to prevent or reverse the effects. It belongs to the 1950s search for drugs that could block a "model psychosis."

Let There Be Light

John Huston's documentary for the U.S. Army about soldiers treated for psychiatric breakdown at Mason General Hospital on Long Island after the Second World War. The Army kept it from the public until 1980. Its scenes of narcosynthesis, in which doctors interview soldiers under an intravenous barbiturate, record a drug-assisted psychotherapy that came before the LSD era.

Margaret Mead’s LSD Memo

A memo from anthropologist [Margaret Mead](/biographies/margaret-mead)'s papers at the Library of Congress, recording her interest in LSD and other psychedelics in the summer of 1954 and her work with [Harold Abramson](/biographies/harold-abramson)'s research team, including [Conan Kornetsky](/biographies/conan-kornetsky) and [Murray Jarvik](/biographies/murray-jarvik).

Studies on LSD-25: Tolerance in Former Morphine Addicts

I. Effects in Former Morphine Addicts and Development of Tolerance During Chronic Intoxication

Harris Isbell and colleagues at the NIMH Addiction Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky, gave LSD daily for up to eighty-five days to former morphine addicts to measure tolerance and compare effects to psychosis. They found rapid tolerance to both physiological and mental effects, which disappeared upon discontinuation.

Clinical Investigation of EA 1729 (CRDLR 3074)

A declassified Army Chemical Research and Development Laboratories report on EA 1729 (LSD-25) as a non-lethal incapacitating agent. Includes clinical studies from 1955-1960 and September 1958 field tests at Fort Bragg in which whole military units were dosed with LSD and evaluated on operational tasks; all units proved unable to perform their missions.

“Dolphin’s Voice May Be Key to Communications”

A newspaper report that NASA had given John C. Lilly's Communication Research Institute an $80,700 contract to study communication between humans and dolphins. It shows the space-age funding behind the dolphin research that later included Lilly's LSD experiments.

CIA Inspector General MKULTRA Report

The CIA Inspector General's internal audit of MKULTRA, documenting covert LSD and drug testing on unwitting American citizens through a Bureau of Narcotics safehouse arrangement. The Inspector General finds safeguards inadequate and recommends terminating unwitting testing on Americans.

Adverse Reactions to Hallucinogenic Drugs

Proceedings of a Conference Held at the National Institute of Mental Health

Proceedings of an NIMH conference held September 29, 1967, on adverse reactions to hallucinogenic drugs, published 1969. Addressed LSD's alleged chromosomal and teratogenic effects and the government's challenge in communicating risks to the drug-using public without propaganda.

Sidney Gottlieb Church Committee Testimony (1975)

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.

CIA R&D and Testing of Behavioral Drugs (1975)

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.

Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States

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.

Army Inspector General Report on LSD Volunteers

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.

Foreign and Military Intelligence

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.

Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification

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.

NIDA Research Monograph 146

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.

FDA Psychedelic Drugs Guidance

Considerations for Clinical Investigations (Guidance for Industry)

FDA guidance (July 2026) for sponsors developing psychedelics—5-HT2A agonists including psilocybin and LSD, plus MDMA—as approved medicines. It addresses the regulatory pathway for Schedule I drugs in clinical trials and identifies methodological challenges: perceptual effects complicate blinding ('functional unblinding'), and the independent contribution of psychotherapy paired with dosing remains uncharacterized.