FATHER OF LSD DIES AT 102

Albert Hoffman, the Swiss scientist who created LSD, died at his home near Basel, Switzerland at the age of 102.

To some, LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) may seem to be an anachronism, a souvenir of the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s like lava lamps and black lights, but the drug was actually created in 1938. It's powerful psychoactive properties weren't discovered for five more years, when Hoffman accidentally ingested the drug and experienced its powerful effects while riding his bicycle home from the lab.


"[Hoffman] then took LSD hundreds of times, but regarded it as a powerful and potentially dangerous psychotropic drug that demanded respect. More important to him than the pleasures of the psychedelic experience was the drug’s value as a revelatory aid for contemplating and understanding what he saw as humanity’s oneness with nature. That perception, of union, which came to Dr. Hofmann as almost a religious epiphany while still a child, directed much of his personal and professional life."
--the New York Times, 4/30/08

From a BBC documentary on LSD:


A link to the New York Times obituary, click HERE.