The Unforeseen LSD Overdose of 1972

I knew a woman who in 1970 was pulled over by the police in Altadena CA. They were particularly aggressive when it came to &quot;hippies&quot; and so she swallowed her entire cargo of LSD, which was, iirc, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 hits.<p>She was out of commission for roughly 72 hours and months later still not back to normal, according to what she told me.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jsad.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.15288&#x2F;jsad.2020.81.115" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jsad.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.15288&#x2F;jsad.2020.81.115</a><p>Described three similar but more recent case studies of massive LSD overdoses. Notable in two cases are longterm positive psychological effects that the subjects attributed to the experience.<p>Popsci write-up here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;27&#x2F;health&#x2F;lsd-overdoses-case-studies-wellness&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;27&#x2F;health&#x2F;lsd-overdoses-case...</a>

A veteran of the 60&#x27;s and 70&#x27;s. Much preferred psilocybin mushrooms. Knew a young lady who grew them in her closet. Spectacular visuals, no &quot;bad trips&quot; and you never woke up the next day feeling like your dog had died...

I find that article to be almost unreadable. I recommend the original scientific paper instead, which surprisingly doesn&#x27;t have a paywall: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC1129381&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;westjmed00307-0025.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC1129381&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;wes...</a><p>Summary: 8 people snorted lines of pure LSD by mistake, resulting in coma, respiratory arrest, blood clotting problems, and other life-threatening symptoms. All were normal after 12 hours and discharged from the hospital after 48 hours. Followup over a year showed no residual problems.<p>It&#x27;s pretty surprising that one can take thousands of doses of LSD without lasting effect. Most drugs would kill you long before a 1000x overdose. I&#x27;m also a bit surprised that they didn&#x27;t get shot or something for wasting maybe $100,000 worth of LSD.

Chubby Emu should do an episode on this<p>getting down voted for no good reason so I will explain.<p>Chubby Emu is a youtube channel from a doctor who explains in medical detail cases like this, weird overdoses and such.

Funny how this story has entered the folk lore around LSD. I remember hearing some version of it in the early 2000s in New Zealand.<p>The other one was the story of a guy who had taken so much LSD he thought he&#x27;d turned into a glass of orange juice. Couldn&#x27;t lie down or he&#x27;d spill, couldn&#x27;t go outside or he would evaporate. I wonder if it has any basis from a real story.

Solo on a tropical island LSD could potentially be the one catalyst for survival for the average first worlder, just the ability to reset the mind and enter “the now” would be huge for adapting to what it would take to survive.<p>It sounds like a documentary waiting to happen. Imagine spear fishing in paradise on a few hits of sunshine, in the sunshine? I’d go.

&gt; But I find it hard to believe there were &quot;no apparent psychologic&quot; effects after taking over 26,000 μg to 210,000 μg OR 260 to 2100 hits of LSD.<p>Is it possible the body’s reaction to the high does protected it? Maybe the brain shut down in a way where it reduced the uptake? Did the cocaine compete? Some if them went into comas?

&quot;All eight individuals had plasma levels of 1000-7000 μg per 100 mL of blood plasma.&quot;<p>Those were the gastric concentrations. Blood concentrations were about 2 to 25ng&#x2F;ml.

Not happy about this sort of terror talk for extreme cases. It&#x27;s like launching yourself into the sun and then writing a piece about the extreme temperatures in excruciating detail. Most people do not interact or engage with the sun in a &quot;launch myself into it directly&quot; way and therefore mentioning such stories in a fresh landscape that will invariably become baseline pieces in search sequences, is something I&#x27;m not thrilled with. It is an amazing molecule and we should be working to research all the miraculous benefits possible at small quantities (we concentrate soap, why is it surprising that concentrated medicine exists).

What was that trippy, AI-fueled nightmare animated GIF from?

Not so profound

The story was mildly entertaining, but the authors style is intolerable. I feel like I received some <i>obscene</i> *psychic* damage reading this.