An Age of Magic

Obit for the first ever acid-tripper

I am not sure whether we should be paying tribute to this guy or not - but he certainly deserves a mention as he started something which really caught on.

Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann died at his home in Basel, Switzerland, from a heart attack aged 102. What is special about this man is that Albert was the first person to experience a ‘trip’ on LSD - he discovered the drug, lysergic acid diethylamide, in 1943 as a research chemist.

During his trials he noticed how things didn’t quite seem the same in his mind…a bit whoa, hey man, right on! this occurred when he absorbed some of the compound into his skin. He experimented further, ingesting larger doses, and began a series of ‘trips’ that went on to be enjoyed by the great such as Jimmy Hendrix, Keith Richards and, surprisingly, Cary Grant.

Even though this drug had it’s place in psychiatric use he claimed it was very cheap to produce and so became open to much abuse; it was banned when users threw themselves out of windows thinking they could fly and had wings.

Whatever. The thing is, this man worked until he died - at 102. Must be have been something in all those ‘trips’ he took…

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