Psychedelic Timeline

~ 3700 BCE

Native Americans in the Rio Grande area collected peyote buttons and manufactured peyote effigy sculptures which were found in the Shumla Caves.

~3000 BCE – 2500 BCE

Matacao Indian shamans used cebil (Anadenanthera colubrine) in northwest Argentina.

~ 2000 BCE

Ergot may have been used to make the potion called kykeon, used in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

~1500 BCE

Archaeological “mushroom stones” indicate that a sophisticated mushroom cult existed in Guatemala.

~1500 BCE - 1200 BCE

The Indian Rig Veda described the use of the psychedelic drink called Soma.

~1300 BCE

A Chavín stone carving from a temple in northern Peru showed the principal deity holding a San Pedro cactus.

~1000 BCE

Near the eastern bank of the Pegtymel River in Siberia, petroglyphs depicting anthropomorphic figures with mushrooms attached to their heads indicate that Amanita muscaria was used by the Chukotka people.

1000 BCE

Statues in Mexico depicted Psilocybe mexicana with god-like figures emerging from it, indicating religious use.

Peyote was used ceremonially by indigenous cultures in Texas and Mexico.

500

A mural from Teotihuacán, Mexico, depicted a Mother Goddess with her priests and a vine of ololiuqui (Turbina corymbosa).

~790

A burial site in Northern Chile included a bag with snuffing paraphernalia and snuff remnants containing DMT and 5-MeO-DMT.

1496

Friar Ramon Pane documented the use of a psychoactive snuff called cohoba/yopo among the Taino who inhabited the island of Hispaniola Haiti/Dominican Republic.  Cohoba/yopo is made from Anadenanthera peregrina, which contains  DMT and 5-MeO-DMT.

~1510

The statue of Xochipilli, Aztec Prince of Flowers, was discovered on the slopes of volcano Mount Popocatepetl. Glyphs depicted a tendril of morning glory, flower of morning glory, a bud of sinicuiche (Heimia salicifolia), and caps of Psilocybe aztecorum.

1560

Spanish priest Bernardino de Sahagún wrote in his Florentine Codex about the use of peyote and teonanacatl mushrooms by the Aztecs.

1570 – 1575

Franciso Hernández carried out investigations in Mexico and recorded the preparation and use of ololiuqui by the Aztecs.

1588

Johannes Thalius described ergot in Sylva Hercynica.

1591

Juan de Cardenas published Problemas y Secretos Maravillosos de Las Indias in which he described peyote use in the Indies. This is the oldest published account of peyote use.

1620

The first English language appearance of the term “conscious” appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary.  It was defined as “inwardly sensible or aware.”

1638

The first proper botanical description of peyote was made by Francisco Hernández.

1651

Francisco Hernández identified ololiuqui as a morning glory. He described it and discussed its medical uses, its value as an aphrodisiac and its ceremonial use by priests.

1658

The first illustration of ergot was drawn by Swiss botanist Bauhin’s son.

A Polish prisoner of war described the Ob-Ugrian Ostyak culture from western Siberia.  “They eat certain fungi in the shape of fly agarics, and thus they become drunk worse than on vodka, and for them, that’s the very best banquet.”

~1690

A Spanish missionary in Nayarit provided the first account of a peyote ritual practiced by the Cora tribe.

1783

The fly agaric gains its modern name Amanita muscaria when it is moved to the genus Amanita by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

1799: October 3rd

The first psychedelic mushroom experience was documented in the London Medical and Physical Journal by Dr. Everard Brande. The mushrooms were determined to be Psilocybe semilanceata.

1801

Baron Alexander Humboldt identified the yopo tree as Anadenanthera peregrine.

1847

The first published image of peyote appeared in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine.

1851

While exploring the Amazon, English ethnobotanist Richard Spruce observed the Tukano Indians of the Rio Uapes in Brazil engaging in a visionary ritual involving drinking tea made from the ayahuasca vine. He drank a small amount of the tea. He named the vine Banisteria caapi and sent samples home for chemical analysis. This is the earliest known western record of the psychoactive effects of ayahuasca.

1857

Peyote’s effects were first described in the New Orleans Picayune.

1858

Geographer Manuel Villavicencio published his experiences drinking ayahuasca in Geografia de la Republica Del Ecuador. He described his experience of “flying” to marvelous places.

1864

Griffon du Bellay first reported the use of the iboga root as a stimulant and aphrodisiac in Gabon and the Congo.

1867

Iboga was promoted to the public at the Paris Exposition. Afterward, tonics based on the whole plant extract became extremely popular in France and Belgium.

1880

During a widespread shortage of wine in Italy, Dr. Batista Grassi wrote an enthusiastic paper recommending Amanita muscaria as an alternative.

1884

In Laredo, Texas, Anna Nickels sold peyote by mail-order.  She was one of the first commercial suppliers and the only woman among them.

1887

Dried peyote buttons were distributed by Parke Davis & Co. Louis Lewin obtained them and began extracting, characterizing, and self-experimenting with them.

1889

The genus Tabernanthe was established and the botanical description of Tabernanthe iboga was made by Henri Baillon at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

1893

Quanah Parker, chief of the Comanche tribe, gave 50 pounds of dried peyote buttons to Smithsonian Institute archaeologist James Moody.  Moody took the peyote to Washington where it was used in the first scientific trials, including self-experiments by neurologist Weir Mitchell and psychologist William James. 

1894

Peyote was classified as Lophophora williamsii.

1895

The first scientific trial of peyote occurred in Washington, DC at Columbian (now George Washington) University. In a dorm room, under medical supervision, a 27 year old male ate three dried buttons.  Results of the experiment were published in the Therapeutic Gazette.

1896: December

Two early experience reports describing the effects of a peyote extract were published in The British Medical Journal

1897: November 23rd

Arthur Heffter demonstrated that mescaline is the main psychedelic component in peyote by consuming 150 mg of mescaline hydrochloride. This is the first psychedelic experience with a purified compound.

1901

Ibogaine was first isolated from Tabernanthe iboga by Jean Dybowsky.

In the Contes Rendu Societe Biologue, Cesaire Phisalix first described the visionary effects of ibogaine.

1902

Havelock Ellis published “Mescal: A Study of a Divine Plant” in Popular Science.

1904: August

American mycologist Franklin Sumner Earle was the first person to collect and identify Psilocybe cubensis in Cuba.

1906

Stropharia cubensis was described by Franklin Earle in a Cuban agronomy journal.

1907: March 12th

British occultist, ceremonial magician and author Aleister Crowley first ingested the Parke-Davis fluid extract of peyote.  He went on to form the Thelema religion, which embraced the sacramental use of peyote.  He often used peyote in combination with opium, hash and absinthe.

1912

MDMA was first synthesized by Anton Köllisch and patented by Merck Pharmaceuticals in Germany.

1914: September 18th

A firsthand experience report of ingesting psilocybin mushrooms was published in Science magazine.

1918

James Mooney, a Smithsonian Institute archeologist who traveled through Oklahoma in 1891 participating in various peyote ceremonies, became convinced of the need to unite the Indians and protect their legal right to worship with peyote. He wrote the charter and incorporated the Native American Church.

1919

Mescaline was first synthesized by Ernst Spath.

1923

A film of South American yage ceremonies was shown at the annual meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association.

1924

Louis Lewin published Phantastica, a landmark book on psychopharmacology.

1927

Chemists E. Perrot and M. Raymond-Hamet isolated the active agent from Banisteriopsis caapi and name it “telepathine” due to accounts that it induced telepathy in Amazonian tribes.

1929

Shortly before his death, Louis Lewin published his monograph Banisteria Caapi.

1930

Over a dozen states outlawed possession of peyote, largely as an anti-Native American statement.

1931

DMT was first synthesized by British chemist Richard Manske and named “nigerine.”

1936

Ethnobotanist Dr. Blas Reko travelled to Oaxaca, Mexico and confirmed that teonanacatl was the psilocybin mushroom, refuting the prevailing belief that teonanacatl was peyote.

1938

Roberto J. Weitlaner’s daughter, Irmgard, along with anthropologist Jean Basset Johnson and two others were the first Caucasians to attend a mushroom ceremony in Huatla, Oaxaca.

Harvard botanist Richard E. Schultes,  who had joined Blas Reko in his field research, published a paper identifying teonanacatl as the mushroom genera Panaeolus sphinctrinus and Stropharia cubensis. The specimens were housed in the Harvard herbarium.

During an expedition in Mexico, anthropologist Jean Johnson learned that the Mazatecs drank a “tea” for divination.  It was made from the beaten leaves of the “hierba Maria” plant, which was probably Salvia divinorum.

1938: November 16th

Dr. Albert Hofmann, working for Sandoz laboratories, synthesized LSD-25. He stated, “I had planned the synthesis of this compound with the intention of obtaining a circulatory and respiratory stimulant”. Colleagues showed no interest in it, so testing was discontinued.

1939

Anthropologist Weston La Barre published The Peyote Cult, a landmark text on the Native American peyote religion.

1943: April 16th

“A peculiar presentiment – the feeling that this substance could possess properties other than those established in the first investigations – induced me, five years after the first synthesis, to produce LSD-25 once again so that a sample could be given to the pharmacological department for further tests.” Albert Hofmann accidentally absorbed a small amount of LSD. This was the first human experience with LSD-25.

1943: April 19th

Bicycle Day. Albert Hofmann took 250 μg of LSD. This was the first time a human intentionally used LSD.

1943: June 12th

Twenty-one-year-old Susi Ramstein was the first woman to take LSD. She initially took 100 μg and had a good experience. Susi was Hofmann’s lab assistant, and she accompanied him from Sandoz to his home via bicycle on the day that Hofmann took his first dose of LSD.

1945

Blas Reko referred to a “magic plant” employed by the Cuicatec and Mazatec Indians to produce visions. It was known as the “hoja de adivinación” (leaf of prophecy). Although Reko couldn’t identify the plant, it was likely Salvia divinorum.

1945: October

The US Navy Technical Mission reported that the Germans were conducting mescaline experiments on prisoners at the Nazi concentration camp in Dachau.

1947

Sandoz Laboratories marketed LSD under the name Delysid as a psychiatric drug to be used for treating a wide variety of mental disorders.  Sandoz provided researchers with free supplies of LSD.  In its marketing literature, Sandoz suggested that psychiatrists take LSD to gain a better subjective understanding of the schizophrenic experience, and many did.

The first article on the mental effects of LSD was published by Werner Stoll in the Swiss Archives of Neurology.

The U.S. Navy initiated Project Chatter. At the Medical Research Institute in Bethesda Maryland, Dr. Charles Savage gave subjects mescaline to determine if it could be used as a truth serum.

1949

Boston psychiatrist Max Rinkel obtained LSD from Sandoz and was the first person to bring it to the United States.  He conducted an LSD study with 100 volunteers at the Boston Psychopathic Institute.

Hungarian psychiatrist Nicholas Bercel commenced LSD research in Los Angeles.

1950

Dr. Paul Hoch theorized that LSD was a “psychotomimetic: or “madness-mimicking” agent. Though his thesis was incorrect, it caused a sensation in scientific circles and accelerated the science of neurochemistry, leading to the discovery of neurotransmitters, specifically serotonin.

1950: August

The first American article about LSD appeared in Diseases of the Nervous System, where it was suggested that LSD might be useful as an aid to psychotherapy.

1951

Captain Al Hubbard first took LSD. He would go on to become one of the most important, most intriguing, and often forgotten, psychedelic  innovators.  He was a strong advocate of LSD-assisted psychotherapy.  He was the first person to emphasized how one’s mental state and intention, coupled with the use of a comfortable treatment room that featured evocative pictures, flowers and music are essential to a safe, therapeutic, potentially transformative experience.  Though he didn’t use the terms, he was the first to describe and stress the importance of what we now call “set” and “setting.”

His life’s mission was to introduce LSD to as many people as possible. He traveled with a leather case containing pharmaceutically pure LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. Over a 20 year period, Hubbard conducted LSD sessions at the Hollywood Hospital; with Dr. Abram Hoffer and Dr. Humphry Osmond; with Myron Stolaroff at the International Federation for Advanced Study and at the Stanford Research Institute.

Ironically, Hubbard also worked for the Canadian Special Services, the U.S. Justice Department, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.  He introduced more than 6,000 people to LSD, including scientists, politicians, intelligence officials, diplomats, and church figures. He was known as “Captain Trips” and the “Johnny Appleseed of LSD.”

1952

In the American Journal of Psychiatry, Dr. Charles Savage published the first study of the use of LSD to treat depression.

Dr. Humphry Osmond and Dr. Abram Hoffer began treating alcoholics with LSD and mescaline at Weyburn Hospital in Saskatchewan, Canada. Treatment involved a single high dose of LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy. They reported abstinence rates of 50%.

Anthropologist Roberto Weitlaner reported the use of “hierba de María” by the Mazatecs in the Oaxacan village of Jalapa de Díaz. The shaman prepared a leaf infusion, which the patient drank. Fifteen minutes after ingesting the potion, the patient would go into a semi-delirious trance and from his speech the shaman diagnosed and treated the ailment.

1953

Dr. Ronald Sandison opened the first LSD clinic at Powick Hospital in England. His “psycholytic” treatment used low to medium doses of LSD over repeated sessions as an adjunct to psychoanalysis.

The CIA began operation MK-Ultra, in which unwitting subjects in the United States were given LSD.

To assess LSD’s use as a non-lethal incapacitant, the United States Army Chemical Corp Army began administering LSD to civilian volunteers and servicemen at Edgewood Arsenal , Fort Bragg, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Fort Benning, Fort Leavenworth and Dugway Proving Ground.

William Burroughs visited the Amazon and drank ayahuasca.

Amateur mycologist R. Gordon Wasson visited Oaxaca Mexico and sat in on a mushroom ritual.

1953: May 6th

Aldous Huxley took 400 mg of mescaline under the supervision of Dr. Humphry Osmond. Huxley commented, “It was without question the most extraordinary and significant experience this side of the Beatific Vision.”

1954

The Eli Lilly Company in Indianapolis began manufacturing LSD.

Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception was published. In it he described his experience with mescaline.

Richard Schultes published the first detailed description of the genus Virola as well as its preparation and use among Colombian Indians. Virola contains DMT and 5-MeO-DMT.

In Los Angeles, psychiatrist Dr. Oscar Janiger administered LSD to patients to determine the subjective nature of the LSD experience. When his research concluded in 1962, he had administered LSD to approximately 900 patients.

1955

The first conferences focusing on LSD and mescaline took place in Atlantic City and Princeton, N.J.

Under the supervision of Captain Al Hubbard, Aldous Huxley took LSD.

DMT and 5-MeO DMT were identified as the active chemicals in the Anadenanthera peregrina seeds used to make cohoba snuff. This marked the first time these chemicals were discovered occurring naturally in plants.

1955: June 29th

R. Gordon Wasson and Allan Richardson were the first two Americans to ingest mushrooms at a ritual. They did so under the supervision of Maria Sabina. The ritual and the mushrooms were popularized by Wassons’ book Mushrooms, Russia and History.

1956

Dr. Stanislav Grof first took 250 μg of LSD.

R. Gordon Wasson invited French mycologist Roger Heim to Oaxaca to research the use of sacred mushrooms. He identified 14 species and several subspecies belonging to three genera, Psilocybe, Stropharia, and Conocybe. Many of these were new to mycology.

Stephen Szára injected DMT and became the first person to describe its psychedelic properties. His subsequent research publicized DMT’s properties to the rest of the world.

In a letter to Aldous Huxley, Dr. Humphry Osmond wrote, “To fathom hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic.”  Thus, he coined the term “psychedelic”, meaning mind-manifesting. Previously, the drugs were erroneously called psychotomimetic or hallucinogenic.  Osmond and Abram Hoffer employed the term to describe their use of a single high dose of LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy.

1957

Mexican botanist Arturo Gómez Pompa collected specimens of a hallucinogenic Salvia plant he described as “ska [sic] Pastora”. He could not identify the sage at the species level.

The definitive description of the chemical structure of ibogaine was published by W.I. Taylor in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

1957: May 13th

Life magazine published a story on Psilocybe mexicana written by R. Gordon and Valentina Wasson. The article was instrumental in popularizing psychedelics in America.

1958

Albert Hofmann isolated and determined the structure of the two active agents in mushrooms. He named them psilocybin and psilocin.

Alan Watts was invited to test the mystical qualities of 100 µg of LSD-25 by Dr. Keith Ditman of the Neuropsychiatric Clinic at UCLA Medical School. Watts stated, “Indeed, my first experiment with LSD-25 was not mystical.”

Several months later in 1959, Watts tried LSD-25 again with Drs. Sterling Bunnell and Michael Agron of the Langley-Porter Clinic, in San Francisco. He reported, “In the course of two experiments I was amazed and somewhat embarrassed to find myself going through states of consciousness that corresponded precisely with every description of major mystical experiences that I had ever read.”

1959

Allen Ginsberg took LSD at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California.

Produced by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, the First International Conference on LSD Therapy was held in Princeton, NJ.

Albert Hofmann published the synthesis of psilocybin.

In an interview with syndicated columnist Joe Hyams, Cary Grant extolled the wonders and benefits of LSD therapy. The interview was published in several popular magazines, creating a surge in demand for LSD therapy.

1960

Sandoz Pharmaceutical began producing psilocybin pills, called Indocybin.  Each pill contained 2 mg of psilocybin.

Ken Kesey volunteered as an experimental subject at the Veterans Hospital in Menlo Park, where he was given LSD, mescaline, Ditran and AMT.

Arizona Judge Yale McFate ruled that Native Americans were guaranteed access to peyote under the First and Fourteenth amendments.

While living in New York City, Brit Michael Hollingshead purchased a gram of LSD from Sandoz. He mixed it with distilled water and confectioner’s sugar and transferred the “divine confection” into a sixteen-ounce mayonnaise jar. It contained 5000, 200 µg spoonful’s of LSD. “I had…been tasting the preparation during its making…and must have absorbed about the equivalent of five heavy doses before I finally screwed the lid on the mayonnaise jar, which left me somewhat unprepared for what was to follow.”

Bernard Roseman made LSD in Dr. James Grossman’s lab at Cal Biochem.  Roseman and his partner Bernard Copley were the first underground chemists to manufacture and distribute bulk LSD.  Their acid was impure and they claimed that it came from Israel.  That lie would come back to haunt them.

Jacques Poisson was the first person to isolate mescaline from a San Pedro cactus. His findings were published in Annales Pharmaceutiques Françaises.

1960: April 16th

Alexander Shulgin ingested 400mg of mescaline sulfate for the first time. The experience “unquestionably confirmed the entire direction of my life”. He would go on to create over 200 new psychedelic compounds.

1960: August

Dr. Timothy Leary ate magic mushrooms in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He stated, “It was above all and without question the deepest religious experience of my life.” During the same year he tried synthetic psilocybin and obtained some from Sandoz in order to experiment on prisoners in Concord State Prison, Massachusetts. Dr. Richard Alpert assisted him.

Dr. Timothy Leary, Dr. Ralph Metzner and Dr. Richard Alpert started the Harvard Psilocybin Project. They gave psilocybin to graduate students and many volunteers including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Aldous Huxley.

1960 – 1967

Stan Grof was the Principal Investigator in a psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He conducted over 4000 LSD therapy sessions.

1961

In Tangiers, William Burroughs took mescaline under Timothy Leary’s supervision. Burrough’s stated, “No good, no bueno.”

Electrical engineers Myron Stolaroff, and Willis Harman formed the International Foundation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park, California. The foundation’s mission was to explore the potential of LSD to enhance human personality and creativity in healthy people. 350 people experienced guided LSD sessions before the foundation closed in 1966.

1961: July 12th

R. Gordon Wasson drank tea made from the juice of 34 pairs of “ska Pastora” leaves. He noted that the effects came on much faster than mushrooms, but they lasted a much shorter time. He reported seeing only, “dancing colors in elaborate, three-dimensional designs.”

1961: September

Michael Hollingshead met Timothy Leary and moved into the attic of his house. Hollingshead gave LSD to Timothy Leary and guided him through his first trip. Leary described the trip as “the most shattering experience of my life”.

Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert tried LSD for the first time, courtesy of Hollingshead. LSD became part of their research repertoire. Hollingshead joined the Harvard Psilocybin Project as Leary’s assistant. He conducted LSD sessions and taught a graduate psychology course on their clinical applications.

1962

In an expedition organized by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann visited Maria Sabina with a bottle of psilocybin pills that he had synthesized at Sandoz.  Maria tried them and was pleased that she could now experience the effects even when mushrooms were not available.

Congress passed new drug safety regulations and the FDA designated LSD as an experimental drug and restricted research. Sandoz restricted LSD sales.

1962: June

Sterling Bunnel brought the first live Salvia plants to the United States from Huautla de Jiménez. Cuttings from this sample were widely propagated and disseminated.

1962: October 9th

R. Gordon Wasson and Anita Hofmann, wife of Albert Hofmann, drank juice of Salvia leaves. Mrs. Hofmann “saw striking, brightly bordered images.”  Two days later, Albert Hofmann tried the leaves and found himself  “in a state of mental sensitivity and intense experience, which, however, was not accompanied by hallucinations.”

1962: December

Wasson and Hofmann collected flowering samples of Salvia for identification. Carl Epling and colleagues identified it as a novel species and gave it the name Salvia divinorum.

Nick Sand had his first psychedelic experience with mescaline.

1962 – 1963

Howard Lotsof conducted experiments on ibogaine’s use in the treatment of cocaine and heroin addiction.

1963

LSD first appeared on the streets as sugar cubes.

Articles about LSD appeared in Look and The Saturday Evening Post.

Myron Stolaroff bought LSD from Bernard Roseman and Bernard Copley and then reported them to the FDA.

Douglas George set up an LSD lab in Hermosa Beach, California. Because he omitted the crucial purification processes, his acid was an impure, green goo. He believed that the effective dose of LSD was so small that any impurities would not be toxic, so he distributed it anyway.

1963: January

Michael Hollingshead moved to New York City and formed the Agora Scientific Trust Inc., with co-directors John Beresford, M.D. and Jean Houston, Ph.D. He conducted hundreds of guided LSD sessions before the Agora closed in December.

1963: April 3rd

Bernard Roseman and Bernard Copley were arrested after they sold several grams of LSD to an undercover FDA agent. They received a felony charge for smuggling LSD into the United States.

1963: May

Timothy Leary was fired from Harvard for leaving Cambridge and his classes without permission or notice. Richard Alpert was fired from Harvard for giving psilocybin to an undergraduate.

Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner created the International Foundation for Internal Freedom and set up offices in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Later that summer, IFIF moved its headquarters to Zihuatanejo, Mexico. They were kicked out of Mexico six weeks later.

1963: Summer

Nick Sand taught himself chemistry and set up his first lab in the attic of his mother’s house in Brooklyn.  The first psychedelic he made was DMT.

1963: November

Leary, Alpert, Metzner and their associates rented a mansion in Millbrook, New York from Billy Hitchcock. IFIF disbanded and the group formed the Castalia Foundation.

1963: November 22nd

Aldous Huxley was dying of cancer. He wrote a note to his wife Laura, asking her to inject him with 100 μg of LSD. She did. Several hours later, he died serenely at the age of 69.

1964

Ken Kesey bought a bus, named it “Further”, and travelled across the country with the Merry Pranksters. The Pranksters visited Leary’s group at Millbrook but received a cool, disappointing reception from the members.

DOM was first synthesized by Alexander Shulgin.

Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert’s The Psychedelic Experience (based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead) was published. They defined and emphasized the importance of “set” and “setting.”

1964: Spring

Nick Sand set up a larger lab in a building in Brooklyn.  He used the business name Bell Perfume Labs.  Sand was the first person to discover that DMT could be smoked.  

Sand met Richard Alpert when he gave a lecture at Brooklyn College.  He invited Alpert to see his lab and turned him on to DMT.  Alpert invited Sand to visit Millbrook where Sand took his first LSD trip.

1964: April

Owsley Stanley took his first acid trip on Douglas George’s LSD. A few months later, Owsley tried Sandoz LSD and realized that George’s LSD was of poor quality. He decided that he would learn how to manufacture his own LSD to ensure its quality.

1964: June 4th

Bernard Roseman and Bernard Copley were convicted of smuggling LSD into the United States, and they were sentenced to 17 years. They posted bond, jumped bail and fled to Mexico and Brazil. They were eventually captured and sent to federal prison.

1964: Fall

Michael Hollingshead moved into the Millbrook compound and actively participated in the experiential research.

1965

The first published analysis of the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad (Bufo alvarius) appeared in Experientia. Up to 15% of the venom consists of 5-MeO-DMT.

After a sulfuric acid spill, Nick Sand relocated Bell Perfume Labs to another building.  He continued to increase his manufacturing of psychedelics.  He experimented with making LSD but he wasn’t able to figure out how to purify it. 

1965: February

Owsley Stanley set up his first lab in Berkeley. It was known as the Green Methedrine factory because he primarily produced methedrine.  He manufactured a small batch of impure LSD which hit the streets of San Francisco.  

1965: February 21st

Owsley’s lab was raided and his equipment was confiscated. The police were looking for methedrine or LSD, but found only precursors. Owsley beat the charges and successfully sued for the return of his equipment.

1965: March

Owsley moved to Los Angeles and briefly set up a new lab in the basement of a friend’s house.  He learned to use column chromatography to purify LSD and crystallize it.

1965: May

Owsley set up a lab on Lafler Road in Los Angeles where he produced approximately 75,000 doses of pure LSD (270 μg each).  He put some of the LSD in #5 capsules and some of it he dosed as tablet triturates.

1965: June

Bowden, Drysdale and Mogey published “Constituents of Amanita muscaria” in Nature. They determined that the mushroom’s psychedelic effects were produced by muscimol.

1965: August

Ken Kesey invited the Hell’s Angels to La Honda, California.  They met the Merry Pranksters, tried LSD and partied peacefully for two days.

Ken Kesey created the “Acid Test” events to popularize LSD.

Dr. Alexander Shulgin synthesized MDMA.

1965: Fall

Timothy Leary instructed Michael Hollingshead to go to London and spread the word about the marvels of LSD. He arrived with 300 copies of The Psychedelic Experience, 200 issues of The Psychedelic Review, 200 copies of The Psychedelic Reader, and a half a gram of LSD. He soon opened the World Psychedelic Centre with Desmond O’Brien and Joey Mellen, The center provided psychedelic education and guided LSD sessions.

1966

DMT became illegal in the United States.

The complete synthesis of ibogaine was published by Professor George Buchi.

1966: January

Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters conducted the Trips Festival in San Francisco.

Police raided the World Psychedelic Centre and arrested Michael Hollingshead for possession of marijuana and hash. The center was closed and Hollingshead was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

1966: March 25th

Life published a cover article on LSD. “LSD: The Exploding Threat of the Mind Drug that Got Out of Control”.

1966: Spring

While travelling with the Grateful Dead in Los Angeles, Owsley had a gram of crystalline LSD left over from his previous Los Angeles lab.  He and Tim Scully tableted it in the attic of the house the Grateful Dead were renting.  Those tablets were called “Blue Cheer.”

1966: April

Sandoz Pharmaceutical recalled the LSD it had previously distributed and withdrew its sponsorship for work with LSD.

1966: April 16th

G. Gordon Liddy raided the Millbrook colony.

1966: August

Owsley and Tim Scully set up a lab in Point Richmond, CA.  The lab produced more than 300,000 tablets (270 μg each) of LSD, dubbed “White Lightning.”

1966: September 19th

Timothy Leary founded the League for Spiritual Discovery, a religion declaring LSD as its holy sacrament.

1966: October 6th

LSD became illegal in California.

1966: October 16th

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, founded by John Griggs and Michael Randall, was established as a tax-exempt religious entity, with LSD as its sacrament. The group’s mission was to turn the world on to the benefits of LSD. For the remainder of the ‘60s and early 70s, the Brotherhood was the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of LSD.

1967: January 14th

The first Human Be-in occurred in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Timothy Leary exhorted the crowd to “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”

1967

Tim Scully set up a lab in Denver. He and Owsley produced “Monterey Purple” LSD and DOM (STP). In the fall, Scully closed the lab and put everything into storage.

Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge was published.

The Millbrook commune disbands.

Richard Alpert traveled to India where he met the spiritual teacher, Neem Karoli Baba. Under his guru’s guidance, he studied yoga and meditation and received the name Ram Dass, or “servant of God.”

A more comprehensive study of the Sonoran Desert toad and 5-MeO-DMT appeared in Biochemical Pharmacology.

Michael Hollingshead was released from prison.

Nick Sand dismantled his lab, packed it into a truck and drove to California.  Owsley asked his lab partner Tim Scully to teach Sand how to make DOM (STP).  Sand set up a new chemical company in San Francisco called D&H Custom Research.  He made DOM, DMT and MDA. 

DOM first appeared on the streets of San Francisco. It came in 20mg tablets, four times more potent than Shulgin’s recommended dosage. 5000 doses were given away at the Human Be-In. Hundreds of people experienced extreme trips lasting up to three days, with many ending up in the hospital.

1967: December

Owsley set up a tableting factory in Orinda, California. The lab was raided by police who confiscated 350,000 doses of LSD and 1,500 doses of DOM. Owsley was tried and found guilty. Owsley’s total production of LSD has been estimated to be 4,000,000 doses.

1968

Tim Scully set up a second LSD lab in Denver, where he manufactured “Blue Levis” LSD that was tableted by Nick Sand. It was the first batch of LSD that Scully supplied to the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.

Richard Barth Sanders, aka Eric Brown, aka Ghost, began manufacturing LSD in a trailer near Wappingers Falls, NY. Sanders was the first person to produce blotter LSD. He invented a machine that dropped pre-measured amounts of LSD, in a five drop by 20 drop matrix, onto a strip of blotter paper and then automatically cut the paper every hundred doses. The blotter was called a “five-by-twenty” and it was wrapped in Kodak packaging for distribution. Sanders produced one million doses a month. The LSD was distributed nationwide, with most of it going to California.

Denis Kelly and the Clearlight group set up a lab in Santa Cruz, California and began manufacturing small quantities of 250 μg Clearlight LSD.  He produced it in the form of tiny machine-cut squares of clear hard gelatin.

R. Gordon Wasson’s Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality was published. He contended that Soma was Amanita muscaria.

Timothy Leary’s High Priest was published.

Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test was published.

In the American Journal of Pharmacy, Holmstedt, Lindgren and Agurell concluded that the effects of ayahuasca are produced by a combination of a naturally occurring monoamine oxidase inhibitor and DMT.

1968: June

Tim Scully’s second Denver lab was raided by police.  He was out of town and wasn’t arrested, but all of his lab equipment was confiscated.

1968: Oct 24th

Possession of ibogaine was banned in the U.S.

1969

Nick Sand financed setting up a new LSD lab in return for Tim Scully teaching him the process Scully had learned from Owsley.  Sand and Scully set up a lab in Windsor, California. The lab produced well over a kilo (more than four million 300 μg doses) of very pure LSD. Sand tableted the LSD as small orange pills that eventually became known as Orange Sunshine, the most popular brand of LSD of all time.

In Reno, Nevada, Darrell Lemaire began to research, synthesize and bioassay psychoactive compounds that he hoped would be useful as adjuncts to psychotherapy. He set up his lab in an underground chamber that he created by using dynamite to blast a tunnel into the volcanic plug upon which his house was built.

In Los Angeles, Michael Lewis Green founded Bio-Dyne Industries as a legitimate chemical company.  It served as a front for his LSD manufacturing lab.  From April 1969 to June 1974, 70 kilograms of ergotamine tartrate were delivered to the laboratory.  That amount of ergotamine tartrate could have produced 14 kilograms of LSD crystal.

As a chemist at Purdue University, David Nichols began synthesizing psychedelic compounds including LSD, DMT, psilocybin and MDMA.  Until he left Purdue in 2012, he was the primary supplier of the drugs used for psychedelic research.

1969: May

Nick Sand and Tim Scully shut down the Windsor lab.

1969: August 3rd

Brotherhood of Eternal Love founder, John Griggs, died at the age of 25.  Michael Randall assumed leadership of the Brotherhood.

1970

Owsley was imprisoned from 1970 to 1972.

Timothy Leary was convicted of marijuana possession and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The mysterious Ronald Stark operated a large LSD lab in Orleans, France with his chemist Tord Svenson.  Richard Kemp also briefly worked as Stark’s chemist.

German author Ernst Jünger coined the term “psychonaut” in his essay Annäherungen: Drogen und Rausch (Approaches:  Drugs and Intoxication).

Leonard Eros’s A Key to the North American Psilocybin Mushroom was published, instructing laypersons how to obtain psilocybin mushrooms in nature.

Denis Kelly and the Clearlight group moved their lab to San Francisco, where he expanded production of Clearlight LSD, which would come to be called “Windowpane.”

1970: Spring

Ronald Stark visited the Brotherhood at their Idylwood ranch and asked them to distribute his LSD.  He also offered to provide them with the precursors needed for their own manufacturing. The Brothers partnered with him. 

1970: August

The first case report of recreational MDMA use was published.

1970: September

Timothy Leary escaped from prison by climbing along a telephone wire over the wall. The Brotherhood of Eternal Love paid the Weathermen $25,000 to pick up Leary and help him travel to Algeria.

1970: October 27th

The Controlled Substance Act was signed into law by Richard Nixon.   It organized federally regulated drugs into five schedules with varying restrictions and penalties.

Schedule I   Drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.

Schedule II   Drugs with a high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence. These drugs are also considered dangerous. 

Schedule III   Drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Schedule III drugs abuse potential is less than Schedule I and Schedule II drugs but more than Schedule IV.  

Schedule IV   Drugs with a low potential for abuse and low risk of dependence.  

Schedule V   Drugs with lower potential for abuse than Schedule IV and consist of preparations containing limited quantities of certain narcotics. 

LSD, psilocybin, psilocin, mescaline, peyote, cannabis, MDA and n,n DMT became Schedule I drugs.

1971

Terence McKenna first tried psilocybin mushrooms.

Ram Dass’s Be Here Now was published.

Dr. Ralph Metzner’s Maps of Consciousness was published.

With David Solomon supplying the ergotamine tartrate, Richard Kemp began manufacturing LSD in London.  Soon they appointed Henry Todd to manage tableting and distribution.   

1971: July

Ronald Stark shut down his LSD lab in Orleans, France.

1971: September 3rd

Albert Hofmann and Timothy Leary met in Lausanne, Switzerland.

1971: September

Ronald Stark set up an LSD lab in Belgium.

1972

Julius Axelrod of the National Institutes of Health discovered that DMT occurs naturally in human brain tissue.

Denis Kelly and the Clearlight group moved their lab to Burnt Woods, Oregon.

Nick Sand set up a sophisticated lab in downtown St. Louis and a smaller lab in the basement of his rented house in Fenton, Missouri.  He made millions of doses of LSD and other psychedelics.

1972: Summer

A California investigation (Operation BEL) of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love resulted in a state grand jury conspiracy indictment against 29 people allegedly in The Brotherhood, including Nick Sand and Tim Scully.

1972: August 5th

Sixteen members of the Brotherhood were arrested along with 37 others in coordinated raids in Hawaii, Oregon, and numerous Southern California locations. But the major players eluded arrest and went underground. 

1972: October

Ronald Stark shut down his LSD lab in Belgium shortly before federal agents arrived to search the building.

1972: November

Authorities raided Ronald Stark’s LSD lab in Brussels. Stark was not apprehended. It has been estimated that between 1969 and 1972, Stark produced twenty kilos of LSD. That would be the largest amount of LSD ever produced by one underground individual.

1972: December 31st

Michael Randall was arrested.  After bailing out of jail, he and his family went on the run for 12 years.

1973

Timothy Leary was arrested by DEA agents in Afghanistan and returned to prison in California.

Michael Hollingshead’s The Man Who Turned on the World was published.

1973: September 21st

DOM became a Schedule I drug.

1974

2C-B was first synthesized by Alexander Shulgin.

Richard Kemp and David Solomon dissolved their partnership with Henry Todd after they discovered that Todd was tableting 100 μg microdots, instead of the agreed upon 200 μg dose.  The “Microdot Gang” became two separate manufacturing and distribution groups.  Kemp and Solomon established another distribution network and began LSD production in Wales. Henry Todd recruited chemist Andy Munro to manufacture LSD at a lab in London.    

1974: January 30th

Nick Sand and Tim Scully were convicted of manufacturing LSD. 

1974: March 8th

Tim Scully was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Nick Sand was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

1974: August

Tim Scully and Nick Sand received bail reductions and were released from prison on appeal bonds.   

1975

Jonathan Ott and Jose Luis Diaz observed people smoking dried Salvia divinorum leaves in Mexico City. This was the first report of the leaves being smoked.

The first specimens of Stropharia cubensis appeared on the streets.

Stan Grof’s Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research was published.

1975: February

Italian police arrested and incarcerated Ronald Stark for possession of 4600 kilos of marijuana, morphine and cocaine.

1975: June 25th

Alexander Shulgin first ingested 2C-B and described it as “beautifully active”.

1976

Alexander Shulgin first took MDMA. He developed a new synthesis method and introduced the chemical to Leo Zeff, a psychologist from Oakland, California. Zeff used the substance in his practice in small doses as an aid to psychotherapy. Zeff introduced the substance to hundreds of psychologists and lay therapists around the nation.

Terence and Dennis McKenna’s The Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide was published. They suggested the extraterrestrial origin of Stropharia cubensis.

Darrell Lemaire first synthesized and consumed MDMA.

Denis Kelly and the Clearlight group shut down the Oregon lab.  During its existence, the Clearlight group manufactured an estimated 200 million doses of LSD.

1976: April 21st

Timothy Leary was released from prison.

1976: May

A police surveillance team began monitoring Richard Kemp’s LSD lab in Wales.  The first name of one of these officers, Julie Taylor, was used as the operation’s code name – Operation Julie.

1976: June

Police raided Denis Kelly’s Oregon property. They found only LSD residue.  Denis Kelly went on the run.

1976: September

Nick Sand heard that his appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court was about to be denied. He became a fugitive and fled to Canada, where he grew psilocybin mushrooms for a living.

1976: October

An Operation Julie surveillance team began monitoring Andy Munro’s LSD lab in London.

1977

MDMA appeared on the streets.

Tim Scully’s appeals ran out and he began serving prison time.

1977: March 15th

Denis Kelly and eight other members of the Clearlight group were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to manufacture, possess and distribute LSD.

1977: March 26th

Operation Julie officers raided 87 homes in Wales and England.  The groups’ leaders and 130 suspects were arrested. At Richard Kemp’s home a package containing £11,000 was found as well as LSD crystals and tableting equipment. Laboratory equipment and LSD were found in Andy Munro’s lab.

1977: May 18th

Michael Lewis Green was arrested for manufacturing and distributing LSD.

1977: October 10th

William Leonard Pickard was arrested for manufacturing MDA.

1977: November 6th

Richard Sanders was arrested and charged with conspiracy to manufacture LSD. He was later convicted and sent to prison.

1977: December 1st

Operation Julie officers searched Richard Kemp’s cottage a second time and dug up a large box that contained 1.3 kg of LSD crystal – enough to create 6.5 million doses.

1978

Alexander Shulgin and David Nichols published the first report on the subjective effects of MDMA in human subjects in The Psychopharmacology of Hallucinogens.

Leonard Pickard was sentenced to prison for three years for manufacturing MDA.

Richard Kemp plead guilty to manufacturing LSD and received a 13 year prison sentence.  Andy Munro was sentenced to 10 years for manufacturing LSD.  It was estimated that between 1971 and 1977, the “Microdot Gang” manufactured 30 million doses of LSD.

1978-1981

Nick Sand lived in India and studied with the mystic Shree Rajneesh.  He located a source of ergotamine tartrate in India, constructed a lab and made massive amounts of LSD.  

1978: February 15th

After hiding out for five months in a home in Ashfield, Massachusetts, Denis Kelly fled the home just hours before the FBI arrived to arrest him.

1978: November 24th

In San Francisco, David Bachrach met two undercover DEA agents posing as suppliers of ergotamine tartrate.  Bachrach told the agents that he wanted to obtain one-half to one kilogram of ergotamine tartrate each month for a clandestine LSD lab in Berkeley. The agents agreed to supply him with ergotamine tartrate in exchange for LSD.

1978: November 27th

David Bachrach met with the two undercover DEA agents.  He gave them 400 hits of LSD, as well as a price list of the different types of LSD that could be supplied. The list was handwritten by Peter Wylie. 

1978: December 1st

David Bachrach gave 30,000 hits of LSD to the undercover DEA agents in exchange for a 100 gram bottle of ergotamine tartrate.

1978: December 7th

David Bachrach sold 2,000 hits of LSD to the DEA agents for $900.

1978: December 14th

David Bachrach gave the DEA agents a list, handwritten by Peter Wylie, of additional chemicals that were needed for production of the LSD.

1979

Albert Hofmann’s LSD: My Problem Child was published.

Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hofmann’s Plants of the Gods was published.

1979: January 2nd

The DEA agents gave the requested chemicals to David Bachrach.  Several days later, Peter Wylie gave the chemicals to Sheldon Purluss.

1979: January 3rd

David Bachrach and Peter Wylie exchanged 54,000 hits of LSD with the DEA agents for 100 grams of ergotamine tartrate.

1979: January 18th

David Bachrach gave 226,400 units of LSD to the DEA agents in exchange for more ergotamine tartrate. Wylie, Bachrach and Perluss were all arrested.  DEA agents searched Perluss’s home and found precursor chemicals and formulas used for manufacturing LSD.  All three were charged with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute LSD.

1979: April

Ronald Stark was released from Italian prison and promptly disappeared.

1979: April 4th

Peter Wylie, Sheldon Perluss, and David Bachrach were convicted of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute LSD.  Wylie was sentenced to 20 years.  Bachrach was sentenced to 15 years.  Perluss was sentenced to seven years.

1979: May

Kevin Gillan purchased laboratory equipment from Sheldon Perluss and soon began manufacturing LSD in Bellevue, Washington. He produced an average of 500,000 tabs each month.

1979: July 10th

Michael Lewis Green was sentenced to five years in prison for manufacturing and distributing LSD.

1980

Stanislav Grof’s LSD Psychotherapy was published.

Alexander Shulgin encouraged Darrell Lemaire to manufacture MDMA to be used by psychotherapists as an adjunct to psychotherapy. Over the next five years, often with Shulgin’s assistance, Lemaire manufactured at least 43 pounds of MDMA.

Leonard Pickard was released from prison.

Tim Scully was released from prison.

1980: July 7th

Denis Kelly surrendered to authorities in San Francisco.  He was soon sentenced to federal prison. 

1981

Dr. Emanuel Salzman launched the Telluride Mushroom Festival.  The successful, ongoing mission of the festival is to educate the community about the beneficial use of mushrooms.

1981: February 11th

DEA agents raided Kevin Gillan’s LSD lab in Bellevue, Washington and arrested him.  The laboratory allegedly contained enough precursor chemicals to produce 33 million hits of LSD. 

1981: March 10th

Kevin Gillan was indicted for manufacturing and distribution of LSD.

1981: July 8th

Kevin Gillan pled guilty to charges of manufacturing and distribution of LSD.

1981: August 14th

Kevin Gillan was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

1981: December 2nd

Denis Kelly was released from prison.

1982

Ronald Stark was arrested and incarcerated in Holland for trafficking hash, cocaine and heroin.

In the Journal of the Chemical Society, Ortega, Blount and Manchand published a paper describing their isolation of a novel compound from Salvia divinorum, which they called salvinorin.

1982: August 31st

Captain Al Hubbard died at the age of 81.

1982: December 23rd

Sheldon Purluss was released from prison.

1983

Ronald Stark was deported to the United States. He spent a few months in a San Francisco jail until charges against him were dropped.

Ken Nelson was the first person to collect and smoke the venom of Bufo alvarius, which contains 5 MeO-DMT.  Using the pseudonym  Albert Most, he published Bufo Alvarius: the Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert.  It provided detailed instructions for collecting and drying the venom for smoking.

1984

In the Journal of Organic Chemistry, Valdes, Butler and Hatfield identified two Salvia divinorum derivatives which they called divinorin A and B. Divinorin A was found to be identical to Ortega’s salvinorin, so the compounds were re-named salvinorin A and B.

Michael Randall was apprehended, convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

1984: April

Richard Sanders was released from prison.

1984: December

Ronald Stark died at the age of 46.

1985

MDMA became a Schedule I drug.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Howard Lotsof a patent for using ibogaine as an ultra-rapid opioid detox.

Acid Dreams by Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain was published.

After living in a Rajneeshee community in Oregon for four years, Nick Sand moved back to Canada and resumed growing psilocybin mushrooms.

1985: August 15th

The DEA raided the homes of LSD distributors Paul Stepak and Diane Stepak in San Francisco and LSD manufacturer Bernard Hassall in Sebastopol, California. At the Stepak’s home, agents found 25.5 grams of crystal LSD, 50 grams of lysergic acid, $50,000 cash and 1.6 million doses of LSD.  At Hassall’s home, agents found 20 grams of crystal LSD, 24,000 individual microdots, precursor chemicals, blotter paper, computers, laboratory equipment and embossing equipment used to put stamps on the blotter.  The stamped blotters had previously appeared in Honolulu, New Orleans and New Hampshire. Authorities alleged that the group manufactured and distributed LSD for nearly 20 years and produced 20% of the nation’s LSD.  Hassell and the Stepaks were charged with possession of LSD with intent to distribute.

1986

Rick Doblin founded the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). It continues to support and conduct pioneering research demonstrating the safety and enhanced benefits of LSD, psilocybin and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

Darrell Lemaire shut down his lab.

1986: May 2nd

Paul Stepak was sentenced to seven years in prison and his wife Diane received a 10 year sentence.  Bernard Hassall was sentenced to five years in prison.

1986: May 28th

Peter Wylie was released from prison.

1987

Jay Steven’s Storming Heaven was published.

Michael Randall was released from prison.

At San Francisco State University, Leonard Pickard took a course on Social Drugs taught by Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin.  Pickard said, “I hold Sasha as a real hero.”

1987: January 12th

Kevin Gillan was released from prison.

1988: December 9th

Bernard Hassall was released from prison.   

1988: December 28th

 Leonard Pickard was arrested for manufacturing LSD and synthesizing mescaline in his lab in Mountain View, California.  Federal agents found over 200,000 doses of LSD in the form of windowpane, microdot and blotter.  This lab and his subsequent labs were able to produce a kilogram of LSD every five weeks.  He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Late 1980s

Michael Hollingshead died in South America.  His age at the time of death is unknown.

1990

Dr. Rick Strassman began five years of DEA-approved clinical research at the University of New Mexico, where he administered DMT to 60 volunteers.

1990: October 5th

Paul Stepak was released from prison.

1991

Alexander and Ann Shulgin’s Pihkal was published.

1991: May 23rd

Diane Stepak was released from prison.      

1991: September

Jazz musician Robert McPherson (aka Psylocybe Fanaticus) first advertised his PF Tek instructional pamphlet and spore syringes in High Times magazine.  McPherson’s revolutionary, reliable, inexpensive method set a new standard for growing psilocybin mushrooms indoors. 

1992

Terence McKenna’s Food of the Gods was published.

1992: August

Leonard Pickard was released from prison.

1992: August 13th

David Bachrach was released from prison

1993

David Nichols founded the Heffter Research Institute.  Its continuing mission is to promote research with the classic psychedelics and related compounds in order to contribute to a greater understanding of the mind, leading to the improvement of the human condition, and to alleviate suffering.

1994: October 27th

The DEA raided Alexander Shulgin’s laboratory. They revoked his license to work with Schedule I drugs. Shulgin was fined $25,000, which was eventually paid by public donations.

1995

1995: Paul Stamets published the first description of Psilocybe azurescens, the largest and most potent Psilocybe mushroom. A group of Boy Scouts first discovered the species in 1979 near Astoria, Oregon.

1995: May

In Kirby and Selma Oregon, authorities began investigating Bruce Michael Young and Michael George Acevedo for manufacturing LSD after a landlord found several footlockers containing laboratory equipment and bottles of ethanol.

1995: June 2nd

2C-B became a Schedule I drug.

1995: October

The Erowid on-line psychoactive archive was founded by Earth and Fire Erowid.

1996

Nick Sand set up the Port Coquitlam lab in Canada and began manufacturing LSD, DMT, MDMA, and MDA on a large scale.

 Leonard Pickard began manufacturing LSD in a lab in Oregon.  Later that year, he moved the lab to Aspen, Colorado and resumed production.

1996: May 31st

Timothy Leary died at the age of 75.

1996: September 26th

Nick Sand was arrested at the Port Coquitlam lab with 5 kg of DMT, 3.5 kg of MDMA, 5 kg of MDA, 43 grams of LSD and 2.5 kilos of ergotamine tartrate.

1996: October 1st

Paul Stamet’s Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World was published.

1997

Alexander and Ann Shulgin’s Tihkal was published.

1997: April 16th

Police raided the Burnt Ridge, Oregon LSD lab of Bruce Young and Michael Acevedo.  Bruce Young was the chemist and Michael Acevedo was the distributor. Bruce Young was later sentenced to two, consecutive three year sentences. Michael Acevedo was sentenced to 30 years.

1997: August

At the age of 15, “Ythan” created www.shroomery.org.  Members of the forum continue to provide invaluable information about finding, growing and using psilocybin mushrooms.

1997: September - 1999

Leonard Pickard manufactured LSD in his lab in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

1998

In the UK, Amanda Feilding created the Beckley Foundation.  Its mission is to pioneer psychedelic research and advocate for evidence-based drug policy reform.

1998: February

Nick Sand was convicted of manufacturing drugs in Canada. He was given a nine-year sentence, which the Canadian authorities agreed to let run concurrently with his US sentence. Sand returned to prison in the United States in return for credit for time served in Canada toward his 15-year American sentence.

1998: December

The results of research led by Dr. Franz Vollenweider  at the Psychiatric University Hospital Zürich were published in Neuroreport.  Double-blind research with healthy volunteers demonstrated that psilocybin produced its psychedelic effect by activating the 5-HT_2A  serotonin receptor.  Vollenweider also discovered that the serotonin-2A antagonist ketanserin blocks the effects of psilocybin.  Later researchers would demonstrate that ketanserin also blocks the effects of LSD and ayahuasca.

1999

Dr. Roland Griffiths initiated a research program at Johns Hopkins University investigating the effects of psilocybin. His research includes studies of psilocybin-occasioned mystical-type experiences in healthy volunteers; psilocybin-facilitated treatment of psychological distress in cancer patients; psilocybin-facilitated treatment of cigarette smoking cessation; and psilocybin effects on religious leaders.

1999: January 22nd

Nick Sand was found guilty of bail jumping and sentenced to an additional consecutive five-year prison term.

1999: June

In the journal Synthesis, David Nichols published an improved method for synthesizing psilocybin.

2000: April 3rd

Terence McKenna died at the age of 53.

2000: October

Gordon Skinner, an associate of Leonard Pickard and Clyde Apperson, moved their LSD lab to his Atlas-E missile silo near Wamego, Kansas without their knowledge. Skinner was a DEA informant. He took DEA agents inside the silo and they found an LSD lab packed in storage boxes. When Pickard and Apperson learned that Skinner had transferred the lab to the silo, they began to move it.

2000: November 6th

Pickard and Apperson were moving the lab when they were stopped by the Kansas Highway Patrol. Their vehicles were searched, revealing lab equipment and ergotamine tartrate. Later, the DEA busted the lab and reportedly found 91 pounds of LSD and over 200 pounds of precursors. It is likely that these figures were exaggerated. The DEA claimed that this was the largest LSD lab seizure ever made.

2000: December 22nd

Nick Sand was released from prison to a halfway house after winning an appeal that overturned his conviction for bail jumping.

2001

Dr. Rick Strassman’s DMT: The Spirit Molecule was published.

2001: Spring

Impressed by an article published by chemistry student Casey Hardison, Darrell Lemaire invited Hardison to visit him in Reno. Lemaire, wishing to “pass the torch” of psychoactive research, mentored Hardison and ultimately gave him his lab equipment.

2001: January 16th

Dr. Marcus Raichle, a professor at Washington University in St Louis, first described the brain’s Default Mode Network in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

2002

Possession and sale of psilocybin mushrooms became legal in the U.K.

Casey Hardison moved to Brighton, England and began manufacturing LSD, 2C-B and DMT.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Roth, Baner and Westkaemper revealed that salvinorin A is a highly selective kappa-opioid agonist.

The documentary Hofmann’s Potion was released.

2003: March

Leonard Pickard and Clyde Apperson were found guilty of one count of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute more than 10 grams of LSD and one count of possession with the intent to distribute more than 10 grams of LSD. Pickard was sentenced to two life sentences without parole and Clyde Apperson was sentenced to 30 years without parole.

2003: July

Casey Hardison mailed packages containing MDMA to the United States. The packages were opened in a routine inspection by postal workers. The British authorities began monitoring him.

2004

The documentary Ibogaine: Rite of Passage was released.

Other Worlds, a documentary exploring ayahuasca shamanism, was released.

Donald Shackelford and Jeffrey Viola operated an LSD lab on the island of St. Maarten in the Netherlands. They purchased ergocristine, the precursor chemical used in the manufacture of LSD, from the Czech Republic. The chemical was shipped to San Francisco Street, Panama City, Panama, where Shackelford and Viola used a mail service that forwarded the chemical to their mailing address on St. Maarten.  A shipment of ergocristine was inadvertently sent to San Francisco, California, instead of San Francisco Street, Panama City.  U.S. authorities notified Dutch law enforcement.

2004: February

Casey Hardison was arrested. Police raided his house and found a lab, a refrigerator full of precursors and 145,000 doses of LSD. He was charged with three counts of drug production, two counts of possession, and one of exportation.

2004: December

The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection in Memphis, Tennessee intercepted a package that was mailed to Ryan Eaton in New Orleans, Louisiana.  The package came from the same mailbox address in St. Maarten used by Donald Shackelford and Jeffrey Viola.  The package contained 1000 doses of LSD on blotter paper bearing a stamped logo identical to blotter paper later found in the St. Maarten lab.  The Louisiana State Police performed a controlled delivery of the package to Eaton and arrested him.

2005: March 18th

Casey Hardison was found guilty of three counts of producing psychedelic drugs, one count of possessing 145,000 doses of LSD, one count of possession, and one count of smuggling drugs to the USA.

2005: April 22nd

Casey Hardison was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

2005: July 18th

Psilocybin mushrooms became illegal in the U.K.

2005: August 29th

Dutch authorities arrested Donald Shackelford and Jeffrey Viola after they picked up a package containing 250 grams of ergocristine from a courier-service facility.

2005: August 30th

A Dutch HazMat team searched Shackelford and Viola’s residence, where they found laboratory equipment; several unused sheets of blotter paper; one partial sheet of blotter paper that tested positive for LSD; and enough precursor chemicals to manufacture an estimated one million doses of LSD. They also found instructional materials on LSD production and Shackelford’s hand-written diary, describing how to manufacture LSD.    

2005: December 22nd

A grand jury for the District of Columbia returned an indictment against Donald Shackelford and Jeffrey Viola charging Conspiracy to Manufacture and Distribute ten grams or more of LSD with Intent to Import into the United States.

2006

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the UDV, a Christian religious group that uses ayahuasca as its sacrament, could import the drink to the United States.

Dr. Roland Griffith’s landmark paper, “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance” was published in Psychopharmacology.

Richard Sanders died.  His age at the time of death is unknown.  

2006: May

Survey results published in Neurology showed that psilocybin mushrooms and LSD may reduce the severity and frequency of cluster headaches.

2007

The documentary Entheogen was released.

Donald Shackelford and Jeffrey Viola were sentenced to prison.

2008: April 29th

Albert Hofmann died at the age of 102.

2008: August 14th

The results of research from a team led by Dr. Charles Nichols at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center were published in The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.  DOI applied to rat aortic smooth muscle cells activated 5-HT_2A receptors and provided a previously unknown and extremely potent inhibition of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-mediated inflammation.  Inflammation was also inhibited by DOI hours after administering TNF.

TNF-mediated inflammatory pathways have been strongly implicated in diseases including atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, type II diabetes, depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease.  Future therapies may not only potentially prevent inflammation but also treat existing inflammatory injury.

2009

At Imperial College in London, Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris founded the Psychedelic Research Group. The group’s ongoing research focuses on the action of psychedelic drugs in the brain, and the utility of using psychedelic drugs as aids to psychotherapy.

Manifesting the Mind, a documentary examining psychedelics and shamanism, was released.

The documentary Metamorphosis: The Ayahausca Ceremony of the Amazon was released.

2009: June 12th

Bruce Young was released from prison.

2009: October 30th

Professor David Nutt, Britain’s chief drug adviser and chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, was fired after publishing a paper in which he reported that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

2010

Dirty Pictures, a documentary exploring the life and work of chemist Alexander Shulgin, was released.

The documentary DMT: The Spirit Molecule was released.

In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, JR Rahn, Scott Freeman and Stephen Hurst founded Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc.  Its mission is to “discover, develop, and deploy psychedelic inspired medicines to alleviate suffering and improve health.”  

2011

Nicholas Schou’s Orange Sunshine was published.

Hamilton Morris’s Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia series premiered on television.

The documentary The Substance: Albert Hofmann’s LSD was released.

Dr. James Fadiman’s The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide was published. His advocacy of the benefits of consistently taking sub-perceptual doses of psychedelics popularized the practice of microdosing.

2011: January

The results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled investigation examining the safety and efficacy of psilocybin as a treatment for advanced-cancer anxiety were published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Dr. Charles Grob led the research at Harbor- UCLA Medical Center. Twelve subjects tolerated the experimental treatment without adverse effects. A single dose of psilocybin led to sustained improvement in mood and outlook for up to six months.

2011: January 19th

5-MeO-DMT became a Schedule I drug.

2011: March 12th

Owsley Stanley died at the age of 76.

2011: April

Promising results of the first randomized controlled pilot study to test the safety and efficacy of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with chronic, treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. 

2011: September 28th

In a study led by Boris Quednow, researchers at the University Hospital of Psychiatry in Zürich, Switzerland demonstrated that the 5-HT_2A receptor antagonist ketanserin blocked the subjective effects of psilocybin in healthy volunteers.  Their results were published in Neuropsychopharmacology. 

2012

MAPS initiated the Zendo Project. It is a psychedelic harm reduction service that provides peer support and specialized care for people who are having challenging psychedelic experiences at international festivals and events. Volunteers de-escalate difficult situations, preventing unnecessary psychiatric hospitalizations, arrests, and trauma. Since its founding, it has assisted over 4,000 people.

2012: September 28th

Dr. Ben Sessa’s The Psychedelic Renaissance was published.

2013

Rhoney Gissen Stanley and Tom Davis’s Owsley and Me was published. 

The documentary Aya: Awakenings was released.

The documentary Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines was released.

Donald Shackelford and Jeffrey Viola were released from prison.

2013: May 29th

After serving nine years of his sentence, the United Kingdom released Casey Hardison from prison and deported him to the U.S.

2014

Tom Shroder’s Acid Test was published.

2014: February 7th

Michael Acevedo was released from prison.

2014: March

In Switzerland, Dr. Peter Gasser conducted a government-approved study of the effects of LSD (200 μg) on patients with life-threatening illnesses and anxiety disorder. The researchers found a reduction in anxiety from the LSD therapy sessions.

2014: June 2nd

Alexander Shulgin died at the age of 88.

2014: October 29th

Using a scanning technique that displays the electrical activity in the brain, Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris and his team at Imperial College produced a map of the brain’s internal communications. During normal consciousness (left), the brain’s various networks communicate primarily with themselves, with little communication across networks. Under the influence of psilocybin (right), thousands of new connections form across networks, resulting in a more integrated brain.

2014: November 21st

The results of research led by Dr. Charles Nichols at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center were published in the American Journal of Physiology.  Mice were administered DOI.  Thirty minutes later, the mice were exposed to an inflammatory allergen.  DOI prevented the development of many key features of allergic asthma, including airways hyper-responsiveness, mucus hyper-production, airways inflammation, and pulmonary inflammation.

2015

The documentary A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin was released.

2016

The California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco became the first graduate school to provide training leading to a certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research.

The documentary of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Orange Sunshine, was released.

Robert Greenfield’s Bear was published.

2016: April

The first images of the human brain on LSD were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris led the Beckley/Imperial Research Programme.  The results indicated that LSD suppresses the Default Mode Network, causing a dramatic increase in communication between brain networks that are normally segregated.  Under favorable conditions, this can lead to ego dissolution.

2016: October 13th

Paul Glavine, John Kanakis and Eric So founded Cybin in Toronto, Canada.  The biotech company develops psychedelic drugs, drug delivery systems and treatment regimens for psychiatric disorders.

2016: December

The results of research on the efficacy of psilocybin as a treatment for advanced-cancer anxiety and depression were published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.  Dr. Stephen Ross led the research at NYU Langone Medical Center. The study showed that one-time treatment with psilocybin quickly brought relief from anxiety and depression that lasted for more than 6 months in 80% of the 29 study subjects monitored.

2017

The Sunshine Makers, a documentary about LSD chemists Tim Scully and Nick Sand was released.

Ayelet Waldman’s A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life was published.

Dr. Richard Louis Miller’s Psychedelic Medicine was published.

2017: February 6th

Led by Katrin Preller, researchers at the University Hospital of Psychiatry in Zürich, Switzerland demonstrated that the 5-HT_2A receptor antagonist ketanserin blocked the subjective effects of LSD in healthy volunteers.  Their results were published in Current Biology. 

2017: April 24th

Nick Sand died at the age of 75.

2017: August

Research being conducted by MAPS on MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD was granted Breakthrough Therapy designation by the FDA. The FDA approved the MAPS protocol for Phase 3 clinical trials.

2017: September 20th

In research led by Claudius Lenz at the Hans Knoll Institute in Germany, ω-N-Methyl-4-hydroxytryptamine (Norpsilocin) was first identified as a naturally occurring compound in Psilocybe cubensis.  The research was published in the Journal of Natural Products.  Norpsilocin is more potent than psilocybin.

2018

Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind was published.

Paul Austin’s Microdosing Psychedelics: A Practical Guide to Upgrade Your Life was published.

The documentary Bufo Alvarius – The Underground Secret was released.

The documentary Magic Medicine was released.

2018: February 23rd

Christian Angermayer, Florian Brand, Lars Christian Wilde and Srinivas Rao founded ATAI Life Sciences in Berlin.  The biotech company’s mission is to acquire, incubate and develop psychedelics and other drugs that can be used to treat depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental health conditions.    

2018: June

The journal Psychological Medicine published the results of the first randomized, placebo-controlled clinical study of ayahuasca to treat depression. At Brazil’s Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, 29 patients drank either ayahuasca or a placebo. One day after treatment, significant decreases in depression and anxiety were reported by 50% of all patients. One week later, 64% of the patients who drank ayahuasca still reported a decrease in depression. Only 27% of the patients in the placebo group reported decreased depression.

2018: June 12th

The results of research led by Dr. David Olsen at the University of California, Davis were published in Cell Reports. LSD and DMT applied to the neuronal tissue of flies and rats increased the number of dendrites, the density of dendritic spines, and the number of synapses.  These structural changes suggest that psychedelics may be capable of repairing the circuits that are malfunctioning in people with mood and anxiety disorders.

2018: July 6th

Dr. Dennis McKenna’s Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs was published.

2018: September 8th

The results of the first clinical trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of social anxiety were published in Psychopharmacology. The 12 participants were adults on the autism spectrum, a population that commonly experiences severe social anxiety. Sponsored by MAPS, the research was conducted by Charles Grob, M.D., and Alicia Danforth, Ph.D., at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Half of the participants received two sessions of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and the other half received psychotherapy without MDMA (placebo group.) Participants in the placebo group experienced reductions of 19.3 points on the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, compared to reductions of 44.1 points in the MDMA group, who reported improved social interactions and increased confidence in school, at work and in relationships.

2018: October 23rd

The Food and Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to the European company, Compass Pathways, for its psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression. Compass began conducting the first large-scale psilocybin therapy clinical trial in Europe and North America.

2018: November 28th

Steven Hupp’s Kentucky Ayahausca series premiered on television.

2019: March 2nd

 Dr. Oliver Hovmand published Medical Psychedelics, the first evidence-based textbook to examine the clinical applications of psychedelics.

2019: March 14th

Ralph Metzner died at the age of 82.

2019: May 1st

The documentary Dosed was released.

2019: May 6th

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, anthropologist Jose Capriles published his analysis of a shaman’s pouch that he first discovered in the Cueva del Chileno cave in southwestern Bolivia in 2010. Radiocarbon dating indicated that the pouch was approximately 1000 years old. The pouch contained traces of dimethyltryptamine, harmine, cocaine, benzoylecgonine, bufotenine and possibly psilocin. This is the earliest archeological evidence of ayahuasca use.

2019: May 9th

Denver, Colorado became the first city in the United States to decriminalize the cultivation, possession and use of psilocybin mushrooms.

2019: June 5th

Oakland California decriminalized the cultivation, possession and use of plants or fungi containing psychedelic compounds including DMT, ibogaine, mescaline and psilocybin.

2019: June 18th

Mike Jay’s Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic was published.

2019: July 15th

The results of the first study of the safety and tolerability of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in patients with alcohol use disorder were published in BMJ Case Reports. The research was led by Dr. Ben Sessa at Imperial College, London. The patients tolerated the medicine and the psychotherapy well, with no serious adverse effects. At the end of the 8-week therapeutic course, patients were followed- up for 9 months to assess their drinking behavior and other data.

Of the four patients included in the study, two remained totally alcohol free, and two had a single episode of low-dose alcohol use after completing the therapeutic course. None of the four participants returned to daily or harmful drinking during the therapeutic course. Significant improvements in quality of life, mindfulness, self-compassion, anxiety and depression scores were observed in all participants.

2019: August 11th

Stan Grof’s The Way of the Psychonaut was published.

2019: September

The documentary Journeys to the Edge of Consciousness was released.

2019: September 4th

Johns Hopkins launched the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.  The center’s director, Roland Griffiths, said that researchers will focus on how psychedelics affect behavior, mood, cognition, brain function, learning, memory, and biological markers of health.  

Upcoming studies will determine the effectiveness of psilocybin as a new therapy for opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, PTSD, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, anorexia nervosa and alcohol use in people with major depression.  Researchers will also investigate creativity and well-being in healthy volunteers.

2019: September 6th

The Ram Dass documentary Becoming Nobody was released.

2019: September 30th

Led by Alexandra Adams, researchers at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio developed an economical method to mass produce psilocybin.  After isolating the DNA sequence responsible for producing psilocybin in mushrooms, the team spliced the mushroom DNA into the genome of E. coli bacteria.

The bacteria produced more psilocybin than can be harvested from magic mushrooms.  The method is also much less expensive than synthetic chemical production.  Their findings were published in Metabolic Engineering.

2019: October

October 2019:  In Zandvoort, Holland, Martijn Schirp, in partnership with Imperial College London and the California Institute of Integral Studies, launched Synthesis Retreat, a legal, medically supervised psilocybin retreat center for professionals seeking personal growth, emotional breakthroughs and spiritual development.  Retreat activities include the ceremonial use of high-dose, psilocybin truffles to catalyze these transformations.

2019: October 8th

Ken Nelson died at the age of 65.

2019: October 10th

The documentary Fantastic Fungi was released.

2019: November 22nd

The Food and Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to the Usona Institute for its psilocybin therapy for major depressive disorder.  Usona’s phase 2 clinical trials will include 80 volunteers at seven sites around the U.S. 

2019: November 26th

Christopher Bache’s LSD and the Mind of the Universe was published.

2019: December 22nd

Ram Dass died at the age of 88.

2020

The documentary Psychedelia was released.

2020: January 28th

Santa Cruz, California decriminalized the cultivation and possession of psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, peyote, and ibogaine.

2020: March 3rd

 MindMed begin trading on the NEO Exchange under the symbol NEO:MMED.  It was the world’s first publicly traded psychedelic pharmaceutical company.

2020: May 11th

The documentary Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics was released.  The film features celebrities discussing their psychedelic adventures.  

2020: May 21st

David Black’s Psychedelic Tricksters was published.

2020: July 27th

Leonard Pickard was released from prison.

2020: August 4th

Canadian Health Minister Patty Hajdu approved the use of psilocybin mushrooms for four people with incurable cancer. This was the first time that an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act has been granted for the use of mushrooms.

2020: August 13th

Police in Oakland, California raided the Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants, where parishioners could purchase psilocybin mushrooms and cannabis.  The search warrant didn’t mention mushrooms, which were the church’s main attraction.  Police made no arrests but seized $200,000 in cash, cannabis, and several strains of psilocybin mushrooms.  Co-founder and minister Dave Hodges insisted that the organization is a church, not a mushroom dispensary.

2020: August 25th

In a study led by Professor Jan Ramaekers, scientists from Maastricht University in the Netherlands and the Beckley Foundation in the UK administered single doses of 5, 10 and 20 micrograms of LSD, or a placebo, to 24 healthy volunteers over the course of several days.  Researchers then assessed their pain tolerance levels by asking them to submerge their hands in a tank of cold water for as long as they could endure.

The study consistently demonstrated that a 20 microgram dose of LSD reduced pain perception by 20%, compared to the placebo. Subjects who had microdosed reported a decrease in the subjective experience of pain.  The analgesic effects of the LSD were equally strong one-and-a-half hours after administration as they were five hours after administration.  The results, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, indicated that the analgesic effects of a non-psychedelic dose of LSD were comparable to the analgesic effects of opioids.

2020: September 14th

The University of California Berkeley launched the Center for the Science of Psychedelics, with UC Berkeley neuroscientist Michael Silver as the inaugural director. The center will study healthy participants to learn more about the brain mechanisms involved in treating mental disorders with psychedelics.  It will also investigate the ability of psychedelics to improve cognitive flexibility, alter visual perception, engender feelings of awe, and change patterns of brain activity. Initial experimental studies will use psilocybin.

The center will include a program for educating the public about psychedelic science and research. The program will be helmed by UC Berkeley professor of journalism Michael Pollan.

The center will eventually train guides in the cultural, contemplative and spiritual care dimensions of psychedelics.

2020: September 21st

Ann Arbor, Michigan became the fourth city in the United States to decriminalize all naturally-occurring psychedelic plants and fungi.

2020: October 22nd

In Vancouver, Canada Numinus Wellness Inc. harvested the first legal flush of psilocybin mushrooms by a public company under its Health Canada-issued Controlled Drugs and Substances Dealer’s License.   Chief Operating Officer Michael Tan said, “Now, we can progress with research and development of standardized cultivation, extraction, and testing methods and exploring product formulations to support safe, evidence-based, accessible psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, as well as build a sequenced spore library.”

2020: October 30th

Mark Haden’s The Manual for Psychedelic Guides was published.

2020: November 3rd

Washington, D.C. decriminalized the possession and cultivation of psychedelic plants and fungi.

Oregon legalized psilocybin for the mental health treatment of adults in supervised settings.  It also decriminalized the possession of small amounts of street drugs, including psychedelics.    

2020: December 30th

Hamilton Morris published an updated edition of Ken Nelson’s Bufo Alvarious: The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert.  Morris described how Nelson learned of the toad and confirmed that he was the first person to smoke its venom.  To protect the toad, Morris included his low-cost synthesis of 5-Meo-DMT.

2021: April 14th

In San Francisco, founder Joshua White launched the Fireside Project, the first psychedelic peer support line.  Via phone, text or on-line chat, volunteers provide support to people in the midst of a psychedelic experience, people sitting with a person having a psychedelic experience, or anyone who wants to process a past psychedelic experience.

2021: May 10th

In research sponsored by MAPS, Jennifer Mitchell at the University of California San Francisco led a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 study of MDMA-assisted therapy for severe PTSD.  Three doses of MDMA were given to volunteers in conjunction with psychotherapy over the course of 18 weeks. 

As published in Nature Medicine, 28 of 42 (67%) of the participants in the MDMA group no longer met diagnostic criteria for PTSD, compared with 12 of 37 (32%) of those in the placebo group.  14 of 42 participants in the MDMA group (33%) and 2 of 37 participants in the placebo group (5%) met the criteria for remission.  MDMA also significantly decreased depressive symptoms and it did not increase the occurrence of suicidal ideation during the study.

2021: October 4th

Seattle, Washington decriminalized the cultivation and sharing of psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, ibogaine and non-peyote-derived mescaline. 

2021: October 18th

Johns Hopkins Medicine was awarded a $3.9 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for clinical research on psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to treat tobacco addiction.  This is the first time in over 50 years that the federal government has provided funding  for clinical research on the therapeutic effects of a classic psychedelic.

Principal investigator Matthew Johnson, Ph.D. will lead the project with clinical trials at Johns Hopkins Medicine, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and New York University.

2021: July 9th

Dr. Dan Engle’s and Alex Young’s A Dose of Hope: A Story of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy was published.

2021: August 18th

The miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers premiered on Hulu.

2021: September 1st

The documentary Better Living Through Chemistry was released.

2021: September 10th

The documentary Descending the Mountain was released.

2022: April 5th

Dr. Jahan Khamsehzadeh’s The Psilocybin Connection: Psychedelics, the Transformation of Consciousness, and Evolution on the Planet was published.

2022: April 14th

Dr. Peter Silverstone’s The Promise of Psychedelics  was published.

2022: July 9th

Ann Shulgin died at the age of 91.

2022: July 12th

Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind series premiered on Netflix.

2022: September 6th

San Francisco decriminalized the full spectrum of plants, fungi, and natural materials that can inspire personal and spiritual well-being, including psilocybin, mescaline, DMT and ibogaine.

2022: October 19th

Larkin McPhee’s documentary Can Psychedelics Cure? premiered on PBS.

2022: November 9th

Colorado decriminalized DMT, ibogaine, mescaline (excluding peyote), psilocybin, and psilocyn.

2023: January 25th

Trafficked: LSD premieres on Vice TV. Mariana van Zeller interviews a manufacturer of ergotamine tartrate and Casey Hardison in her search for an active manufacturer of LSD.

2023: May 5th

In Oregon, the Eugene Psychedelic Integrative Center was licensed as the first Psilocybin Service Center in the United States.  Facilitated psychedelic sessions for individuals, couples, and small groups include two non-directive preparation sessions, a supported yet non-directed experiential session, and a non-directive integration session.

2023: July 1st

Australia became the first country to allow psychiatrists to prescribe MDMA for PTSD and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression.

2023: July 11th

Berkeley, California decriminalized the personal use, cultivation, processing, and preparation of plant- or fungus-biosynthesized psychedelic drugs. These include psilocybin, DMT, ibogaine and mescaline not extracted from peyote. 

The ruling forbids giving away, sharing, distributing, transferring, dispensing, or administering psychedelics.

2023: July 11th

The documentary Dosed: The Trip of a Lifetime was released.