Psychedelic Drugs and the Problem of Experience

Over fifty years since the criminalization of LSD brought medical research on the drug to a halt, researchers in Europe have reopened investigations into the possible therapeutic benefits of the controversial substance. 1 This might come as something of a surprise to those who remember the public outcry against psychedelic drugs in the 1960s, when the American media echoed with sensational stories of LSD-induced violence and psychosis. 2 But before it became ‘the nation’s newest scourge’, LSD was hailed as a ‘wonder drug’ by medical researchers and psychotherapists convinced of its therapeutic potential. This paper investigates how and why psychedelic drugs made the remarkable transition from medical tool to countercultural sacrament, and from panacea to medical, legal, and cultural pariah. Jordan Goodman, Paul Lovejoy, and Andrew Sherratt have already done much to demonstrate the fluidity of the boundary between licit and illicit drug use. They argue for the need to...