Happy Bicycle Day: Celebrating the Psychedelic Revolution

 


On April 16, 1943, chemist Albert Hofman accidentally ingested LSD while tinkering in his lab.  He'd actually created it in 1936 but got the liquid on his hands 5 years later & began to trip balls, deciding to purposely take more on the 19th.  Due to wartime driving restrictions, he'd ridden his bike to work at Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland that day, and in his notes he reported that the LSD trip was peaking during his ride home.  The"Bicycle Day"  holiday was officially founded in 1985 by a man named Thomas Roberts, psych professor at Northern Illinois University, but was likely celebrated much further back by drug enthusiasts.  It's often celebrated by ingesting psychedelics and/or riding bikes.  Here's an excerpt of Hofman's book LSD: My Problem Child:

... "Little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux ...  As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light.  It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty.”

Bitchin'.  At the time he first tripped on acid, Hofman was a serious chemist at Sandoz Laboratories, which was (in)famous for making things like saccharin and, more recently, alprazolam & monoclonal antibodies.  His task was to identify plant-derived drugs for pharmaceuticals, and he was working with the rye fungus ergot when he stumbled upon LSD-25 (so named because it was the 25th lysergamide he'd created).  The bigwigs at Sandoz weren't impressed with his discovery, however, so testing stopped in 1936. 

...but after 5 years gathering dust on the shelf, LSD-25 was calling his name.  He felt it had more promise than originally acknowledged, so he quietly synthesized more on 4/16/43.  He'd actually absorbed it in his skin that day for the 1st time, recording the curious experience in his journal.  Three days later, he intentionally took 250 mg of LSD crystal dissolved in water & asked his assistant to follow him home on his bike after work.  Thus, Bicycle Day was born.  



Out of the Lab & Into the Streets

Most people think of twirling hippies or Woodstock when they hear the word "LSD," but you may be interested to learn that the first real applications of LSD were in covert experiments by the U.S. government & CIA.  Along with other powerful mind-altering drugs like PCP & MDA, acid was administered in high doses to entire military units as well as volunteers & unwitting subjects in psych wards, orphanges, prisons & other institutions across the U.S. & Canada.  One of said "volunteers" was a man by the name of Ken Kesey, who happened to work in a psych ward.  It was he who liberated LSD from its institutional prison & spread it far & wide via his Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests.  Along with his band of Merry Pranksters, he drove a bus called "Further" cross-country, tripping on acid & other goodies all the while.  He also wrote a little book called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that you may have heard of.  It was a result of his bold psychedelic trips inside the psych ward at which he worked.

Operation Moneybags:  Soldiers on acid

I don't have time to cover all the important figures & events in the psychedelic revolution because it's still ongoing.  From Timothy Leary to the Manson Family to the psychedelic psychiatrists of today, we're still learning about these potent mind-bending drugs & their medical applications.  Topics like microdosing, HPPD, hallucinogens for cluster headaches, alcoholism, end-of-life anxiety & other serious disorders still require additional study.  One thing is certain:  The placement of these drugs in Schedule I means that research has been restricted, so they need to be removed from this oppressive class if we're serious about education & safer medical use.  They don't belong there anyway based on the criteria of dangerous/addictive/no medical value.

How You Can Support Psychedelic Advancement

To support the legalization & scientific study of psychedelics, donate to MAPS.  You can also volunteer for the organization or attend their local community events.  Check their website for more info on how to do that.  In addition to traditional psychedelics like ibogaine & LSD, MAPS also promotes the study of MDMA, ketamine & cannabis.  The Beckley Foundation is another great alternative if you're in the UK.  In the meantime, do your part to spread knowledge & dispel myths about this widely misunderstood class of drugs.  Far too many people still believe myths like "acid warps your DNA" or "shrooms cause their high via food poisoning."  Just no.

Using these drugs responsibly yourself is the most impactful thing you can do in terms of furthering the cause of legalization & destigmatization.  Every call to Poison Control, every delirious ambulance ride or public meltdown only tarnishes the image of the drugs, even though it's usually an issue with dosage, interactions or other things rather than the drug itself.  Under prohibition, facts don't matter so take care not to contribute to the propaganda.  Always have a sober trip sitter, start low (dose) & go slow.  Keep a trip killer on hand (benzo or antipsychotic) & never drive intoxicated.  Know your body, know your drug & know your source but keep Naloxone on hand just in case.  In the era of fentanyl & nitazenes, you can never be too careful.

LSD was the last psychedelic I took, and that was in 2013.  I believe in the tenet:  "When you get the message, hang up the phone."  For me, the "message" was that this class of drug just doesn't agree with my body chemistry for whatever reason.  Dosage, set & setting haven't ever mattered much--I'd plan my trips down to the last detail and still end up in the fetal position for 8 hours while my friends laugh & dance.  I prefer substances that predictably make me happy & give me energy; psychedelics distort my vision like I'm in Alice In Wonderland & cause the worst fatigue imaginable.  It's not an anxiety-producing effect like when I've had too much THC; just miserable.  I've only had one "good trip" in all my years and have no idea what the difference was.  This applies to both tryptamines & phenethylamines, from classic drugs like LSD/shrooms/mescaline cacti to 4-AcO-DMT/4-HO-MET/6-Apb and even methoxetamine. 

Thus I can't imagine how much courage it took for Hofman to take that 1st intentional dose of LSD-25, hop on his bike & journey home.  What if it was as toxic as the ergot from which it was derived?  What if the dose he took was too high?  Being the 1st person in history to EVER take a given substance has to be unnerving so we owe a great debt to people like him & the Shulgins, who tested hundreds of phenethylamines & tryptamines & recorded their effects for us.  It was scary enough just tinkering around with those novel Chinese research chemicals when trip reports already existed so I can't fathom what it would be like to be the 1st person EVER to try something, let alone a psychedelic which can have unpredictable effects.  

Despite my personal dislike of these substances, I acknowledge their therapeutic & spiritual potential for others & support their full legalization.  Wishing you & yours an incredible Bicycle Day! 

🌈✨🚴🏽