The pendulum swing of cultural opinion has brought many once-passé styles back into popularity. Just recently, we’ve seen the revival of 1980s high waist pants, 1960s Wayfarer sunglasses, and ... psychedelic drugs. After many clinical labs experimenting with medicinal uses for hallucinogens closed in the 1960s, research dwindled to a halt —until recently. Research Radio, a podcast series from The New School in New York, explores the story behind psychedelics in "Behind the Shrooms;" the first in a two-part series.
It’s been a tumultuous ride for the science of psychedelic drugs. When LSD was first synthesized in the 1940s, many scientists hoped such a substance could be used to model psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia. American interest in psychedelic drugs peaked in the 1960s, when hippies were turned on to their recreational and spiritual potential. Then, in 1962, a scandal broke over widespread administration of the experimental sleep-aid thalidomide to pregnant women. The drug was implicated in birth defects in nearly 10,000 babies worldwide, resulting in a massive overhaul of regulations on research on experimental drugs such as thalidomide — or LSD. The scandal, combined with rampant use of psychedelic drugs mostly by white middle-class youth in the years following, prompted a backlash within the political and medical communities that virtually halted drug research for the next 30 years.
