Image via University of Minnesota Press
A Canadian psychologist was denied entry to the U.S. because, decades earlier, he had taken LSD experimentally. As Danielle Giffort emphasizes, the illegality of acid has hampered the legitimate research into LSD’s medical efficacy that began in the 1950s and petered out by the ‘70s. As renewed efforts began to investigate a drug that showed promise for treating depression, addiction and other afflictions by helping patients access the psychological roots of sicknesses, researchers routinely denounce Timothy Leary, the psychologist-turned-counterculture guru whose megalomania and carelessness helped sink the science of psychedelia in the ‘60s.
While exploring the sociology of science and pseudo-science (and who sorts one from the other), Giffort wonders whether Leary might have been right about one thing: are randomized control trials applicable to LSD? Is testing the efficacy of antibiotics or a flu vaccine different from understanding a substance that opens the minds of its users, giving each one a different set of formative experiences? Leary (and other early researchers) were convinced that “set and setting”—the person’s mindset and the environment she’s in—are essential. Every trip is its own journey, and you can’t trip on a placebo.
Giffort, assistant professor of medical sociology at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, has written a valuable book at a time when the politics of science has been treated reductively by both American parties.
