History Channel documentary about the history of LSD
Histories Mysteries Lysergic acid diethylamide
In the 1960s, LSD exploded into the popular consciousness – and inside the brains of the countless trippers who tried the revolutionary drug. Thirty years later its role in the cultural upheavals of that tumultuous time is still debated.
GETTING HIGH explores the legacy of LSD with the help of people like Tom Wolfe, author of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which chronicles the San Francisco acid parties (where Ken Kesey was the host), and Jay Stephens, author of Storming Heaven. We’ll visit the lab where the drug was first synthesized by the Swiss scientist Albert Hoffman in 1943, and examine the controversial tests conducted by the CIA and the military, as well as other nations. See how Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley brought the drug into the public eye, while singer Grace Slick and Ralph Metzner – a member of the Harvard group that conducted early LSD experiments – share remarkably divergent tales of their encounters with acid. And scholars add perspective by examining the role of hallucinogens in societies throughout history.
The most famous drug of the 1960s still has some stories to tell, and GETTING HIGH gets them out in the open.