Even the discoverer of the drug, the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman, cautioned against its recreational use. Although he managed to bicycle home from his laboratory under the influence of LSD, he described his experience as intense. For about a decade, however, it was used, if not recreationally, then certainly for a cornucopia of ailments ranging from psychiatric diseases and alcoholism to optic nerve hypoplasia. By the mid-1960s, the pendulum swung the other way, as government officials took note of the substance’s “high potential for abuse”.

On this day, October 6, in 1966, LSD went from a Schedule I drug, with some controls over its possession and distribution, to completely illegal for any purposes whatsoever. Not only was recreational use outlawed, but so was controlled academic research using LSD.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Organization stated in their explanation the drug’s use in psychotherapy “largely has been debunked. It produces aphrodisiac effects, does not increase creativity, has no lasting positive effect in treating alcoholics or criminals, does not produce a ‘model psychosis’, and does not generate immediate personality change. On the negative side, the drug “can produce profound adverse reactions, such as acute panic reactions, psychotic crises, and “flashbacks,” especially in users ill-equipped to deal with such trauma.”