Psychedelic drug research breaks out of deep freeze as researchers head for the clinic with ambitious trial plans
David Nichols entered graduate school in 1969 with dreams of cracking LSD. He was a child of the 60s, his friends dropping tabs and going on about the visions they saw – the big bang, god, infinity projected – and how it changed them in ways only major life events could. Nichols was going to figure out how it all worked.
And then in 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substance Act. LSD, which the government had studied extensively for two decades, became a Schedule I drug. The dollars washed up. For 30 years, psychedelics became all but untouchable for clinical trials.
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