MI6 payouts over secret LSD tests
From the BBC today.
Three UK ex-servicemen have been given compensation after they were given LSD without their consent in the 1950s
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The men volunteered to be "guinea pigs" at the government research base Porton Down after being told scientists wanted to find a cure for the common cold.
But they were given the hallucinogen in mind control tests, and some volunteers had terrifying hallucinations.
This was in 1953-54 - but Sandoz was the sole producer of LSD and only began marketing it under the name "Delysid" in the USA in 1947-48.
It was pretty quick off the mark for the MOD to do LSD trials on volunteers such a short time after it was introduced.
Who suggested that the LSD trials take place at Porton Down?
Was it an "outreach" project from MK-ULTRA - the CIA cold war mind control experiments that killed at least one person?
Where did the LSD come from?
Did the MOD and Porton Down purchase LSD from Sandoz - like everyone else at that time?
Or did they attempt to synthesise their own? Was it really LSD that that was given to the volunteers or something else?
If they experimented with Sandoz LSD - well and good - it was the gold standard for LSD at that time - but if they cooked up something else in their own labs and used that instead - enquiring minds need to know.
Tags: lsd, sandoz, porton-down, chemical-warfare, mk-ultra, mi6