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Albert Hofmann first discovered the effects of LSD accidentally in his lab, but followed up with a planned and carefully considered minimal dose of 250 micrograms, 0.25mg, to confirm that his first trip was due to accidental ingestion.
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The nature and the course of this extraordinary disturbance raised my suspicions that some exogenic intoxication may have been involved and that the Iysergic acid diethylamide with which I had been working that afternoon could have been responsible... However, I could not imagine how this compound could have accidentally found its way into my body in a sufficient quantity to produce such phenomena. Moreover, the nature of the symptoms did not tally with those previously associated with ergot poisoning. In order to get to the root of the matter, I decided to conduct some experiments on myself with the substance in question. I started with the lowest dose that might be expected to have any effect, i.e., 0.25 mg LSD. The notes in my laboratory journal read as follows:
April 19, 1943: Preparation of an 0.5% aqueous solution of d-lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate. 4:20 P.M.: 0.5 cc (0.25 mg LSD) ingested orally. The solution is tasteless. 4:50 P.M.: no trace of any effect. 5:00 P.M.: slight dizziness, unrest, difficulty in concentration, visual disturbances, marked desire to laugh...
At this point the laboratory notes are discontinued: The last words were written only with great difficulty.
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This was the first planned experiment with LSD and a rather dramatic one. Subsequent experiments on volunteer colleagues of the Sandoz research laboratories confirmed the extraordinary activity of LSD on the human psyche. These showed that the effective oral dose of LSD in human beings is 0.03 mg to 0.05 mg. In spite of my caution, I had chosen for my first experiment five times the average effective dose. LSD is by far the most active and most specific hallucinogen. It is about 5,000 to 10,000 times more active than mescaline, which produces qualitatively nearly the same symptoms.
So a mg or 2 is 20-40 typical doses!
A gram is better than a Damn, applies to Soma of Huxley in Brave New World, but he took LSD on his deathbed to good effect. One might have expected a bit of a bum trip in that circumstance!
