The current developments around LSD and other psychedelics like psilocybin are seeing increasing research and access to the compounds in a medical context, and there are high hopes around their potential in a number of different areas of healthcare, from mental health to palliative care and beyond.
This would require legal rescheduling, however, Roberts says LSD may ultimately not be stripped of its illegal status due to its immense impact on consciousness – highlighting how history already shows us why this may never be the case.
“A lot of people are hoping that there will be some form of decriminalization at some point because of the way things are going medically with psychedelics,” says Roberts.
“Now, I think the establishment is against people being able to change their consciousness at will, with the drug that they want – so that they will never make it anything less than a Class A drug.
“On the other hand, it won’t stop people using it, because people will always seek it out.
“Whilst I would hope that the government sees sense in the end, I very much doubt it, because to allow people to use it openly like that, would, I think, really threaten them.
“In the 1970s the establishment destroyed the free festival movement, because it was underpinned by LSD. They destroyed the LSD factories that were fueling free festivals in the Operation Julie initiative.
“LSD is a very powerful drug, and taken in the wrong circumstances, with the wrong mindset, it can have quite damaging effects.
“Sometimes people don’t take the principles of set and setting seriously. To me, that is the Ground Zero of what you need to know about before you take LSD. You need to have your head in a good space, and you need to have your physical environment set up for the experience that you want.”
Roberts says he has now begun working on research for a book about clandestine LSD laboratories in Britain.
“Since 1965 there have been at least 20 clandestine LSD laboratories that have supplied much of the world with LSD – so I’m digging deep into that,” says Roberts.
“There’s so much going on with psychedelics. At one time, there were only one or two books a year written and published on psychedelics. Now there’s almost one a week coming out, and the majority of them are about the medical users of it.
“I thought it needed to be rebalanced by bringing this history back, because you can’t really use a substance if you’re not aware of its history.
“With Albion Dreaming, I hope it alerts people to the past and how it’s been used in the past, what worked and what didn’t work – and also I hope it emphasises the fact that the medical side of using psychedelics is just one, tiny aspect of the use of psychedelics.”
Albion Dreaming is a one-of-a-kind exploration into LSD’s hidden history in the UK and a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of its influence on British culture and society.
Stephanie Price | Community Blogger at Chemical Collective
Stephanie is one of our community bloggers here at Chemical Collective. If you’re interested in joining our blogging team and getting paid to write about subjects you’re passionate about, please reach out to Sam via email at samwoolfe@gmail.com
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I don’t believe Andy mentioned LSD having an illegal status, such a misunderstanding would be fatal to writing about our relationship with drugs, some parts of this article stray off the benchmark standard of understanding drugs from a human centric perspective
LSD .. encouraging veganism ….what sort of nonsense are you spouting now Andrew ?