BAD TRIP TO THE LIQUOR STORE

A Canadian researcher thinks she has rediscovered a novel treatment for alcoholism:

Dr. Erika Dyck, who studies the history of medicine, recently published a paper on a series of experiments conducted by psychiatrists in Saskatchewan in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Dr. Humphry Osmond wanted to know whether a tab of acid could mimic the effect of delirium tremens in problem drinkers – and encourage them to quit.

“What he found was that the LSD caused these patients to undergo a kind of spiritual experience,” said Dyck.

Osmond and his colleagues dosed more than 700 volunteers with LSD over a decade of testing, and claimed about half of them managed to quit the bottle – at least during the follow-up period.

Treatment with LSD is, however, not risk free:

“One patient described his experience and said, ‘There are some worms. They’re nodding at me. Am I dying? I must be dying because they’re eating my flesh,’” Dyck wrote.

Mescal drinkers beware.