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Thirty years ago it was just the opposite situation: the
curtain was beginning to come down on psychedelics, eliminating
the healing and research we had done with these drugs -- all of
the exciting discoveries -- all of the ferment of a wide spectrum
of research into the unconscious.
Coming events began to cast their shadow earlier, just as
some of the most creative and brilliant work was being done with
LSD. First came the attack on any of us who were not boarded
psychiatrists. The following is from my letter of April 11, 1961,
written to Humphry Osmond in two sections on my return from the
successful London Royal Medico-Psychological Conference; this
part dated April 24, 1961:
"Briefly, while we were gone, the hospital put in a Medical
Director -- something new. When I got back and went to give LSD,
the arrangements for which had been made the day before at the
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hospital, they said no more LSD. And me with my patient there.
The head nurse and admitting office stood by me and admitted the
patient. The Medical Director called and tried to make me leave
the hospital after the patient had the drug in him! I naturally
refused and asked if he wanted to have the patient's stomach
pumped.
The reason he gave for no more LSD was that his personal
malpractice insurance doesn't cover him against experimental drugs
used at the hospital! When I questioned this, he said he didn't
want to discuss details with me. Then he privately told Marion
Dakin (and rumored it around the hospital) that he was going to
get all Ph.D.s out of the hospital. There were several of us
using LSD under Marion Dakin. He tried to kick her out of the
hospital too, but she just laughed at him and pointed out that he
had given me no notification (he kicked me out), but that had
nothing to do with her. Further, Harry Althouse (Sandoz'
representative) who supplies LSD to the whole western region told
Mike (Agron, SF psychiatrist) that he was going to see that every
clinical psychologist (Ph.D.) was taken out of drug work. He just
allows psychiatrists with boards -- the main one being the one who
caused all the scandals and gave LSD such a bad name; and for six
months I begged Harry to come down and see what was going on, and
he refused to. It took letters from both Marion and Sid (and Sid
wouldn't write for months) to get him down, and then I think since
they didn't specify, that he thought it was something with respect
to me that he was to investigate. Anyway, he has told Marion that
we can't have any more drug until we have a psychiatrist who puts
the pills in the patient's mouth. This he has been kidded about
until he says that maybe they don't have to put the pill in their
mouth, but they have to supervise us. He wants to get rid of
Marion and have a psychiatrist. Which is absolutely mad because
one needs a complete physical with a competent internist most of
all for LSD work from the medical side. And there isn't a
psychiatrist in LA who can "supervise" with respect to the work we
are doing because we know a great deal more about the drug than
they do. It must be a time for me to stop a lot of work and write
-- certainly work has been made almost impossible for me lately by
forces utterly beyond my control. It is very discouraging to be
doing really sincere work and to be hampered on every side&
And from earlier in the letter:
It was particularly disheartening to come straight from the
London Conference where everyone was so nice, and England where
LSD isn't a nasty word, right back into the worst prohibitions,
restrictions, and real bias. Well, there are always such times.
I, personally, have had to give up work with LSD three separate
times (when the research with Sid ended, when I temporarily had to
stop doing therapy because of Will, and between M.D.'s), and each
time a way has opened so that I did not need to. But now I am
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tired... and I don't think I have the strength to fight the damn
thing any more. I know it's always this way when one is working
on the frontiers of the new, but it is doubly hard when there is
the additional prejudice of the medical profession -- and
unfortunately the prejudice against me as a woman. I hate to have
to say that, but that is part of it, too&
Humphry answered me immediately, April 27, l961 -- with
support:
& Let's come to first things first. I agree with you that
professional prejudice (in this case psychiatric) is one aspect of
the matter. Psychiatrists in the US have for so long emphasized
that psychiatry is psychotherapy that they have begun to believe
this themselves. Mind you, they have been aided and abetted by
psychologists and sociologists who have fallen for this same
argument& The present wrangling is idiotic and sordid because it
means that we are prepared to rid ourselves of your remarkable
knowledge simply because we are inflexible and silly... I can't
believe that the answer to this is your getting a medical degree -
- just another bizarre answer to the simple question of thinking
more clearly. I also agree about the sex prejudice. I've always
liked to think this wasn't so, because I was brought up by 2
Scotch aunts who clearly weren't inferior to men and live with my
3 girls who are as sharp as pins. I can't maintain these
illusions& It is hard to realize that women are and have been the
largest single depressed and exploited group of humans in the
world& Then you are very intelligent, and intelligence of whatever
sex isn't welcome, but has to be put up with&
And from my reply of May 15, 1961:
& First I want to tell you about the burning of Aldous
Huxley's house, which made us all absolutely sick. It happened
Friday night, and we were at L.A.'s and could see it happening
just one ridge over. We didn't know it was Deronda Drive; we did
know that it was violent, magnificent, fast-moving, very
destructive, and that we weren't going to leave L.A.'s until we
were sure that it wouldn't go over the intervening ridge to hers&
Thanks for your offer to do something for me; I hadn't
intended to ask you anything like that. I just needed your moral
support& As to the local situation, I'm in the process of trying to
find a psychiatrist who will supervise our project. You'd be
surprised how hard that is, as there is such a prejudice against
LSD here in LA. Understandable in a way became of all the fringe
operations, and also because we are a bastion of psychoanalysis&
Marion Dakin has found a little sanatorium not far from the
hospital which will take us grudgingly if they happen to have a
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room open& I have the feeling that this is the time for me to slow
down work-wise -- and to write, but so far it hasn't worked that
way because extra time has gone into finishing the house, taking
extra time with DB, and other odd jobs that I haven't had time for
many months&
But the situation didn't apply just to me and to
psychologists. We were just the first to be under attack. Hy
Denber wrote on November 2, 1962:
& How has the current hubbub regarding LSD affected your
work? I heard at a recent meeting in New York that Sandoz would
no longer furnish the drug for anything else except animal
experimentation. As a matter of fact, when I saw Dr. Bircher
yesterday at a meeting in the city, I mentioned it to him and his
reply was for animal work only We were told that Sandoz was no
longer interested (I also heard that their patent has run out and
this is probably why they have no further interest). It also was
said that people were smuggling the stuff in from Europe in
letters). As a matter of fact, there is a very curious trend
going on in psychiatry at the moment -- anti-drug; and it is being
aided and abetted by the same powers that were screaming about the
virtues of drugs not too long ago&
From my letter of January 12, 1963 to Hy:
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