LSD DISAPPEARING, COPS SAY

HAMILTON - When John Gruhl worked Hamilton's drug beat, he knew exactly
what was arriving from sunny California via Toronto's free-livin' Rochdale
College.

"Green frog acid - I remember that like it was yesterday," says Gruhl, who
began 22 years of anti-drug work in 1970. "They'd have all sorts of little
tricks like that."

In the early '70s, LSD dealers mixed the clear, mind-bending liquid with
tea in capsules. Acid-soaked blotter paper sported green frogs, the General
Electric logo and window panes. Some gutsy pushers posted notes for buyers
on their front doors.

"LSD was an everyday, common thing. Officers in the street would make small
arrests, get lucky sometimes and get 75 tablets," says Gruhl, 61, who led
Hamilton's anti-drug squad before retiring in the '90s.

But that was then.

Since LSD was accidentally discovered - 60 years ago today - it's been most
commonly viewed as the psychedelic jet fuel of the late '60s
counterculture. It fed urban legends, such as the blue star tattoo myth,
and inspired hundreds of aimless guitar solos.

But now in its golden years, LSD is a fading priority for police, an
absentee in school drug sweeps and an underdog that some claim should be
returned to its early role as a psychotherapy tool.

"We very seldom see LSD. It's a very rare occasion," said Detective
Sergeant Rick Wills, head of Hamilton's drug squad. "If you look at the
criminals making this stuff, it's a lot easier to make and sell Ecstasy and
designer drugs."

He has to think back 13 years to recall the area's last big LSD bust. In
1990, police found 152,000 hits of LSD in a pickup truck carrying local
brothers James and Paul Brown. The case - which put LSD back in the news -
ended with Paul in prison, James found not guilty and their dad fined for
money laundering.

When Gruhl headed up concert security for the 1992 Grateful Dead concert at
Copps Coliseum, police made 85 arrests for 152 drug-related charges within
the fans' infamous Shakedown Street parking lot scene. Most seized drugs
were LSD, PCP, marijuana and hash.

But in schools today, LSD is fading. According to the 2001 Ontario Student
Drug Use Survey, LSD was the only hallucinogen to decline significantly in
the '90s. It fell from a 6.8 per cent rate of use in 1999 to 4.5 per cent
in 2001. In Grade 11, its use fell from 18.5 per cent in 1995 to 5 per cent
in 2001.

"As school liaison officers, we do lots of drug sweeps in the schools and,
by far, the most popular thing is marijuana," says Constable Jack
VanderPol. He has come across GHB, a rape drug, and jimson weed. "But I
haven't had a kid ever mention LSD-to me."

There's a sense that LSD was pushed aside by designer drugs such as
Ecstasy, which was pricier to buy but a better fit as up-tempo electronica
replaced trip-rock in the party crowd.

Use of PCP-and other hallucinogens increased with the fall of LSD, which is
now much less potent than it was in the '60s and '70s, which may explain
declining LSD-related hospital visits.

And, today, as LSD's heyday fades into tie-dyed history, anti-drug units
are more concerned with the trafficking of crack cocaine and its ability to
destroy inner-city neighbourhoods.

But it wasn't always this way.

Exactly six decades ago, Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann was dabbling with
plant fungus in his lab when he accidentally ingested some of his own brew.
In what's become a drug legend, he got woozy, dreamy and saw a kaleidoscope
of dancing colours.

He'd taken history's first acid trip.

Thinking he hit chemical pay-dirt, Hofmann took a second acid trip three
days later, during which he rode his bicycle home. (Hence the Portland,
Ore. celebration of Bicycle Day on Saturday.) Hofmann thought he found a
drug with great potential for psychotherapy and brain research - he never
planned for a counterculture.

"LSD became a symbol of inter-generational conflict and emblematic of the
'60s," says Californian Martin Lee, co-author of Acid Dreams: The Complete
Social History of LSD. "It got swept up in the cultural polarization of the
time, and distorted in many ways."

One camp, led by acidheads like Timothy Leary, saw LSD as an instant trip
to paradise. The other, in the tradition of 1947 anti-pot film Reefer
Madness, vilified it as a drug that led users to commit suicide.

Both used LSD for their own purposes, Lee says.

"The mistake they made was in giving the drug inherent properties that
caused specific experiences," Lee says. "I would say it's a non-specific
amplifier of psychic and social processes," noting it's about time to
revive medical research with LSD.

It's a notion he shares with many LSD fans, who have longed for the kind of
serious study the drug saw in the past. Initially developed as a
circulatory stimulant, in the '40s interest revived as some thought LSD
could treat schizophrenia and mimic mental illness.

Sandoz Laboratories, the drug's sole producer, marketed LSD as a
psychiatric cure-all and hailed it as the silver bullet for everything from
schizophrenia to crime, sexual "perversion" to alcoholism.

During a 15-year period after 1950, LSD research generated about 1,000
scientific papers, several dozen books, and six international conferences,
research by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration notes.

It was prescribed as medicine to some 40,000 patients but, by 1980, new
restrictions, decreased funding and poor research results saw it largely
shelved. Today, no human research is being conducted with LSD in Canada,
and several recent studies note its link to panic attacks and flashbacks.

But LSD, once the daily bread in the crowd that tracked the Grateful Dead,
still has its die-hard supporters. Without coincidence, one is Halifax
Deadhead Connie Littlefield. In May, she finished a National Film
Board-funded documentary about the drug's discovery, entitled Hofmann's Potion.

Her 56-minute film will play at Portland's Bicycle Day this week, as well
as at Mind States IV, a conference addressing "altered consciousness" in
Berkeley, Calif. starting May 23.

"I-think everything we learn on LSD is real. I think there's value in
exploring it and we should listen to doctors who say it's the greatest tool
for unlocking the mysteries of the mind," says Littlefield, 40, whose film
will visit Toronto's John Spotten Cinema May 8.

But Gruhl, the retired Hamilton drug cop, simply doesn't buy it.

"That would be nonsense. You don't need to get me started, but it's no
different than saying marijuana should be legalized, because it's a very
dangerous narcotic. And there's nothing good about it - it's only evil."