0R, the Eclectic Workplace Acid Test
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THE WORK R (0r,T The Eclectic WorkplaceIP Acid Test) In hep San Francisco, innovative office workers have found a new way to boost productivity: microdosing psychedelic performance enhancers during their 9-5. But can taking LSD really make you a better employee? To test the theory, one MH writer decided to trial his own weekday trip from COULD LSD ADD COLOUR the (relative) safety of his desk. This is what happened TO THE MONOTONE GUTTER CREDIT GUTTER OF YOUR DAILY GRIND? WORDS BY TOM WARD – PHOTOGRAPHY BY AGATA PEC 68 MEN’S HEALTH MENSHEALTH.CO.UK MENSHEALTH.CO.UK MEN’S HEALTH 69 THE IT’S 10AM WORK Tom is more prone to studied But on the second go the TRIP PROGRESS diligence than outbursts of effects were more noticeable. REPORT zany banter. So, even though Tom enjoyed distinct periods I was aware of his dosing, of down-time that split up his FRIDAY Will microdosing LSD at charting any changes in his work, seemingly thanks to in 2016 – is an altogether different feat. allowing the mind to settle before the work have your supervisor 9-5 demeanour was tricky. better focus on projects. In I tentatively message a friend whose cycle begins again on the fourth. Taken at readying your P45? MH’s In fact, by the end of the first meetings, his ideas were less Facebook photos feature variations this dose, LSD’s effect is ‘psycholytic’ as deputy editor, David Morton, Monday, I had forgotten he encumbered by overthinking. of him hanging about Indian temples opposed to psychedelic – mind-blowing charts our writer’s progress was ‘experimenting’ entirely. Which is a trip I’d like to take. arrayed in patterned sari pants as he in a way that won’t have you picturing bats gazes lustily at the sunset. He responds MORNINGand as the MH editorial team sits down swooping overhead. As Fadiman wrote, almost immediately promising to order for its daily meeting, every one of my “The rocks don’t glisten, not even a little.” my LSD from the ‘Dark Web’. Fadiman thoughts is focused on the tab of LSD was being sold in the US as a psychiatric Whether microdosed or ingested at recommends using liquid LSD, but the I’ve just ingested. None of my colleagues medication under the trade name Delysid. full strength, LSD works by stimulating only source online is selling 25 250mg know I’ve taken it and I am as yet unsure From the mid-’50s to 1973, the CIA got in the 5-HT2A receptors in the pre-frontal vials for £240, which equates to 6230 what its impact on my day – my career on the act, exploring the drug’s potential cortex, increasing the activity of glutamate more doses than I require. There’s also – will be. This isn’t a ploy to lose my job, use for mind control, while it was also – a substance vital to learning – with a risk that shelling out for that much will nor have I simply started the weekend being used by the American Psychiatric the resulting sensation mimicking the land me in trouble with the law, and early. If pioneering researchers across Association to treat alcoholism. effect of the release of feel-good chemical a certainty it’ll land me with some hefty the pond are to be believed, lysergic acid But concerns about the mind-altering serotonin. According to research in the overdraft charges. Instead we plump for diethylamide – LSD to you and me – is properties of LSD and its counter-culture Journal of Analytical Toxicology, LSD 10 tabs for £45, a mere 980 doses more simply the latest in a string of unusual following were growing. In a 1965 edition has a ‘plasma half-life’ of just over five than I’ll need. A week later an envelope products claimed as workplace aids. of The Harvard Crimson, Dr Max Rinkel hours, meaning an entire dose should be arrives in the post. I open it to find a According to one Harvard researcher, by – the first American doctor to work with cleared from your system inside 10 hours. folded card labelled “BDSM Porn – Please taking a miniscule amount at my desk LSD – was reported as having expressed Contrary to the popular doom-leaden HALLUCINOGENS MAY find your login info and selected vouchers I’m opening my brain up to receive ideas, concern over the long-term effects of mythos of the ’60s and ’70s, traces of ONE DAY USURP YOUR enclosed.” Labelling orders in this way is improve focus and sharpen creativity. the drug: “Rinkel said that the danger the drug won’t be stored in your spinal MORNING PICK-ME-UP a clever stratagem for avoiding detection, But this is no mere nootropic. Get the of taking LSD outside a hospital was that column for the rest or your life. Nor can but makes for a possibly relationship- dose wrong, or approach it in the wrong the size of the dosage and the purity of the the effects of the drug be accidentally shattering package to open with your frame of mind, and I may well be freaking drug are uncertain, and the reaction of triggered at a later date, turning you girlfriend standing beside you. Finding out not just at my workload, but at the any individual is somewhat uncertain. He into some kaleidoscopic Manchurian the brightly coloured tabs of LSD – a Class elephants carrying my P45 in their trunks cited the case of a woman who, after taking Candidate. On a normal, 100mg dose, A drug – inside comes as strange relief. as they float through my editor’s office. the drug, tore off her clothes and knelt a 12-hour trip will likely always be the Next, the tricky part. A single tab To find out what this means for my – before a thermostat, which she believed very limit of what your brain endures. of LSD is about a quarter of the size of for our – workplace prospects, I set out was a crucifix. The experiment was then Nor – contrary to popular belief – a postage stamp, and I need a tenth to microdose LSD once every four days, terminated.” is LSD chemically of that. I get the sharpest kitchen knife over the course of two working weeks, LSD’s inevitable addictive: “Before out and perform a surgical dissection. and record the results. Would I unlock ban came five years “By midday I’m a second dose can Never having taken LSD before, I’m the hitherto untapped potential of my later, in 1970, when yet to visualise have an impact, you apprehensive about getting this right. brain, entering a swirling mental vortex US president Richard need to leave your Even with this feature signed off by my in which words fly past my eyes as my Nixon signed tangerine trees or brain for a while to editor (and the company’s lawyers), I fingers spark against the keyboard? the Controlled marmalade skies” sort of reset,” says don’t imagine he’ll find me tripping balls Would the Pulitzer board be lining up Substances Act. Jonathan Liebling, in the office overly endearing. The next to canonise my next weightloss feature? The UK’s Misuse of Drugs Act followed political director of drug law campaigners day I meet Liebling for a coffee, hoping he And would I finally understand the in 1971. In the UK, LSD is now, along with The United Patients Alliance and LSD can allay my fears. “The effect of taking ending of Mad Men? To paraphrase the ecstasy and cannabis, a Schedule 1 drug – specialist at The Loop. “Because your 10-12mg will be no different to the late psychedelic pioneer Timothy Leary, defined as one with no therapeutic value body can’t build up a tolerance, it’s almost sugar in your tea,” he says. I decided to turn on, tune in and find out. and a high potential for abuse. It is highly impossible to become addicted.” Add that “Once you start going for 30- illegal, along with nearly all research into it. to the findings of two US studies in 2015 33% 40mg there’ll be a noticeable of subjects reported THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR Yet in the states – specifically the tech that concluded there is no link between effect and, depending on LSD has a storied history both in and seats of Silicon Valley and San Francisco psychedelics and psychosis, and the long-term creative the person, 75-200mg is out of the laboratory. It was discovered – bored of Bulletproof coffees, biohacking historic and histrionic outcry about the benefits in a enough for a proper trip.” by Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann who, implants and efficiency-boosting fasting, drug’s dangers appear oversold. “The 1999 MAPS study I’m reminded of a Bill after isolating the chemical from the ergot a horde of young technologists are dosing acid is just the trigger that gives your into LSD Hicks line about people on fungus in 1938, accidentally sent himself their way to the top. Circuit board whizz brain a signal to turn up the volume,” says LSD jumping to their deaths on the world’s first acid trip. “I sank into Bill Gates is reported to have dabbled, Liebling. “Your brain would not respond from rooftops, believing they could a… extremely stimulated condition… but the lynchpin behind the move toward how it does if it were going to be harmed.” fly. Birds, Hicks points out, can also fly, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of creative dosing is Dr James Fadiman, but often take off from the ground.