10 LSD facts as crazy as the drug itself

Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman first synthesized LSD on the 16th day into November, 1938 -- but he didn't think anything of it.

Five years passed before he decided to reexamine the substance. He happened to absorb a small amount of the drug through his fingertips and later described the accidental trip as "an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures" and "not unpleasant."

It was still a monumental discovery that would take the human mind and kick it right in its sweet spot. It wasn't long before society was dropping the simple chemical and watching walls breathe pure color.

These are all things you drug enthused freaks know about LSD. Here are a few things you didn't.

#1. It's not a myth -- students have slipped their teachers LSD

For some reason… it seems as though high school kids have always had access to the best drugs. Couple that with the fact that it's the most carefree and tumultuously confusing time in a person's life and the end product can get a bit wacky.

It was just a matter of time until the students figured out that they could dose their teachers. And that's just what happened to one poor California teacher. His students slipped him LSD during a field trip and he wrote a first hand account about the weirdness that ensued that day.

#2. 90% of all acid in the world for a whole decade came from one man

In 1991, some people just wanted to eat a bunch of acid before the Primus show.

In 2000, peeps just wanted to dose up and check out that Eminem guy.

Yes. A lot can happen in almost a decade. But if you bought acid any time between 1991 and 2000, you were getting it from one man. William Leonard Packard was the chemist who reigned supreme when it came to LSD. He was responsible for producing 90 percent of the world's acid -- from a missile silo.

He got busted and glowstick sales plummeted.

#3. Oh, CIA, you're so funny

We've all heard the grand tales of espionage, where LSD was used for mind control purposes. The CIA was no stranger to havin' a little fun from time to time with acid. They used it in all kinds of ways, none funnier than pranking their fellow agents with the powerful hallucinogen.

That's right, CIA agents regularly would slip each other acid and laugh hysterically as the person completely freaked out. Nothing makes for a fun day at work quite like filling a trained killer's head with hallucinations.

#4. Fun for everyone, even the blind!

LSD's effects on the brain are literally out of this world. It unlocks quadrants of the brain and uses them in a much different capacity than during normal brain use. So if you've ever wondered what blind people see while tripping balls on one of the most potent psychedelics commonly available, you'll be pleased to know that some of them report that the drug actually gives them visual hallucinations.

It is evident that a normal retina is not needed for the occurrence of LSD-induced visual experiences. These visual experiences do not seem to differ from the hallucinations reported by normal subjects after LSD.

Such phenomena occurred only in blind subjects who reported prior visual activity. The drug increased the frequency of visual events such as spots, lights, dots, and flickers. However, the complex visual experiences reported by 3 subjects after LSD did not occur after placebo or in ordinary experience.

It is interesting to note that duration of blindness was not related to the occurrence of visual hallucinations; nor was intelligence, acuity of visual memory, or use of visual imagery in speech.

#5. LSD's calming effects on the terminally ill

Some peoples' LSD stories will make you crap your pants in terror.

A bad trip is nothing to mess with.

As with other drugs, the verdict is not in on whether or not it is completely useless to the medical community. Tests are ongoing. In fact, Swiss doctors have been testing LSD with terminally ill cancer patience who are coping with inevitable death. They describe the preliminary findings as “promising.”

#6. LSD was vital to Apple's success

Apple has been dominating the computer market with products that actually make people stand in line to get. It's insane what this little company has grown into. It was all out of the mind of one man. That man… the late Steve Jobs. And this great achiever of our time… said that opening his third eye with a little LSD was one of the most important experiences of his life.

Jobs experimented with psychedelics, later calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life"

#7. Yes, but should we give it to elephants?

Science doesn't always test drugs in the smartest ways. We've all sat there and wondered what the effects of drug would be on our animal friends.

Their minds work so differently. A dog would completely freak out on most drugs, well… because it's a dog. A dog on acid would literally blow its own mind by eating its feces.

So naturally… some scientists got bored and decided to dose an elephant to try and discover how much it would take to make the elephant “violent and uncontrollable.”

Seriously, that shit was the sole purpose of an Oklahoma University study. On a side note… elephants on acid is a great name for an alternative rock band.

#8. A little goes a long way

LSD sets itself apart from any other drug as far as potency goes. This is demonstrated by the fact that you can place a teeny, tiny piece of paper on your tongue and literally unravel the fabric of the universe in your own mind while watching a tree broadcast the news.

Yep, it's powerful stuff that completely kicks moonshine in its moonshine balls. A single ounce of LSD is enough to make 300,000 people aware of the other side.

#9. Scientists plus LSD equals AWESOME (and breakthrough discoveries)

Nothing will explode the inner cortex of your psyche quite like tripping with a brainiac. The things they say during your night of fun often times are often too smart to handle and can cause freakouts.

Imagine for a second how mindblowing it would be to trip with an actual scientific genius like Francis Crick. He was the guy who deduced the double-helix structure of DNA… and he did it with a head full of acid. The man won a Nobel Prize.

#10. Can someone stop giving the CIA acid?

Here we are talking about that wacky CIA and what they do when they get their hands on some LSD. These guys were straight up hilarious and downright terrifying. They really let their freak flags fly when it came to using LSD.

One program called Operation Midnight Climax was especially interesting. The CIA enlisted prostitutes, who then lured unsuspecting men to ‘safehouses' where they were administered LSD without any kind of consent.

Also, when the French village Pont-Saint-Esprit was struck by mass hallucinations in 1951, it was blamed on ergot, a poisonous fungus that can occur on rye. However, an investigative journalist recently discovered that the village’s food was intentionally contaminated with LSD as part of a secret CIA mind control experiment.

That's it CIA, no more acid for you!