The Atlantic: The Inventor of LSD Asked Steve Jobs for PR Help

Note from MAPS: The links below to The Fix have expired. You can view Albert Hofmann’s original letter to Steve Jobs and a transcript here.

Originally appearing here (Archived)

That Steve Jobs both did LSD and was also a well respected inventor, made him a good spokesman for a drug that more often gets associated with burnt out Dead Heads. That’s why the drug’s creator Albert Hofmann reached out to Jobs for comment on how the drugs helped him “creatively” and in his “personal spiritual quest,” in a hand-written letter that The Fix got a hold of. Looking for support for LSD related medical research, the 101 year old Hofmann penned the letter to Jobs in 2007. “I hope you will help in the transformation of my problem child into a wonder child,” he wrote. Acid hasn’t gotten any better of a rep in those years, but perhaps Jobs’s passing, which has reinforced both his drug habits and genius, has helped push the drug a little closer to “wonder child” status. The Fix also has a transcript of the letter if you’re having trouble with Hofmann’s scrawl. In 2007, MAPS Founder and Executive Director Rick Doblin asked LSD inventor Albert Hofmann to send Apple founder Steve Jobs a letter asking him to support research into the beneficial applications of Hofmann’s “problem child.” Jobs never did contribute to MAPS or to psychedelic research, but led to a heartfelt conversation between Doblin and the famous innovator and entrepreneur.