Investigators: Rick Doblin, Jerry Beck, PhD, Kate Chapman, Maureen Alioto
Los Angeles Area, California
Contact
Sponsor: MAPS
The following report constitutes a forty-year+ follow-up interview study of 45 people who participated in the LSD research of Dr. Oscar Janiger, a psychiatrist who conducted studies in Los Angeles. Beginning in 1954 and continuing until 1962, Janiger conducted his own examinations of the effects of LSD. In an agreement with Sandoz Laboratories, which held the patent on LSD and manufactured it, Janiger administered a monitored dosage of Sandoz LSD to roughly 900 subjects, as part of a naturalistic experiment intended to illuminate the phenomenological nature of the LSD experience. The standard dose of LSD administered was 2 micrograms per kilogram of body weight administered orally; a moderate dose that would produce a powerful effect but is less than what was generally used in a psychedelic psychotherapeutic context. Subsequent to their LSD experience, subjects wrote a personal narrative. A month later, they completed questionnaires and compared descriptions of their experience with that of other subjects. The primary goal of this follow-up study is to describe the long-term effects of study respondents’ LSD experiences, both beneficial and harmful. The Janiger LSD Follow-up Study was published by MAPS.
