Albert Hoffman thought that LSD, or “acid” as it became commonly known, could be used as a treatment for mental illness, however, it soon became a popular drug with rock musicians and many other people in the ‘60s counterculture explosion that took place.
Hoffman had been working with LSD in the Sandoz pharmaceutical laboratory a few years after he had first made it and some of the hallucinogenic substance entered his body through his fingers. After that he experienced some of its mind-bending affects.
Harvard professor Timothy Leary also became famous because of LSD when he started using the substance and going round advocating that people "turn on, tune in, drop out".
A backlash to Hoffman and Leary’s enthusiasm for LSD as a wonder drug was brought about with horror stories of what the substance did to some people who had taken it and it was made illegal in many countries from the late ‘60s onward.
