Here's the source
During the Cold War, both the British and the US governments were keen to exploit LSD's unique qualities, for "social engineering". They were convinced it would be useful as a "truth drug" during interrogations – a rather prosaic understanding of the kind of visionary truth revealed by communing with one's soul.
In 1953 and 1954, scientists working for MI6 drugged servicemen with LSD without telling them what to expect; the scientists told them they were looking for a cure for the common cold. One soldier, aged 19, reported that he saw "walls melting, cracks appearing in people's faces... eyes would run down cheeks, Salvador Dali-type faces... a flower would turn into a slug." Not surprisingly, the experiment failed; MI6 reported that LSD was of little practical use as a mind-control drug. It took 50 years for the human guinea-pigs to be compensated for what they'd been put through.
[From Trip of a lifetime: How LSD rocked the world - Features, Music - The Independent]
Hofmann is credited with the discovery of LSD, a now-banned hallucinogenic drug. He discovered LSD by accident when he was researching medicinal plants. He made the discovery in 1938 when he was working on ergot, which is a fungus that kills grain. He isolated lysergic acid diethylamide during his work.(if the video won't load, go here)
Five years went buy, and while working, Hofmann spilled the lysergic acid diethylamide onto his hand, thus LSD was born. He felt the effects, becoming dizzy and on a “trip.”…Sandoz took LSD and went commercial with it in 1947, using it to treat psychiatric patients.
LSD was an extremely common drug during the 1960s for normal Americans, as well as artists of all kinds.
The website claims LSD was banned after discovering that large dosages were damaging, though these claims have been thoroughly debunked (If you add large amounts of anything to cells in a laboratory, you can kill those cells. Caffeine, plastic, beer, LSD, whatever. The amount of LSD added the cells in these petri dishes was the equivalent of a human ingesting 42 kilos of LSD). No, LSD was banned because of the false connection between pleasure and morality: if something feels good, it must be sinful.
