![[opinion]](/~d49er/Icon/opinion.gif){kind=icon}
Led Zeppelin thunders and drones in the University Student Union Music Listening Lounge after decades on dusty shelves.
So what seems to be missing in this latest lifestyle rehash of a bygone era?
The psychedelics, baby.
Reports of LSD-tripping college students taking swan dives off roof tops may have grabbed headlines 30 years ago, but nary a word has been heard since.
Still illegal after all these years, LSD and its kin, which seem to be on hiatus, have appeared from time to time on the criminal drug scene.
Rich Carr has been a detective in the narcotics division of the Long Beach Police Department for 11 years.
"We don't run into LSD much, if at all. We had a good bout with PCP a few years ago. But LSD, mushrooms and peyote we run into that very, very rarely," he said.
Carr said the few warrants the LBPD has served, for mushrooms or peyote, were in East Long Beach.
"If there was a profit margin you'd probably see more of it," Carr said.
However, unlike the cocaine, speed and heroin Carr finds wreaking havoc in low income communities, LSD and hallucinogens are not addictive and do not create a ready supply of dependent buyers.
"Each drug has its own culture. LSD is a social drug, and you tend to find it in more affluent communities," Carr said.
"When I was in college it was the intellectuals, the 4.0 guys, who were trying it," Carr recalled.
So where is most LSD today?
According to disc jockey Jacob Ofilas, 26, the drug has been quietly gaining popularity in the techno-music scene at raves (all-night parties staged at underground clubs or in isolated spots such as the desert).
The highly synthesized beat of the dance music lends itself to a psychedelic experience, and the movement has spawned a sub-genre, psychedelic-trance music.
"We are seeing more psychedelics at the parties. LSD is still huge. I have seen a definite growth," Ofilas said.
He said when he first hit the scene six years ago, Ecstasy was popular. The latest trend, he said, is to use LSD and Ecstasy at the same time.
"There is definitely a difference between East Coast drugs and West Coast drugs," Ofilas said, having observed more hard drug use, such as speed, heroin and K (ketamine, a drug chemically related to PCP), at East Coast raves.
Raves typically attract 16- to 23- year-olds, and Ofilas cautioned that hallucinogens are gateway drugs.
Ofilas said that references to hallucinogens are common in fliers to promote parties.
"You see a lot of Alice in Wonderland."
He said he has also observed that rave drug use is much like it was for hippies in the '60s.
"A lot of people became part of the techno community after the Grateful Dead was gone," he says.
"Raves are a communal experience. I see the same people every week."
When the '60s rolled around, Europeans had been flying on toad sweat and nightshade concoctions for centuries.
Ergot, a fungus that contains naturally occurring lysergic acid (the L in LSD), had been used by midwives 17th century obstetricians to induce labor, and later to stop bleeding after childbirth.
It was, ironically, mainstream science that brought the counterculture of the '60s and '70s, its hallucinogenic drugs of choice, LSD and MDMA and its relatives.
In 1938, Albert Hofmann, a Sandoz Ltd. research chemist, synthesized and stabilized lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. His research for the Swiss pharmaceutical company included forays to Mexico for magic mushrooms in the 1950s.
Methylenedioxymethylamphetamine) or Ecstasy (the name was changed in the '80s to improve marketability in dance clubs) was first synthesized in 1898 and patented by Merck in 1914.
Chemist Alexander Shulgin re-synthesized the drug while employed by Dow Chemical Co. in the 1960s.
Both men tested the drugs on themselves, their wives and friends. They enjoyed lifelong relationships with the compounds they developed, as have some recreational users who started using them in college decades ago.
Web page designer Pat Lee (not the interviewee's real name) began using drugs, including LSD, in the '70s while attending a local college.
"It was in the spirit of the times; it was about exploring, and it was fun to do," Lee said.
After more than 20 years of using hallucinogens, Lee, 41, has only seen one user having a "bad trip" at a music festival several years ago.
"He was confused and shaking his head. Most people know not to take LSD unless they're feeling well-integrated," Lee said.
"I have known some people who, after a single dose, seem different. They're disjointed, unfocused. Sometimes they're more verbal," Lee added.
Lee described an LSD trip as a primarily visual experience.
"It's like the spots you see when you close your eyes."
Mushrooms can give users aural or reverb effects; sometimes they give users synesthesia, Lee said. The user's senses get all mixed up.
"You see what you smell, or hear what you touch," he said. "I've been waiting for that, but it's never happened."
Lee said he sees a connection between politics, big business and hallucinogens.
"LSD, MDA and MDMA production used to be a cottage industry until they made the transition from being legal to illegal," Lee said.
Schedule I, the federal code that defines illegal drugs, was amended in 1971 and 1985 to include a broad spectrum of hallucinogenic and designer drugs.
This allowed prosecutors to keep pace with chemists who modified drug formulas to keep the compounds off Schedule I.
Chinese herbalists may have problems because some of the herbs they use contain trace chemicals. This is where trade issues collide with health issues, according to Lee.
"It's not just about recreational stuff. If it's not made by Proctor and Gamble (sic), and doesn't leach your system of nutrients and give you diarrhea, then it's illegal," Lee observed.
Unlike Lee, Chris Ritts (not his real name), a Long Beach musician, had a short term relationship with LSD that ended on a sour note. He started using LSD in 1968 at 13 and, for the next three years, kept a chart of his trips and doses.
"You don't actually hallucinate. The experience is perceptual; it distorts reality. I don't think breathing walls count as a hallucination," Ritts said.
"Most people know if they see something creepy it's not real."
"Nothing looks solid. Everything is shifting, changing and morphing. At first I was terrified. The stuff I had read didn't prepare me for the experience," Ritts said.
Ritts stopped using LSD in 1971 after too many bad experiences and a decline in drug quality.
"Your trip really depends on where you are and who you're with. One night I did it with some friends who'd just got back from Vietnam," he said.
The combination of the music (Emerson Lake and Palmer) and graphic war stories gave him a bad trip. He stopped using hallucinogens altogether, including marijuana.
According to Ritts, LSD lingered in the music scene long after the hippies faded into the cultural sunset.