Tripped

Lindsay Hasluck's Review 

How can Nazis, American politics and LSD have any immediate relevance to my life?

In his well-researched and personal investigation, Ohler unravels the mystery surrounding the invention of LSD. Tripped is one of those rare books that puts into place an important piece of a historical jigsaw puzzle. Ohler argues that in the aftermath of the destruction and occupation of Berlin, when both the Soviets and the Allied forces raced to grab Nazi scientists to help develop nuclear weaponry, other technologies were also being eagerly sought after behind the scenes. Mind control became the obsession of the American black-operation government, while the wholesale adoption by the Americans of Nazi initiatives and oppressive totalitarian laws directly created the so-called “War on Drugs” that has deeply damaged nations around the world.

The development of LSD, when leaked from CIA mind-control experiments in the 1950s, led to the “Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out” days of the Timothy Leary hippy revolution. It was a movement that shook the moral foundations of Western Culture, and heavily influenced the music and art of the next few decades. The tyrannical and weaponised response, impelled by moral panic, by UN-led governments has left generations of minorities in prison or experiencing poverty for minor drug felonies. These injustices have some responsibility for creating the present day fearful and neo-fascist modern political landscape in the USA, and parts of Europe and South America. But in his quest to explore the effects of LSD, Ohler also tries to find out if the current boom in micro-dosing will offer any relief for his mother’s dementia. He asks if the much-maligned substance LSD could be critical in solving the dementia tsunami that is now threatening to overwhelm western culture. 
 
For lovers of quirky history, and seekers of missing parts of the global political narrative that can help make sense of the current chaotic and conflict-ridden world, Tripped lands a punch that few of us saw coming. A highly readable and entertaining read, the book also offers much-needed hope for dementia sufferers and their carers. Tripped should not be summarily dismissed: it’s relevant to all of us.  

Publisher's Review 

A brilliant and original investigation into the medical origins of LSD and how the Nazis and the CIA turned it into a weapon, by the author of Blitzed.

Berlin, 1945. Following the fall of the Third Reich, drug use - long kept under control by the Nazis' strict anti-drug laws - is rampant throughout the city. In the American sector, Arthur J. Giuliani of the nascent Federal Bureau of Narcotics is tasked with learning about the Nazis' drug policies and bringing home anything that might prove 'useful'.Five years later, Harvard professor Dr Henry Beecher begins work with the US government to uncover the research behind the Nazis' psychedelics programme. Originally created for medical purposes by Dr Albert Hofmann, the Nazis coopted LSD to experiment with mind control and find a 'truth serum' - research that the US, particularly the CIA, is desperate to acquire.Based on extensive archival research, Tripped is a wild, unconventional post-war history, a spiritual sequel to Norman Ohler's bestselling Blitzed. Revealing the hidden connections between the Nazis and the CIA's notorious brainwashing experimentation programme, MKUltra, Ohler shares how this secret history held back the therapeutic research of psychedelic drugs for decades as the West sought to turn LSD into a weapon.

'Entertaining' - The Times

'Utterly fascinating and illuminating' - Sinclair McKay

'Fascinating... An astonishing read, with remarkably vivid protagonists' - Harald Jhner

'Ohler weaves a masterful tapestry of history in this revealing and fresh account' - David de Jong