Chemical Warfare Secrets Almost Forgotten

Researchers tested pot, LSD on Army volunteers “Army doctors gave soldier volunteers synthetic marijuana, LSD and two dozen other psychoactive drugs during experiments aimed at developing chemical weapons that could incapacitate enemy soldiers, a psychiatrist who performed the research says in a new memoir. The program, which ran at the Army's Edgewood, Md., arsenal from 1955 until about 1972, concluded that counterculture staples such as acid and pot were either too unpredictable or too mellow to be useful as weapons, psychiatrist James Ketchum said in an interview. …Ketchum says the Army phased out the hallucinogen project in about 1972, in part because disclosure of such research would have caused a ‘public relations problem.’ Ketchum's notes suggest the Army's fears were not imaginary. They describe soldiers on ‘red oil,’ an especially powerful form of marijuana, who smirked for hours and found even routine spatial reasoning tests to be hilarious. Soldiers under the influence of hallucinogens ate imaginary chickens, took showers in full uniform while smoking cigars and chatted with invisible people for two to three days at a time. One attempted to ride off on an imaginary horse while another played with kittens only he could see.”
(USA Today,
05Apr07, Richard Willing)

http://www.usatoday.com

Story by Richard Willing, USA Today