Saskatchewan LSD Trial for Alcoholism Treatment

The Saskatchewan LSD Trial for Alcoholism Treatment turned an unusual analogy into a large-scale therapeutic experiment: Humphry Osmond and Abram Hoffer proposed that an LSD session might reproduce the delirium tremens associated with alcohol withdrawal and thereby help people with alcoholism remain sober. Over the next decade they tested that idea on more than seven hundred people. They reported that roughly half became sober and stayed sober for at least several months, a result that helped make LSD therapy a standard treatment option in the province. Yet the experiences patients described did not fit the theory that had launched the trial, and a later Toronto replication exposed how much the treatment’s outcome depended on the conditions in which it was given.