Drugs: LSD & the Unborn

Researchers studying the multifarious effects of LSD had new and disturbing reports last week. Not only does LSD expose unstable trippers to the risk of a psychotic break. Not only does it break down the chromosomes in some blood cells. The latest evidence is that it causes cell changes suspiciously like those seen in one form of leukemia. Given to a rat early in pregnancy, it usually results in stillborn or malformed young. Worse, LSD may have similar effects on the human fetus. And those chromosome breaks have been found in the babies of LSD users.

Though much of the evidence is still preliminary, it all points in the same direction, and U.S. Government agencies are supporting efforts to get conclusive data. The first findings of chromosome changes in blood cells, reported by Dr. Maimon M. Cohen, at Buffalo’s Children’s Hospital (TIME, March 24), were confirmed by the University of Oregon’s Dr. Samuel Irwin, working with Dr. Jose Egozcue. They compared the white blood cells of eight LSD users with those of nine nonusers. Six of the acidheads showed a marked increase in chromosomal breaks. Two who had tak en massive doses showed a small, deformed chromosome, characteristic of a type of chronic leukemia that attacks adults. The only nonuser of LSD whose cells showed many abnormalities had previously had heavy X-ray treatments.

Magic Initials. In Science, Dr. George J. Alexander described the malformed rats that his research team produced at New York State Psychiatric Institute and Bronx State Hospital. Of five rats given a single shot of LSD (equivalent to an acidhead’s moderately heavy dose), only one delivered an apparently normal litter. One aborted early; two had stunted offspring stillborn, and one had seven healthy young along with one stunted littermate.

The first report of a human malformation linked with LSD use proved to be inaccurate. The Saturday Evening Post claimed that an Oregon child “had a defect of the intestinal tract and its head was developing grotesquely—one side growing at a much faster rate than the other.” In fact, the baby’s head and chromosomes are normal, says Dr. Egozcue. There is no reason to believe that his intestinal abnormality is related to his mother’s single dose of LSD. But at least four babies of LSD-tripping mothers, now being studied in Buffalo, have broken chromosomes.

San Francisco General Hospital reports “some cases” of malformation among babies of LSD-using mothers, but Chief Obstetrician R. Elgin Orcutt feels that he lacks enough data to show a cause-and-effect relationship. U.C.L.A.’s Dr. William McGlothlin agrees. “I know of some miscarriages among LSD users,” he says, “but I don’t know if the rate is higher than among other people.” Dr. McGlothlin, who works with hippies, has a federal grant to help him get more data.

After a month of contradictions the Food and Drug Administration last week announced the chemical nature of STP, the latest jet-speed psychedelic. Says FDA: it is technically called 4-methyl 2.5 dimethoxy alpha methyl phenethylamine, but is known simply as DOM to the Dow Chemical Co., its discoverers. It is related to mescaline and amphetamine. Dow insists that none of its samples have leaked into illegal drug channels; the formula for making it must have been stolen. But pharmacologists believe that several different mind-shaking concoctions are being distributed to hippies under the magic initials STP, now translated as “serenity, tranquility, peace.”