In 2003, a federal judge sentenced Dr. William Pickard, a 58-year-old Harvard-educated biochemist, to two consecutive life sentences. His crime? Manufacturing lysergic acid diethylamide 25. At a pivotal point in our history, when research scientists are finally emerging from a 40-year coma in their study of psychedelic medicine, Pickard’s story is a sobering reminder of the fear and misunderstanding that still surrounds acid, mescaline, and psilocybin -- drugs that once promised to cure alcoholism, addiction, migraines, autism and the clinical depression of terminal cancer. According to a growing number of physicians and their patients, psychedelics offer the last best hope for the hopeless – and still, their possession and use remain a crime.
In a sweeping two-hour saga of discovery, disillusion, and renewed hope, spanning more than half a century, The Acid Chronicles dramatizes Pickard’s story against the broader narrative of how drugs banned since the ‘60s hold out the best hope for millions of patients in the 21st Century. Told through archival footage and more than 100 hours of original high-definition video interviews, The Acid Chronicles delivers miracle testimonials from dozens of patients along with recollections of colorful acid pioneers like Wavy Gravy and Laura Huxley. Physicians who use acid to treat anxiety, autism, addiction, PTSD and OCD join such unlikely allies as Microsoft’s Paul Allen and singer Andy Williams in praise of LSD, even as the DEA, FDA and DOJ continue to vilify and condemn psychedelics as a threat to public health and safety.
The Acid Chronicles tracks the vilification of psychedelics through the 1960s, detailing how a simple chemical compound inspired mass hysteria, resulting in a 40-year research drought. But medical investigators once again are studying psychedelics as treatments for a host of intractable diseases at research centers around the world. Recent successes are paving the way for a psychedelic comeback even as government policy remains grounded in the unfounded fear of another era, and continues to make their manufacture and use a crime.