Could you actually have an LSD flashback decades after taking the drug?
Keith Veronese
Oct 19, 2012 4:20 PM

Ever hear someone tell a tale about an elderly man who used LSD in his youth going on a fish trip, only to randomly have an LSD-linked flashback and die via drowning? Scary, eh? I remember this urban legend particularly well, thanks to an unusually creepy elementary school assembly about drug awareness.

Stories of flashbacks occurring years after taking LSD are a part of urban legends and internet lore, but do they really happen?

Can the human body store LSD?

The hallucinogenic effect associated with LSD use typically begins thirty minutes after ingestion, and they increase in potency until the four to five mark. After the peak, the effect of the chemical wanes as the hours pass, with psychological effects rarely felt after the eight hour after use passes.

Contrary to urban legend, your body does not store molecules of lysergic acid diethylamide in the base of your spine, subcutaneous fat, or anywhere else in your body. LSD has a short half-life of three to four hours, with the entirety of a dose metabolized by the body within a day and excreted in the urine.

LSD is metabolized quick enough that any trace of the molecule will be eliminated within a day. This leaves none of the molecule available to be stored in the spine or fat, regardless of whether or not spinal fluid or fat provides a stable storage environment for the molecule.

...continues...

kiore wrote:Back to the chemistry, yes a half of 3-4 hours would suggest that after a decade homeopathic doses would remain present.

katja z wrote:

kiore wrote:Back to the chemistry, yes a half of 3-4 hours would suggest that after a decade homeopathic doses would remain present.

Easily tested. If your hypothesis is correct, the science of homeopathy predicts that LSD flashbacks should a) be massively more powerful than normal trips and b) get stronger over time.