Although little-known today, the American Army conducted several experiments using LSD as well as other drugs from 1948 to 1975 – in the hope of using the hallucinogenic substance as WARFARE.
The rare video shows a test at Edgewood Arsenal Facility, Maryland in 1958 as part of a Government research program – which hoped to find effective psychochemical incapacitants to be delivered in aerosol form on enemies.
President Eisenhower was said to be enthusiastic about this particular clinical research.
In the video entitled, “Effects of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) on Troops Marching”, the army volunteers are put through a series of drills before being dosed with the hallucinogenic drug.
The narrator of the film tell us how they “responded like well-trained soldiers to the request, immediately and without question.”
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The troops are then dosed with LSD. Two hours later, they are drilled again and the narrator notes how “The response was not the same”.
The group immediately start laughing uncontrollably when the drill sergeant gives order and cannot control their fits of giggling.
A few more minutes later, we are told that the effect of LSD on the soldiers was “chaotic”.
The chuckling troops are unable and unwilling to follow their drill sergeant’s orders. The soldiers dispel into different places.
When the sergeant orders the leader of the squad to drill his fellow soldiers, he responds humorously “You wanna drill, drill em!” – which makes the squad laugh even more.
The LSD drug is known for altering a person’s consciousness – resulting in hallucinations and ‘ego-dissolution,’ or a loss of the sense of self.
One person can spend several hours in a very happy place – while other individuals can spend many hours lost in their own fears and paranoia.
As such, the experience in the film is not humorous for all the volunteers in the group.
The narrator tells us how one of the soldier’s “severe depression caused a medical officer to end his participation in the test.”
In the end, LSD proved to be problematic for the army as it was too expensive and unstable once airborne.