Hofman's Potion

Thanking the man whose substance gets you prison time?

This is one of these incidental posts, triggered by a conversation about a book project under way halfway around the world.

For most people it is hardly conceivable to imagine a prisoner write a letter of thank you to the person who discovered the substance that brought that prisoner behind bars.

Yet, exactly this happened over and over to Albert Hofman, who discovered LSD.

And he wrote back.

And even worse, the letters to and fro show deep insight and gratitude, are free of blame, free of posturing.

The first question asked by the K-landnews contributor we initially asked to write this post was: what am I to make out of this?

Are we talking fan mail like that to Justin Bieber or Jessica Simpson?

No, because neither Bieber nor Simpson are the cause why people all over the world are  thrown into jail by the thousands every year. Their music does not come with prison time, although some might argue that dumbing down young people should be punishable because of detrimental effects on them and on society as a whole as adults.

We sent our prospective poster off to watch Hofman's Potion.

He came back and said: "I cannot do the post, sorry. I am confused. It is beyond me why this is illegal. I mean, for any reasons other than power play and generic stupidity. If I were to write a post, I'd go totally postal, sorry."

Have you heard the story about the missing sailors? we asked. We had been told about two navy sailors going AWOL the day heir ship left port. The story said that someone at a music show earlier that evening had dosed two sailors who had mentioned they were shipping out in the morning.

As our would-be writer leaves, he sees the tracks in the snow on the garage and says: I'd bet that snowball fights have done more harm than Hofman's potion.