4 ms·

I take it you wouldn't approve of the CIA's experiments on elephants either! In 1962 Tusko the elephant was given 297mg (yes, milligrams, not micrograms) of LS

I take it you wouldn't approve of the CIA's experiments on elephants either! In 1962 Tusko the elephant was given 297mg (yes, milligrams, not micrograms) of LSD by CIA-funded quacks who were trying to simulate "musth" in the hope that it could be used to weaponize elephants for sabotage in south-east Asia (hint: Vietnam war in progress). We now know that 297mg of LSD will kill an elephant. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/feb/26/research.science https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/feb/26/research.sci... In case you think I'm making this up, the original paper was published in Science: West, LJ; Pierce, CM; Thomas, WD (7 December 1962). "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide: Its Effects on a Male Asiatic Elephant". Science. 138 (3545): 1100–3. It's online here (account needed): https://science.sciencemag.org/content/138/3545/1100 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/138/3545/1100

milquetoastaf 6y ago
Jolly West is an interesting fellow - and by interesting I mean, depraved. The chapters about him in CHAOS by Tom O'Neil are fascinatingly grim
MisterTea 6y ago
> We now know that 297mg of LSD will kill an elephant. ... along with a boat load of Thorazine followed by a tranquilizer.
lostgame 6y ago
>> We now know that 297mg of LSD will kill an elephant. The facepalm I'm having at the moment would make Patrick Stewart jealous. I misread that as μg and had to do a double-take. That's...that's like several entire music festival's worth of LSD.
- cstross 6y ago
  Yep. When I called the CIA researchers "quacks" I did so for a reason: when tox testing, it is customary to start with a minimal dose then increase it progressively until it exhibits a measurable effect, not start with a huge overdose! 297mg is one thousand times the typical dose sold for black market acid in the mid-1960s, per wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Dosage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Dos... (As an elephant weighs on the order of 20-50 times as much as a human, administering a thousand times a typical human dose was ... inadvisable to say the least.)
Smithalicious 6y ago
I'm skeptical of the military applications of elephants on acid to begin with...

milquetoastaf 6y ago

Jolly West is an interesting fellow - and by interesting I mean, depraved. The chapters about him in CHAOS by Tom O'Neil are fascinatingly grim

MisterTea 6y ago

> We now know that 297mg of LSD will kill an elephant. ... along with a boat load of Thorazine followed by a tranquilizer.

lostgame 6y ago

>> We now know that 297mg of LSD will kill an elephant. The facepalm I'm having at the moment would make Patrick Stewart jealous. I misread that as μg and had to do a double-take. That's...that's like several entire music festival's worth of LSD.

cstross 6y ago
Yep. When I called the CIA researchers "quacks" I did so for a reason: when tox testing, it is customary to start with a minimal dose then increase it progressively until it exhibits a measurable effect, not start with a huge overdose! 297mg is one thousand times the typical dose sold for black market acid in the mid-1960s, per wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Dosage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Dos... (As an elephant weighs on the order of 20-50 times as much as a human, administering a thousand times a typical human dose was ... inadvisable to say the least.)

Smithalicious 6y ago

I'm skeptical of the military applications of elephants on acid to begin with...