The Legend: LSD can be used in solution as either a drink or a spray, and given to unsuspecting people.
Status: False, but it's been tried.
Variations:
- A police officer pulled over a speeding motorist and took a swallow of an unidentified liquid found in the glove compartment to determine if it was alcohol. It turned out to be LSD in solution.
- A police officer borrowed a water bottle from a motorist he's pulled over. He took a few swallows of what turned out to be LSD in solution.
- There is a trouper who has a brother in the Adirondacks. He found a bottle that used to contain LSD, swished some water around in it, put it into his eyes, and now he's tripping for life.
- LSD in solution is sprayed into the faces of police or customs agents by drug smugglers.
- The CIA is spraying LSD on citizens in San Francisco.
- LSD in solution is sprayed into the faces of girls at rock concerts.
Analysis:
This is one of those urban legends that portrays authority figures, in this case police officers, as stupid or irresponsible, or show the common man somehow getting one over on their boss, or the police. No police officer is going to drink an unknown liquid from a jar that is found in the glove compartment of a motorist. Would you? And no police officer is going to accept a drink from an open container from someone they are in the process of ticketing or arresting. As for the trooper's brother, human nature would probably not lead a person to rinse their eyes with contaminated water.
Spray LSD stories prey on our fears that there are very bad people out there who will hurt us. We also have a fear of losing control, so spray LSD fits nicely into this particular paranoia. The message to not trust people who listen to rock music is an old one.
If you were a predator who wanted to disable girls at a concert, there are many other, quicker and more effective methods for doing that. LSD would not be a logical choice. LSD doesn't work instantaneously, so using this on police or customs agents won't disorient them and allow the bad guys to get away.
LSD can be dissolved in water, so theoretically it can be put into solution and absorbed and ingested in that way. While there are no reports of troopers or rock concert attendees being victimized by spray LSD, there is an unflattering chapter of U.S. History in which federal intelligence agents experimented with LSD in just this way.
George White, a federal narcotics officer, was charged with finding a chemical method that could be used as a truth serum to turn enemy agents. White chose LSD as the focus of his research. Most of White's experiments were performed on unwitting subjects who had no idea they were going to be dosed with LSD. It is even documented that Agent White threw parties where he would spray the air with aerosol LSD, then sit back to observe what happened, (Marks, 1979). In most cases nothing happened, the LSD was eventually abandoned by the U.S. government for use as a truth serum.
Then, in 1995, Japan's Supreme Truth doomsday cult, the group that was responsible for the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo Subway that claimed 12 lives and made thousands sick, is reported to have studied LSD as a chemical weapon. Their plan was to spray it from the sky. Since LSD itself is fairly non-lethal, it's hard to imagine what outcome the Supreme Truth was looking for, (CNN; 10/95).
