West was interested in drugs. His professional fascination with LSD was practically as old as the substance itself, and he was one of an elite cadre of scientists using it in top-secret research. Lysergic acid diethylamide was synthesized in 1938 by chemists at Switzerland’s Sandoz Industries, but it was not introduced as a pharmaceutical until 1947. In the fifties, when the CIA began to experiment on humans with it, it was a very new substance. Be that as it may, the agency was not inclined to exercise caution.
