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"Bad Trips." One reason for the Federal Government's go-slow approach toward controls is its desire not to inhibit legitimate research into mind-manipulating drugs, whose potential for good no one can yet foresee. The NIMH has granted limited amounts of LSD to clinics and research institutes for experimental use in treating such disorders as alcoholism. The new state laws likewise provide for supervised research. But their supporters are convinced that, because of the brain damage and violence that LSD can wreak, society must try to police itself against the drug's unrestrained use. Many psychiatrists agree. Among the examples they cite: an average of twelve LSD "bad trip" victims a month land, out of their minds, in New York's Bellevue Hospital; two LSD-using youths were discovered in Hollywood last October devouring grass and tree bark; a college student went berserk on an airliner bound from Los Angeles to San Francisco, tried to force his way into the pilot's cockpit before being subdued, a young male user in Los Angeles tried to stop a car on Wilshire Boulevard by saying "Halt," was hit and killed.
Said the sponsor of California's LSD bill, G.O.P. State Senator Donald Grunsky: "You cannot eliminate heroin and murder with laws, but you sure can cut down on them. A lot of kids would be tempted to fool with LSD, but will think twice if there is a law on the books."