Flashback: How the LSD revolution almost came to Wyoming

Always on the lookout for mentions of Wyoming on the Internet. This one is a chapter in Wyoming counterculture history.

An Oct. 31 Westword story by Chris Walker was headed "Acid Trip: Denver's secret LSD labs fueled the psychedelic revolution."

It  tells the story of Tim Scully, LSD-maker in the 1960s. Scully spent time in a federal penitentiary for making and distributing LSD. He and his pals had two labs in Denver. They were discovered, but in a fluke, Scully didn't  serve time for his Mile High City transgressions. He later got busted in California and served hard time.

In November of 1967, Scully and his childhood friend and drug partner Don Douglas scouted the West for places safer than Berkeley, a counterculture hotbed in the sixties.

From the Westword article:

He convinced Douglas to join him on an interstate scouting trip. They managed to evade the feds and travel to Seattle, where they bought a used station wagon that they used to drive east through Washington into Idaho and Wyoming. The pair had envisioned setting up a lab in an extremely rural, isolated location, but they realized that wouldn’t work for two reasons. 

“In Wyoming, we learned that cowboys don’t like hippies. We stuck out like sore thumbs,” says Scully.  

The other reason? To run certain processes in the lab, they’d need plentiful supplies of dry ice — which were only available in big cities. So Douglas and Scully turned south, setting their sights on Denver.

The article doesn't mention just where in Wyoming cowboys hated hippies and there was a shortage of dry ice. Any guesses? Could be almost anywhere, I suppose. It must haven't occurred to the duo that two longhairs settling in any small town was sure to cause reactions from the populace, since nothing that happens in a small community goes unnoticed and gossiped about.

Small town resident #1: What do you suppose those two longhairs are doing in that house over on Elm Street?
Small town resident #2: Making some bitchin' batches of pure Orange Sunshine, most likely.
Small town resident #1: That's a relief. Thought they might be plotting the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Small town resident #2: That's the job of the John Birch Society. They meet over at the Grange Hall.

Hitchhikers cruising through Wyoming in the late 60s and early 70s heard stories of cowboys picking up a hitchhiker and taking him into Cheyenne for a mandatory haircut. I heard the story in 1972 when hitching rides in Wyoming. I also have heard the tale since moving to Cheyenne in 1991. It could be one of those Hitchhikers' Myths, kind of like Urban Myths but passed along by hitchers of yore. I heard many similar stories during my years on the road. Grisly murders in New Mexico. "Easy Rider"- style shootings in Georgia. Rapes and near-rapes everywhere.

I only experienced a few scary episodes, most in Nevada for some odd reason. Rural Nevada can be a lot like Wyoming, only hotter. .Rednecks are rednecks, I guess, but I got rides from some in my longhair days.

What a long, strange trip it's been....

A final note on LSD. Microdosing LSD is a hot topic. This from Business Insider:

LSD microdosing has emerged as Silicon Valley's favorite illegal drug habit, with engineers, programmers, writers, and artists sharing their stories of the practice in numerous blogs and outlets, including the New York Times. Many people say it improves their concentration or creativity; others say they use it to help treat symptoms of mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. 

And this:

Paul Austin, 27, bills himself as a professional microdosing coach. After personally experimenting with the regimen — which involves taking tiny, "sub-perceptual" doses of LSD or another psychedelic for up to 7 months — Austin said he was inspired to share what he learned with the world. He now offers 30-minute Skype microdosing "consulting" sessions for $127 through his website, The Third Wave

As a writer with depression, I may have to explore this further. Just as an academic exercise, of course.