Follow the £.S.D.
Dr Joel Elkes and early LSD funding in Britain
There is a slight mystery at the very beginning of the LSD therapy story in Britain. From 1952, the most renowned researcher, Dr Ronald Sandison, spent two years investigating LSD in the main Powick Hospital building in Worcestershire. He then applied to the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board for funding to establish a dedicated, purpose-built LSD unit for treating patients. He was granted £50,000 (equivalent to over £1.15 million today), and it opened in 1956.
According to historian Andy Roberts, both the speed at which the unit was granted funding and rapidly built—especially considering its high cost—raises certain speculative questions.1 As Harry Shapiro asks, ‘Did the local authority hospital board really have that amount of money to spend on a project like this? Who else had an interest in seeing a special unit built away from the public gaze?’2 The suggestion made by both historians is that it was related to the dark money and interests of the military or secret services.
Aside fro…