French Bread

What happened When We Put LSD in It? – There are new forms of terrorism being planned all the time, but countries (including the US!) were perpetrating vile experiments on their ALLIES as long as 50 years ago.

In the March 11th edition of the Telegraph, Henry Samuel writes about the “cursed bread” mystery of Pont-Saint-Esprit in France, which caused residents to have hallucinations. This mystery has finally been SOLVED: In 1951, the US government spiked the bread in this tiny village in southern France with LSD, killing 5 people.

At first it was assumed to be due to natural causes, such as that that the local baker had unwittingly contaminated his flour with the hallucinogenic mold ergot, which infects rye grain. But investigative journalist H.P. Albarelli Jr. has figured out that the outbreak resulted from a covert experiment directed by the CIA. At the time, the Swiss-based Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company was secretly supplying both the Army and CIA with LSD.

Albarelli came across the relevant CIA documents while investigating the suspicious suicide of a biochemist who fell (threw himself?) from a 13th floor window 2 years after the bread incident. In one of the documents he found the transcription of a conversation between a CIA agent and a Sandoz official that explains that the French incident was not “at all” caused by mold but by diethylamide, the “D” in LSD.

The “smoking gun” Albarelli found was a White House document sent to members of the Rockefeller Commission formed in 1975 to investigate CIA abuses. It contained the names of a number of French nationals who had been secretly employed by the CIA and made direct reference to the “Pont St. Esprit incident.” Samuel reports that scientists at Fort Detrick told Albarelli that agents had sprayed LSD into the air in the French town and also contaminated “local foot products.”

After the Korean War the Americans launched a vast research program into the mental manipulation of prisoners and enemy troops. In its quest to research LSD as an offensive weapon, the US army also drugged over 5,700 unwitting American servicemen with LSD between 1953 and 1965. It obviously wasn’t a successful program, since we’ve had to resort to water boarding at Guantanamo.

Dreamland has been presenting successful radio programs and podcasts for YEARS now and sometimes we feel like WE’VE been fed LSD, because so few of the people who listen regular and read our great edge news are willing to make sure we’re here tomorrow. The ONLY way to do that is to subscribe today and encourage your friends to do the same! (To help us even more, click on the “donate” tab on our homepage).

Art credit: Dreamstime.com

NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.