Review – Hofmann’s Potion

Here’s a documentary that manages to tell only the most uninteresting parts of the history of LSD. The show starts with a little coverage of Alfred Hofmann’s discovery of the psychoactive qualities of a lab chemical he accidentally ingested. That part would have been better if it hadn’t been so short (indeed, the teaser info for this movie on Netflix implied that this would be a more prominent focus). Instead this is but a brief prologue to an extended study of psychiatric experiments and pop culture explorations. So what we end up with is a lot of Timothy Leary, Ram Dass and shrinks playing around with the “consciousness expanding” aspects of acid rather than its more interesting uses. And only the briefest mention of the U.S. government’s entanglements with the stuff. In other words, if you want the hippie take on LSD, go ask a hippie. It’s cheaper, faster, and more fragrant that way. See if desperate