For many years now, I have often referred to LSD as a ‘medicine’ while chatting with friends about the relative merits and pitfalls of compounds collectively regarded as ‘recreational drugs’.

More often than not, this definition is regarded as a joke and laughingly swept aside, deemed to be further confirmation of my irrefutable madness. However, as many of these posts will hopefully prove, there is considerable evidence to suggest that I may be more accurate in my definition than many are prepared to accept.

Butted by post 60s hysteria, political prejudice and propaganda, many still view LSD as nothing more than a dangerously subversive compound, responsible for scrambling the brains of a generation and propelling people to their deaths from high windows. When told that LSD is proving to be not only the most efficacious cure that exists for ‘cluster headaches’ - the multiple migraines known to drive some sufferers to suicide - but perhaps the only cure available at all, they look somewhat bemused.

When further informed of LSD’s ability to have cured afflictions ranging from chronic alcoholism and to psoriasis and lifelong colour blindness, they start to sit up and listen. When I tell them that a good friend confined to a wheelchair with paralysis for all of his adult life, is only able to stand up for brief periods after ingesting a certain threshold amount of LSD, their position shifts again, to one of startled incredulity.

I first expressed what might be seen as an ‘unhealthy interest’ in LSD when I was ten years old. One volume from a series of science books in the school library was simply entitled Drugs and held a peculiar fascination. I can recall my mother’s look of baffled alarm as I expounded on the properties of LSD one day as she drove me up to the dentist into London - where I was promptly ‘gassed’ for a front tooth extraction with nitrous oxide.

Despite this precocious interest in psychedelics, it was some years before things became experiential. And, like almost everyone who has ever opened that door, it remains one of the defining, pivotal experiences in my life and has influenced the way I view the world ever since.

To find out more about the therapeutic properties of LSD check out Neurons to Nirvana, the definite documentary on Psychedelic Medicines.