| dc.description.abstract | LSD, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, was used in psychotherapy in Scandinavia throughout the 1960s. In 1966 all possession of the substance not approved for research or medical use was criminalized. Prior research on the history of LSD in psychotherapy has given several explanations for prohibi-tion, including “moral panic” and a changed attitude in scientific communities towards psycho-pharmaceutical methodology. This prior research on the history of LSD has tended to hold a nation-state scope, despite the transnational character of the issue. In this dissertation, a Nordic scope (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) is applied to the question of how LSD came to be prohibited. A Nordic community of experts in psychiatry and psychopharmacology discussed LSD-therapy at different occasions in the early 1960s. By leaning on a tradition of history of knowledge and recent findings in global drug history, the dissertation provides novel insights on how LSD was conceptualized by the Nordic scientific LSD-experts, and how these findings relate to the public debate on the topic occurring in the late 1960s. Primary sources include the expert’s research publications from the scientific community, newspapers, and different archival material. While the debate was similar in Scandinavia in its division of defenders of prohibition contra liberalists, the most outspoken and influential debaters are presented, and their arguments discussed. I argue the moral panic to have been less evident factor in Scandinavia in comparison to the USA, as the Directors of Health Departments criminalized illicit possession before non-authorized use became more widespread. Further studies should seek to uncover the role of WHO and international organizations in pressing for LSD-prohibition. | eng |