The Acid Room

by Jesse Donaldson, Erika Dyck

From the street, New Westminster's Hollywood Hospital didn't look like much - just a rambling white mansion, mostly obscured behind the holly trees from which it took its name. But, between 1957 and 1968, it was the site of more than 6000 supervised acid trips, as part of the burgeoning (and controversial) field of psychedelic psychiatry. Under the care of Medical Director J Ross MacLean, and ex-spy/researcher Al "Captain Trips" Hubbard, it became a mecca for alcoholics, anxiety patients, and unhappy couples (as well as celebrities like Andy Williams), its unorthodox methods boasting a success rate of nearly 80%. But the same media attention that brought the hospital to prominence also assured its downfall, as prohibition forces drove their work underground for more than 50 years. Written by 49.2 regular Jesse Donaldson and academic historian Erika Dyck, THE ACID ROOM takes readers into the hospital's inner sanctum, charting its meteoric rise and fall as it opened up brave new worlds in medicine, and put Canada at the forefront of a movement that is only now being fully explored.
Literary Nonfiction.

156 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Marko Kolobara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting look into the origins of psychedelic therapy and research in Canada. This book is made all the more fascinating since most of the information contained is quite hard to come by on the internet, credit to the authors for doing great research on a not so well known topic.

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very quick read and worthwhile if you are interested in learning more about Canada's mid-century drug testing history. I think that this book does a great job highlight transnational elements and the individuals involved, whether the doctors involved in administering LSD therapy/tests (or the guy who bought a diploma from basically a diploma mill and did so) or the actual patients who wrote extensively before and after their experiences.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

My grandpa was a patient here. I only discovered that through my Mom casually mentioning it after picking up this book. I tore through this book like my life depended on it and even requested my grandpas patient file from the BC Archives. Turns out he only had a four day stay, likely to dry out. He remained an alcoholic, and it makes me wonder if he would’ve had a different outcome had he spent some time in “The Acid Room”.

[Rhea Tregebov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting quick read on early therapeutic use of psychedelics. I'd watched the Michael Pollan Netflix series How to Change Your Mind and read the recent New Yorker essay by Clare Bucknell about 19th century "psychonauts" (users of non-psychedelic drugs seeking enlightenment), so the information here dovetailed nicely with what I've been reading/watching. This all feels very pertinent in light of Canada's legalization experience with cannabis and the drug poisoning crisis here in BC. Issues of prohibition are fascinating. One question I have was why the real names (it seems) of patients were used in the sections describing their experiences. My strong sense is that their privacy should have been preserved by use of pseudonyms. Maybe I've got this wrong. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd be very interested to hear.

[Vontel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Valuable history of one of western Canada's important early post-WW2 contributions to the research & knowledge about treatments to improve global mental illness & mental health, & of the cooperation between early scientific specialists in British Columbia & Saskatchewan. Portions of the book are from the journals of the patients involved, from those records that survived the dissolution of Hollywood Hospital (named after the hollies growing around the hospital) in New Westminster. There is a good interlink with the challenges and changes that psychotropic drugs & their use went through during the subsequent 50-60 years and some of the significant people & personalities involved, on all sides. Book ends with the recent changes back to approved, medical uses for psychotropic drugs once again.

[Marnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book took me back to my childhood. Growing up in New Westminster, I walked or drove by the Hollywood Hospital many times (and, later, shopped often at the Mall that replaced it!)

I had no idea what was going on behind its doors; I thought it was "just" a place people went who needed traditional help with mental health or addiction treatment. I was too young at the time to know about LSD so reading this book now was a revelation.

This book is a fascinating insight into the medicinal - and non-medicinal - use of so-called illicit drugs. It's is not only a part of history but relevant to this very day.