by Jacob Sullum

About the author: Jacob Sullum is a senior editor of Reason, a monthly libertarian magazine.

In June 1993 Ann Landers ran a letter from a reader who had recently seen an article “about how LSD is making a big comeback among the youth of America”—the kind of story that has appeared in newspapers and magazines with some regularity during the past few years. “I was a teenager in the 1960s,” he wrote, “and although I was never involved in the drug scene, I remember hearing a lot of horror stories about young people jumping in front of trains, off roofs, and out of windows while under the influence of LSD. I am very concerned for this new generation of LSD users.” The reader...