- Who
- Unknown
- Where
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- When
On 3 August 1963, Tusko, a 14-year-old male Indian elephant residing at Oklahoma City Zoo, was injected with 297 milligrams of the hallucinogenic drug LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). The experiment was carried out by Louis Jolyon West, Chester M. Pierce (both of University of Oklahoma School of Medicine) and Warren Thomas (Director of the zoo) to test if the drug could trigger a mental state known as "musth", a mad, often violent, hormonal surge during which bull elephants produce a sticky fluid (temporin) from a glands between the ears and eyes. Given that a human dose is around 25 milligrams, it comes as no surprise to hear that Tusko trumpeted once, ran around his enclosure then suffered a crippling seizure. He was administered a large dose of the antipsychotic drug promazine hydrchlroride, then the barbiturate pentobarbitol sodium, but died after 80 minutes, the victim of the largest single dose of LSD ever administered.
