Hollywood Hospital was a private hospital in New Westminster, B.C., best known for LSD therapy. A 2019 thesis says it began in 1919 as the Hollywood Sanitorium for addictions and alcoholism, that J. Ross MacLean was medical director from 1954 to 1975, and that LSD therapy made up less than 1.5 percent of patient days a year in its own 1965 report (Ens, 2019). A 1961 paper lists A. M. (Al) Hubbard as its director of psychological research (MacLean et al., 1961).
Patients paid their own way. The thesis reports a 1967 fee of $450 for a first treatment, which made the program largely a service for well-off clients (Ens, 2019). A 2024 review summarises the 1961 paper as 100 patients, one LSD session after preparation and no control group (Kishon et al., 2024). Some patients were gay men seeking to change their orientation, an approach rejected today.
The program slowed sharply in 1968 amid fears about chromosome damage, and MacLean closed the hospital in 1975 (Ens, 2019). Claims of over 6,000 sessions and about 80% success come from a book publisher’s description and are unverified (Anvil Press). It used LSD and mescaline, not psilocybin.
Sources
- Ens, 2019, University of Saskatchewan MA thesis
- MacLean et al., 1961, Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol
- Kishon et al., 2024
- Anvil Press: The Acid Room
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