They are not intended to be consumed in amounts that may even remotely cause any complications due to ink or paper material. I believe most humans can digest a whole sheet of ordinary printed paper without any trouble. Although it's not recommended, of course.
...and whatever you do, do not eat a sheet of acid. Stuff is no joke and 100% you'll have a bad trip and 99% you'll end up needing medical care. I've known a few people who OD'd on hallucinogens - they were not the same, and not in a good way.
also, a "sheet" of acid is actually quite small - don't be fooled.
While it's "not a joke" and you're right it requires medical treatment for massive overdoses it is still one of the least risky drugs we know. I've never taken any illegal drugs, but LSD is one of just a handful where the reason isn't risk, but just that I don't find it interesting enough to seek out.
A few years ago, this paper[1] covered three case studies of massive LSD overdoses - for the largest "intranasal ingestion of 550 times the normal recreational dosage of LSD was not fatal and had positive effects on pain levels and subsequent morphine withdrawal". She thought she was sniffing cocaine.
A much older paper, from 1974[2], had the same cause - 8 patients were seen shortly after having sniffed pure LSD powder thinking it was cocaine. We're talking hundreds of times normal user doses there too.
Of those patients 5 did end up comatose, and there were blood cloths, so we might well be approaching a level that should be considered potentially lethal when you get to the hundreds of times normal doses. But "all were discharged or left the hospital within 48 hours of admission. No residua were observed in a year of direct followup of five patients".
Don't snort cocaine-sized lines of LSD, and you're right you shouldn't eat a whole sheet either. But overall it's one of the safest drugs we know, including a far wider range between the user dose and dangerous levels than even basic OTC painkillers.
I was a resident advisor (RA) in college. I had the displeasure of dealing with 2 residents that had taken 4 doses of LSD each. It was not a pleasant experience for them, for me, or anyone that had to deal with the incident. These 2 young women (girls, really) happened to also be friends of mine. I stumbled across them coming back into the dorms.
At first, it was "fine". They were kind of goofy, kind of chill, just wanted me to get them back to their room and put a movie on for them. No problem; I can handle that.
Very quickly, though, things turned. I never did figure out if there was a trigger, but one of the two turned extremely violent in a hurry. As in, trying to grab scissors and stab her best friend to death kind of violent. It was rapidly apparent that no, I cannot handle this. I followed my training: called campus security, identified myself, informed them I was an RA, and told them I had 2 girls that had taken 4 hits of acid a piece, and that they needed medical attention ASAP. They thought it was a prank call. I lost it. Told them I was going to hang up and call 911 myself, then come back after for their job.
Well, wasn't long after that before first responders arrived. And I mean they sent everyone. It was really overkill. I don't event know how many cops showed, it was a lot, but campus was directly across the street from the city's police HQ. Think there were 3 fire engines and a couple of ambulances.
The girls went to the ER, had their stomachs pumped and were force-fed activated charcoal. I had to be checked out by the EMTs, as well, because I got bit by the one that turned violent (I had her pinned between my back and a wall so I could free my hands to use the phone to make the necessary calls. I got bit on the back of my head, of all places).
So, no, I wouldn't call it safe, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, either. But, of course, that's just one experience by proxy.
That sounds terrifying, I'm sorry you (and they) had to go through that. I definitely think there is too much downplaying of the harmful effects hallucinogens can have in drug culture nowadays, and people are too quick to recommend their use therapeutically outside of controlled settings- their physical toxicity may be negligible, but any kind of psychoactive drug use can have horrible effects on a person's mental state even if they do not have any apparent underlying issues, it's definitely something people should tread lightly around.
There's also the issue that a lot of drugs really aren't what people say they are. Depending on the time period your anecdote took place in, it's highly possible that what they took wasn't really LSD, but one of the many psychedelic analogs and designer drugs that have been prolific in the last 2 decades sold as LSD but much more dangerous.
I remember in the mid 2000s (maybe early 2010s?) there was a huge amount of people buying 25X-NBOMES (gray area "legal" to order cheaply on the clearnet at the time) and selling them as LSD on blotters to people who weren't testing what they had or had never taken LSD and didn't know any better. And unlike LSD these are actually physically dangerous in quantities not much higher than the ones you'd take for a recreational dose and could trigger all kinds of mental breakdowns and persisting physical problems due to their toxicity (ranging from psychosis and aggression to seizures and death)
So I wonder if in your case, this contributed to the situation- them being unknowing recipients of a dangerous analog sold to them as LSD, and their taking 4x the dose triggering that outcome.
I don't want to dismiss your anecdote, because it is very much possible you've come across an outlier where LSD actually had that effect, but without knowing for sure they had actually taken unadulterated LSD it's tricky. In any case it sounds like a harrowing experience, and certainly a reason to be careful (and to be mindful that whether or not you believe the risk of any given drug is acceptable, ensuring you get the drug you actually intend is another problem).
I'll also note I specifically did not call it safe. It is one of the safest. We don't know what a lethal dose would be, and to the extent users might do harm to others, it has been limited enough to not get picked up at any substantial scale. But you're right to not make a blanket claim that it is safe, and I would agree we can't make the claim that it is safe.
At least some studies of the "classic" psychedelics have found them to be correlated with fewer violent arrests, and fewer arrests in general[1] compared to no drug use, but the problem with that too is that we don't know whether this is down to who uses LSD vs. other drugs - if users of LSD are sufficiently less violent on average, then it could still increase that baseline and just not be picked up. But compared to the massive effects of e.g. alcohol, there's simply nothing to suggest it is even in the same ballpark.
Damn. Thank you for sharing, and I'm sorry you went through that. I'm glad you were there to help though.
It's definitely worth knowing that "LSD is safe" is only half the story. Our bodies can process insane amounts, but our minds can break with less than a dose.
See my sibling comment - you almost certainly can overdose on it; one of the papers I linked had them deal with comatose patients and blood cloths. But it takes absolutely stupidly high doses, and even then all of them left hospital within 48 hours.
Both the papers I linked involved snorting large amounts of LSD in powder form thinking it was cocaine, rather than eating a tab, and these two papers are the only examples I know of reporting that, almost 50 years apart, and with no deaths.
If I took LSD I would probably prefer an unprinted one.