RIP: Owsley “Bear” Stanley, an iconic iconoclast and pioneering LSD chef who produced millions of doses in his Bay Area labs (after allegedly finding the recipe in a chemistry journal at UC Berkeley), passed away today in Australia following a car crash near his home in Queensland. He was 76.
From his involvement with the Grateful Dead (a former manager and sound man, Bear co-designed the band’s Lightning Bolt Skull logo), through his friendship with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters (as detailed in Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), to his product’s inspirational effects on contemporary legends (Jimi Hendrix named “Purple Haze” after a potent batch of so-called Owsley Acid), Bear undoubtedly played a pivotal role in the nascent psychedelic scene.
“I was punished for political reasons,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007, referring to a 1970 drug bust that sent him to prison for two years. “Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different.”
He is survived by his wife Sheila, four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Above: With Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia.
[reuters.]
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