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R.I.P. "Acid King" Owsley Stanley

Owsley Stanley died at age 76 this past weekend, following an automobile accident in Australia, where he has lived with his wife for the past 30 years. Revered in the 1960's for the quality of his acid, his name may not be as familiar as Ken Kesey or Timothy Leary, but he was a legend.

Among a legion of youthful seekers, his name was synonymous with the ultimate high as a copious producer of what Rolling Stone once called "the best LSD in the world … the genuine Owsley." He reputedly made more than a million doses of the drug, much of which fueled Kesey's notorious Acid Tests — rollicking parties featuring all manner of psychedelic substances, strobe lights and music. Tom Wolfe immortalized Stanley as the "Acid King" in the counterculture classic "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (1968).

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