Did We Do Worse Things To France Than Giving Her Jerry Lewis?

Conspiracy time: “In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted. For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War.”

Really? Would the CIA actually have put an entire French village through the agonizing-and in some cases fatal-hallucinations that the residents of Pont-Saint-Esprit endured? I mean, it is the CIA, so it’s hard to put it past them. And everybody hates the French. Still, an actual chemist is rather skeptical. He makes a pretty good case.