Owsley Stanley (born Augustus Owsley Stanley III, January 19, 1935 – March 12, 2011) also known as Bear, was a figure of the San Francisco Bay Area counter-culture, playing a pivotal role in the counterculture of the 1960s. As a crafts-person, he became best known simply as 'Owsley' – the LSD "cook" (underground chemist). Under the professional name of "Bear", he worked with the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead's international fan "family".
Bear was an early soundman for The Grateful Dead, a band he met when Kesey invited them to an Owsley Acid test party. As their sound engineer, Bear frequently recorded live tapes behind his mixing board and helped "The Dead" become the first performers since Les Paul to custom-develop high-fidelity audio components and sound systems.
Stanley was the first private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. Between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced more than 1.25 million doses of LSD.
Stanley died in an automobile accident in Australia on March 12, 2011.
Read more about Owsley Stanley: Ancestry, Diet and Health, Death, Cultural References
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