Peter Stafford

Who was Peter Stafford?

Peter Stafford was an American writer and author of the Psychedelics Encyclopedia. Stafford is also co-author with Bonnie Golightly of LSD: The Problem-solving Psychedelic, as well as other books on psychedelics. He was the editor of Crawdaddy! from 1969 to 1970. Stafford attended Reed College and graduated from the University of Washington.

Stafford was born in Oakland, California. In 1961 while at Reed College, Stafford experimented with the Native American sacred cactus Peyote. He moved to the East Village in New York City in 1964, where he spent the next ten years.

In 1974, Stafford moved to Santa Cruz, California, with the intention of reconnecting with his father, whom he had not seen since early childhood. Stafford died on July 20, 2007 in Santa Cruz, California, apparently from a complete heart block and injuries sustained falling from a ladder in his home.