Timothy Leary, the psychologist and LSD advocate often dubbed the counterculture’s “acid king”, became the subject of a dramatic prison escape after his 1970 conviction for marijuana possession. His jailbreak mattered because it turned an already polarising figure into an international symbol of the clash between the US authorities and the 1960s counterculture, while drawing radical activists into his story.

Leary had been sentenced to 10 years in prison, but escaped from the California Men’s Colony at San Luis Obispo with help linked to the Weather Underground, a radical left-wing organisation. He fled abroad with his wife Rosemary, travelling through Algeria and Switzerland before being captured in Afghanistan in 1973 and returned to US custody. The article text provided contains only the headline and navigation material, so these details reflect the established historical account rather than the article’s full reporting.