Counterculture: Drugs of the 60’s

Counterculture: Drugs of the 60’s

 

The 1960’s was the leading decade of the counterculture period, this included the rising use of drugs, specifically psychedelic’s such as Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, more commonly known as LSD and Psychoactive drugs, such as Cannabis. Social groups like ‘Hippies’ emerged in this period and were known for their image, a lifestyle that embraced sexual promiscuity and their use of recreational drugs, especially when listening to music, in particular Rock music, which was heavily influence by the Drug culture of the 60’s.

Festivals also started to emerge and was often where ‘Hippies’ would openly use drugs such as LSD and Cannabis. One of these festivals was the Woodstock Festival, held in upstate New York in August 1969, it has since become a landmark counterculture event. The festival drew in crowds between 300,000 to 400,000 people, and despite this there was only one recorded drug overdose as police did not enforce drug laws, which could hint at that a large proportion of the crowd was on drugs. Not only was the crowd on drugs, but some of the performing artists were also on drugs or have partook in the taking of illegal drugs. One of the artist at Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix, who is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, was known for his drug abuses and drugs often featured in his lyrics for example;

“Purple Haze all in my brain, lately things don't seem the same. Actin' funny but I don't know why. 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky.”

 Jimi Hendrix (Purple Haze)

Purple Haze was a type of Cannabis that was popularised during the 60’s, but other influential artist often features drugs with in their lyrics, one being Bob Dylan, as he has written;

“But I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned."

Bob Dylan (Rainy Day Women nos. 12 & 35)

But it was not only influential Musicians who promoted drugs use during the 60’s, some academics also encouraged drug used for example, Dr Timothy Leary, a psychologist and Harvard professor encouraged people to use LSD and believed that LSD showed potential for therapeutic use in psychiatry. Mel Seesholtz wrote in the Journal of Popular Culture that ‘for some, he was a pop culture icon and counterculture hero, for others, a drug-soaked Pied Piper leading the youth of America astray. For Richard Nixon he was the “most dangerous man in America”’ [1].

The idea of leading the American Youth astray had a greater impact on the US government than anything else as it led the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare to approach Marvel writer Stan Lee to create a story arc on the dangers and effects of using drug’s, and so was written into The Amazing Superman #96 to #98 under the premise of the Green Goblin Return’s story arc. See images 1 and 2 to see how obvious that the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare message was written into the comics. 

(Images 1 and 2. Credit: Marvel, The Amazing Spiderman #96 May, 1971)

The 60’s proved to be a revolutionary decade for the use of drugs due to influential people like Jimi Hendrix and Dr Timothy Leary, encouraging people to use drugs and also due to the US government fear of what might happen if this form of counterculture was to continue.

[1] - Seesholtz, Mel, The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol.38 (2004) p.106

Daniel Higgins