Drugs, music and the emergence of the counter culture

Excerpts from "Can You Pass the Acid Test?: A History of the Drug and Sex Counterculture and Its Censorship in the 20th Century":


By 1968, against the back drop of the Vietnam War, the civil rightsmovement and the New Left, a new drug culture developed. Young peoplecalled "seekers" experimented with drugs, while those who used them habituallywere called "heads." Many of these people were part of a new culturalmovement, involving new attitudes on religion and morality. This movementincluded groups of artist, musicians, poets and writers. As the 20th century cometo an end, the late 1960s stand out as a time of major upheaval.


The peak of the counter culture was between 1967 and 1970. This newculture challenged the Protestant values, such as the "Protestant work ethic" andthe new consumer culture born of the 1950s. Protestant moral values, dealingwith sex, nudity and the use of chemical indulgence were also being challenged.While many people of the counter culture considered themselves as being"opposed to capitalism," a new version of capitalism emerged. Small artisanshops and businesses marketed various products and pleasures that the establishbusinesses would later absorb into their own. Theodore Roszak wrote theMaking of a Counter Culture, to make sense of these new developments. Toescape the wasteland, said Roszak, we must cease to censor out dreams,annihilate the stopwatch and open the doors of perception.8Roszak called for a communitarian approach to work, a participatorydemocracy that could not be blueprinted but would certainly involve de-urbanization,a return to Mother Earth. With the help of dissenting techniciansand dropped out professionals, a new kind of society would combine modernknowledge with ancient animism.9Drug use was the most visable part of the counter-culture to the averageAmerican. A poll in 1969, by Roper, reported that 76 % of American collegeseniors said they had never tried marijuana and 96 % said they had never triedLSD. Other polls had similar findings. A Gilbert national survey of Americanyouth, in 1970, found that only about 10 % of the young people had tried anydrug.10 Still, politicians were determined to stamp out what they perceived as athreat to the status quo. The mainstream media also railed against the newperceived menace.Haight-Ashbury, a street corner in San Francisco, CA, became a Meccafor this new movement. Members of this new counter-culture, often referred toas Hippies, walked the streets and hung out at the various "head shops" andcoffee shops.This new cultural movement had many influential writers and artistinvolved, including Ken Kesey, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.He rambled about the West Coast in a Day-Glo bus packed with microphones,amplifying equipment and devotees known as the Merry Pranksters. Onecommentator had estimated that Kesey may have turned on as many as 10,000young people to LSD during his 24 month presentation of "the acid test."11 PoetAllen Ginsberg made a pilgrimage to Liverpool, home of the Beatles, and founda roaring- seedy- half-Irish working class port, filled with poetry readings,happenings and of course drugs. He declared it to be "the center of theconsciousness of the human universe."12 Ginsberg later wrote Howl, a cuttingpoem which describes the street scene of San Francisco and the world of heroinaddiction and pot smoking.13Dr. Timothy Leary was of the best known of what was referred to as the"acid gurus" of the 1960s. Leary was dismissed from position at Harvard in1963. After that, he used LSD as both therapy for paying patients and laterfound his own LSD based religion, the League of Spiritual Discovery (LSD).Like members of the Hippies, he scoffed at using political action and believedyoung people would do better to spend time "on expanded consciousness."14 Hetold Playboy magazine that one of the spiritual goals in his use of LSD was "tomake love with God."15 Much of Leary's rituals were borrowed from Easternreligions. Leary said "the temple of God is your own body - The Orientals teachus that."16 One of his books borrowed heavily and openly from The TibetanBook of the Dead. Leary was arrested at Laguna Beach California, in 1968. Heescaped from prison and fled to Algeria. He was recaptured from Afghanistanand returned to a US prison in 1972. His former colleagues accused him ofturning evidence against them.17Music is one of our oldest art forms. Almost as old, is the use of drugs bymusicians. The influence of drugs on rock music is a common concern of theanti-drug warriors. Yet at times, jazz, classical, country and folk musicians havebeen influenced by the use of drugs. Not just in modern times, but in the 1940sand 1800s as well.
8 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, (Harper and Row, New York, 1988), p 65.
9 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, p 65.
10 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, p. 55.
11 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, p. 57.
12 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, p. 52.
13 Steve Otto, War on Drugs/ War on People, pp. 150, 151.
14 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, p. 57.15 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, p. 58.16 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, p. 58.
17 David Caute, The Year Of The Barricades, p. 39.