Selected Papers of William L. White www.williamwhitepapers.com Collected papers, interviews, video presentations, photos, and archival documents on the history of addiction treatment and recovery in America.

Citation: White, W. (2014) Toward a psychedelic youth culture. Posted at www.williamwhitepapers.com.

Toward a Psychedelic Youth Culture

William L. White Emeritus Senior Research Consultant Chestnut Health Systems [email protected]

NOTE: The original 1,000+ page manuscript for Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America had to be cut by more than half before its first publication in 1998. This is an edited excerpt that was deleted from the original manuscript.

A New ABCs: LSD, STP, MDA, DMT, PCP and “flashback,” indicating subsequent recurrences of the hallucinogenic When LSD was being utilized as an adjunct experience following LSD use, did not in psychotherapy in the 1950s and early become common until after the mass 1960s, and even while Leary and other diffusion of LSD into the illicit drug culture. proponents were spreading its use primarily This began around 1965. within intellectual circles and institutions, Because of increased publicity and there were surprisingly few reports of controversy surrounding LSD, Sandoz adverse consequences related to use of the stopped LSD production and distribution in drug. The early recognition of the power of 1965 (Hofman, 1983). In 1966, LSD LSD led to precautions related to who used research was curtailed by the FDA and LSD, the dosage used and the NIMH and a wave of anti-LSD legislation circumstances of us. It should be swept through every state as Time magazine remembered that LSD was legal during this and others reported on the "LSD epidemic." period and dosages of legal, In April of 1966, Sandoz turned over its entire pharmaceutically pure LSD coming from supply of LSD to NIMH to dole out to those Sandoz Laboratory could be precisely few researchers who could get through determined without worry of unknown NIMH’s approval procedures to conduct LSD adulterants. There were also elaborate research. rituals surrounding early LSD use that Researchers during this period screened out many high risk users and continued to describe LSD in language more provided controls surrounding the drug poetic than scientific. Humphrey Osmond, experience that lowered the potential risks of for example, wrote in 1967: use. The concepts of “bad trip,” often indicating a psychotic-like reaction to LSD, williamwhitepapers.com 1 I believe that the psychedelics provide a of MDA were diverted from Department of chance, perhaps only a slender one for Defense experiments with the drug. homofaber, the cunning, ruthless, foolhardy, MDMA (3-4- pleasure-greedy toolmaker to emerge into methylenedioxymethamphetamine), known that other creature whose presence we have in the illicit drug culture as "Ecstacy," "XTC," so rashly presumed, homo sapiens, the or "Adam," was first developed as a potential wise, the understanding, the diet aid in 1914 by the Merck compassionate, in whose fourfold vision-- pharmaceutrical company in German. Its art, politics, science and religion are one. medical use was quickly discontinued Surely we must seize the chance (Hoffer and because of such side effects as nausea and Osmond, 1967, p. 134). vomiting. MDMA may be synthesized or derived from nutmeg, sassafras, crocus, or Sidney Cohen's The Beyond Within parsley. It is closely related to two other appeared in 1967 as the first scientifically drugs, MDA and methamphetamine. The objective book on LSD. Cohen’s book drug has both stimulant and hallucinogenic included warnings about indiscriminate and properties, the latter effect noted with uncontrolled use of LSD. increased dosages (Siegel, 1986). LSD (along with marihuana) became Alexander Shulgin began publishing papers the central offering of that portion of the illicit on the effects of MDMA in 1962. It first drug culture catering to youthful polydrug appeared in the illicit drug culture in 1970 but users. A single dose of LSD could be never gained the popularity of LSD and purchased in the late 1960s for anywhere MDA. During the early 1980s, the drug from $2.50 to $10 and brand names began being used as an adjunct in changed constantly: Pink Dots, Orange psychotherapy in a manner similar to earlier Sunshine, Purple Haze, Yellow Caps, and work with LSD. As a result of reports of Pink Wedge, to name just a few. positive experiences with the drug in this A large number of other hallucinogens setting, interest in the drug increased which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s with names was followed by the emergence of the drug ranging from the quaint to the alphabet soup. on the illicit drug market. MDMA was STP (2, 5-dimethoxy-4-methyl amphetamine), consumed orally and was usually sold in a MDA (Methylenedioxyamphetamine), and gelatin capsule or white pill at $35 to $50 per DMT ((Dimethyltryptamine) were typical of dose. these offerings. STP was synthesized in DMT was a semi-synthetic 1964 and appeared in California in 1967. Its hallucinogen first synthesized by Manske in chemical structure resembled both 1931. It was known in the 1960s for its rapid mescaline and amphetamine The Berkeley onset of action and short duration of effect. Barb reported that the name STP stood for It was called "businessman's lunch" because "Serenity, Tranquility, Peace,” but legend the high could be experienced over a lunch had it that the alleged "cook" and distributor hour. Its close chemical cousins included of STP named the drug after the popular oil DET and DPT. additive and advertised that it "made your Phencyclidine hydrochloride (PCP) motor run smoother and lubricated your was developed in the early 1950s and head." STP developed much of its negative introduced into medicine in 1959 by Park, notoriety from adverse reactions to the drug Davis & Company under the trade name during the 1967 "Summer of Love" in the Sernyl. The drug seemed to have great Haight Asbury district of San Francisco. promise as a surgical anesthetic. It produced MDA was synthesized by Gordon rapid unconsciousness and also lessoned Alles in 1932 but didn't appear in the illicit post-surgical pain. The problem that arose drug culture until the late 1960s because it was during clinical trials with humans was was far more difficult to manufacture than that about fifteen percent of patients other hallucinogens. The first illicit supplies receiving the drug awoke from anesthesia in a state of profound disorientation resembling williamwhitepapers.com 2 schizophrenia. Due to these toxic reactions, Cultural Shifts the drug's use with humans was banned and further legal availability was restricted to its The decade of the 1960s was one of use as an immobilizer of upper primates in great cultural turbulence. It was a decade veterinary medicine until it was replaced in that opened with such socially significant the late 1970s with a more effective medical breakthroughs and ominous alternative. It was that same period in which warnings: the introduction of the first birth PCP (“angel dust”) use gained popularity in control pill and intrauterine birth control the illicit drug culture until the accumulation device and the discovery that severely of adverse reactions led ot its declining use deformed babies had been born to mothers and castigation (as “dummy dust”). taking the new tranquilizer thalidomide. It The illicit culture also offered an was a decade that began with jarring alleged menu of natural hallucinogens that international political events: the Bay of Pigs ranged from peyote buttons, mescaline, and invasion of Cuba and the erection of the a variety of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Berlin Wall. It was a decade of movements: Beginning in 1975, manuals began to appear civil rights, the war on poverty, student’s in “psychedelic shops” that provided rights, anti-war protests, and women’s rights. instructions for growing your own It was a decade of urban riots and “police hallucinogenic mushrooms. riots.” It was a decade of assasination: Medgar Evers (1963), John Kennedy (1963), On Hallucinogenic Bananas Malcolm X (1965), Robert Kennedy (1968), and Martin Luther King (1968). It was a The phenomenon that was the decade of daily body counts from Vietnam. psychedelic era of the 1960s was marked by The decade of the 1960s was a farce as well as tragedy. One of the most decade of personal exploration as encounter remarkable of such farces began when the groups and sensitivity groups spread Berkeley Barb, as a spoof, announced that eastward from the Esalen Institute in you could get high smoking banana peel. California. Personal styles changed as Held up as a "legal turn-on," newspapers young men grew long hair in emulation of a across the country picked up the story and suddenly popular Liverpool rock group. It there was a run on bananas in grocery was a decade in which traditional values and stores across the country. Banana joints aspirations were being challenged by a became the momentary rage as were significant portion of the largest generation recipes for preparing this special banana of youth in American history. America’s “war concoction. Like everything in the sixties babies” were leaving home in mass to find drug culture, it was even given a special their niche in the world. Heavily name--”Mellow Yellow.” Drug connoisseurs programmed for academic and occupational in underground papers compared the achievement, many began to question that banana high to everything from opium to path. Even the most casual observer psilocybin--a nebulous comparison for nodded in agreement to Bob Dylan’s anthem youthful drug users who for the most part for the 1960s: “The Times, They are A- had tried neither drug. Concerned parents Changin’.” carefully watched their children for any tell- The development of a youthful tale signs of precocious interest in fruit. polydrug using subculture within the U.S. is While Yellow Mellow turned out only to be a story within this saga of political and what it remains--a tasty source of potassium. cultural turbulence. And even the Other common household products that the relationship between these large and smaller media warned might have hidden stories is an interesting one that has been a intoxicating qualities included oregano, subject of much speculation. Jill Jonnes catnip, nutmeg and mixing aspirin and Coca- notes in her recent account of this period Cola. how the political right viewed drugs as a provocative agent in the radicalization of williamwhitepapers.com 3 American youth, while the political left eschewed their birth names for such charged that the infusion of drugs was a monikers as “Bear,” “Tank,” “River,” “Boo,” government plot to depoliticize American “Speedy,” and “Girl.” Conversations were youth (Jonnes, 1996, p. 236). While laced with such over-used phrases as "far retrospective analyses of the causes will out," "groovy,"and “out of sight” and a rich continue, what was clear in the early to mid- mixture of bastardized hipster talk. It was a 1960s was that week by week, city by city, time of conversations about peace, love, the diffusion of LSD and cannabis harmony, freedom, and “cosmic experimentation was moving across consciousness.” It was a time of pre-AIDS America. Those who couldn’t wait migrated liberated sex, communal living, and road toward where its use was already trips to rock festivals. It was a time of growing concentrated, and in the mid-1960s that political consciousness and the emergence place was California. of "new left" political action groups like In 1965, a San Francisco Examiner Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). reporter, Michael Fallon, coined the word The drug using youth culture splintered--with "hippie" in an article on the Blue Unicorn some seeking detachment from the world, coffeehouse (Stevens, 1987, p. 298). The others seeking confrontation with the world. term, a variation of Norman Mailer's term Counterculture literature of the era "hipster," described a new rebellious style of included the Whole Earth Catalogue, I long hair, exotic dress, and exotic chemical Ching, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the tastes (Smith & Luce, 1971, p. 99). Other Tao Te Ching, Black Elk Speaks, The self-applied terms were more common such Teachings of Don Juan, Summerhill, and as "freaks" and "heads." The term "freak," Stranger in a Strange Land. LSD-themed like the earlier used "dope fiend" used a term movies of the day included LSD I Hate You of derision from the dominant culture as a (1966), Hallucination Generation (1966), badge of pride. The term also captured the Psych-Out (1966), The Love-Ins (1967), and essence of feeling outside the mainstream The Trip (1967), but LSD users were more culture and voluntarily choosing to embrace likely to be found appreciated the vivid visual this outsider role. effects of movies like 2001: A Space This style blossomed into a fully Odyssey (1968), Yellow Submarine (1968), developed culture with its own language, and the revival of Fantasia (1940). music, dress, food, rituals, symbols, values A whole genre of music--Acid Rock-- and underground economy. There were full grew up around LSD and was popularized by time participants in the culture and weekend such groups as the Grateful Dead, the hippies who held “straight” jobs during the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the week and donned their more exotic garb for Holding Company and Jimi Hendrix. Other weekend forays into America’s burgeoning musicians integrated drug themes into their counter culture. Some were drawn to its music: first Dylan, Donovan, and the Rolling values and politics, some to its chemical Stones and later the Beatles and many other sacraments, and some to media promises of groups. Media coverage of drug use and/or “free love.” Others simply stumbled in by drug arrests of such personages as Mick accident or curiosity. Jagger, Keith Richards, John Lennon, Paul LSD and marihuana became the McCartney, and George Harrison seemed to temporary sacraments in a blossoming bless the use of these new sacraments at a youth drug culture. It was a culture time songs like “White Rabbit” and “Purple characterized by psychedelic and black light Haze” wafted and ripped through the poster art, Zig-Zag cigarette papers, incense airwaves. sticks, candles, exotic light shows, If there was a coming out party for this underground comics, tie-dyed t-shirts, bell- new culture it was surely the 1967 “Summer bottom pants, Mexican ponchos, mod of Love“ when more than 100,000 young miniskirts, paisley dresses, and Jesus-look- people flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district alikes. Members of this new culture of San Francisco to absorb themselves in williamwhitepapers.com 4 this new cultural awakening. The Haight References was also the epicenter of the explosion in polydrug use in the 1960s. Siegel, R. (1986) MDMA: Nonmedical use By the early 1960s, Haigh-Ashbury and intoxication. Journal of Psychedelic had deteriorated from a stable middle-class Drugs, 18(4), 349-354. community to an emerging ghetto whose Victorian homes and low rents attacked a Smith, D. & Luce, J. (1971). Love needs bohemian community of intellectuals and care: A history of San Francisco's Haight- artists and persons seeking alternative Ashbury Free Medical Clinic and its pioneer lifestyles. These were the “beats” or role in treating drug-abuse problems. "beatniks": intelligent, well-read, non- Boston: Little, Brown and Company. conformist, and open to novelty in both their sexual and chemical experiences. While Smith, D. (1976). The free clinic movement some drug experimentation was evident, the in the United States: A ten year perspective central intoxicant within this community was (1966-1976). Journal of Drug Issues, 6, 348- unquestionably alcohol. In 1963, Haigh- 349. Ashbury was a little known, slowly growing bohemian community. Newspapers, Stevens, J. (1987). Storming heaven: LSD magazines and television put the story of this and the American dream. NY: Harper & evolving community under a microscope in Row, Publishers. 1964 and 1965. The media coverage both depicted and transformed the community. The Haight became increasingly commercialized and national coverage brought thousands of wayward youth to its streets in 1967. Efforts to respond to the needs of these legions of young people were reflected in “underground” newspapers, such as the Berkeley Barb and the Oracle; indigenous systems of support, such as the “Diggers” free food programs; and more formal institutions such as the Haight -Ashbury Free Medical Clinic (Smith and Luce, 1971).

williamwhitepapers.com 5