The 60's and Mushrooms

The Sixties were a time of great turmoil in America. The assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, drugs, sex, and rock and roll mixed together to give it a lasting impression on America, and the world. Throughout all of this, the counterculture emerged. This group of youth shared many common feelings. They question America's materialism and political norms. The youth knew that the government was putting their generations life on the line overseas for a cause that they didn't think was just. Making their voice heard was the goal, and they did in mass numbers.

Growing up in post WW11society, was like that of growing up under a blanket. The blanket was the parents and suburbia sheltering the baby boomers. These parents were the ones fighting the war, seeing first hand the atrocities of it. They wanted to settle down and move out of the city to suburban areas where it was much calmer. Everything from the news to talk at the dinner table was sugar coated. However, this lifestyle was just setting the youth up for a rebellion. So much conformity and falsehood led many of the baby boomers to find out for themselves what lied beyond suburban rows of houses.

Many of these sheltered kids were exposed to varying lifestyles on college campuses. The youth of the time were not just rebels trying to cause trouble. "It is estimated that three-quarters of them came from middle to upper class homes (Musgrove, F, Ecstasy and Holiness.1974)." Colleges around the nation were hotbeds for differing opinions and many kids picked up on views of the counterculture. What really separated youth and the rest of society was the Vietnam War. Questioning the government was becoming more and more common. They demanded answers and wanted to know why piece talks failed. When the draft was initiated, many protest ensued across the nation. The youth did not want to go fight a war that they were forced to and did not agree with. Musicians reflected the views of the youth culture in their music. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and many others spread the message of changes that needed to be made in this world. Drugs and sex went along with the free spirt the hippies and musicians had.

All of these events took place in the sixties and part of the early seventies. The youth of the time was rebelling against so many things. They wanted to look at things in new ways because at the moment they didn't like what they were seeing. The hallucinogenic drugs of the time opened new doors for these young people to be set free of the world around them. Drugs like LSD, and mushrooms offered a totally different trip than past drugs. Smell, touch, taste, and hearings are more acute. Music in itself can become a activity in itself involving all of the senses. Hallucinations of the drug take you to a new state mind and pleasure.

The authorities, on the other hand, saw the psychedelic drugs as an illegal pleasure, a new high that strayed the youth from the appropriate pathway. They did not agree with the counterculture and their drastic new way of living. Government and police officials came to the conclusion that the experience was a criminal one. The health dangers and bad trips that can occur were now being widely publicized. New and harsher penalties were being enacted. This is the classic example of young versus old in society; two divided groups with a giant gap separating them.

Why individuals use a drug is one thing, and how others react to use of a drug is another. Consequently, society was confronted with a choice to differentiate between two fundamental ideas and reasoning. What are the reasons and influences that the counterculture had for using these kinds of hallucinogenic drugs? ; the other is to understand the groups and formal authorities that judge and make the laws that regulate these drugs. This needs to be done to fully understand the topic of hallucinogenic drugs and the way they were perceived by the whole culture of the sixties.

Document # 1

Rublowsky, John. The Stoned Age: A History of Drugs in America. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1974.

Finally in later 1965 and early 1966, two incidents involving LSD made headlines. In

one of them, a five-year-old girl in Brooklyn swallowed a LSD-impregnated sugar cube

stored in the refrigerator by her young uncle . . . The girl recovered from the experience

however, and appeared to suffer no permanent damage.

The second incident was more serious. In this case a thirty-two-year-old was charged

with the brutal slaying of his mother-in-law. When the man was apprehended, the man

claimed he was so "high" on LSD that he could remember nothing. Newspapers and

police immediately branded the case as the "LSD Murder."

These events were used to condemn the use of LSD. They initiated a highly motivated drive to pass additional anti-LSD legislation. Although the man that killed his mother-in-law was found not guilty due to reason of insanity and LSD was not even questioned at the trail, the higher authorities used it as a stepping stone to further their laws on drugs. LSD was now labeled a hard drug by many people, put into the group of drugs like heroin and cocaine. This goes to show how the people with the power can win the minds of the society on a topic. To the government there is only right or wrong on certain topics. They tagged these events to all the users of psychedelic drugs, even though there are many dangers in taking drugs, this was not a common occurrence.

Document #2

Musgrove, Frank. Ecstacy and Holiness: counter culture and the open society. Indiana:

Indiana University Press. 1974

There was, indeed, a conflict between the young and the mature, but the conflict arose

not from significant differences in outlook and values, but from the deteriorating power

base of the young. In the past decade a radical change seems to have occurred: the

conflict today is rooted less in problems of power than in differences in values.

The excerpt is saying that the disagreements are not based on the issues in which