DRUGS AND THE SIXTIES

"Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll …and drugs"…

One of the social changes of the Sixties was the increasingly widespread use of drugs.

The 'Beatniks' started to use marijuana and popularized drug usage by many references to the allegedly mind-expanding group of drugs in their protest songs, essays, novels and verse. By the middle of the decade, the use of LSD and marijuana had become quite common among the youth across the whole country.

Using the use of 'mind-expanding' drugs to gain some special insight into the world was especially popular. Much was written to try to justify, explain or vilify the use of these drugs, referring to the use, in ancient texts, of marijuana for both medicinal and spiritual purposes. One of the most famous of these was Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors of Perception' in which he describes his experimentation with mescaline.

At that time, the only legislation concerning drugs was the outdated Dangerous Drugs Act (1920) which, although amended several times, did not cover synthetic drugs such as 'amphetamines' and LSD. In 1964 additional legislation - 'The Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act' - was introduced in order to control these substances. The 1967 Dangerous Drugs Act limited the ability of doctors to prescribe to addicts and increased the police powers.

The extent of drug-usage in the Sixties may be illustrated by the list of several celebrities who died from drug-related causes:

Chet Baker, Florence Ballard, George Best, Dave Bidwell, Mike Bloomfield, James Booker, Sonny Clark, Dorothy Dandridge, Bobby Driscoll, Brian Epstein, Rick Evers, Rory Gallagher, Judy Garland, Bobby Hatfield, Alex Harvey, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Holliday, Howard Hughes, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jack Kerouac, Frankie Lymon, Phil Lynott, Marilyn Monroe, Keith Moon, Jim Morrison, Johnny O'Keefe, Elvis Presley, James Ray, Johnnie Ray, David Ruffin, Edie Sedgwick, Rory Storm, Dinah Washington, Alan Wilson, Kenneth Williams, Natalie Wood.