Every generation has its own trends in fashion, hairstyles, music, media…and drugs. Since recreational drug use exploded into the American consciousness with the rise of the 1960s counter culture, drugs have gone in and out of style along with all other aspects of popular culture—and their use is no longer part of a “counter” culture.
The following article looks at trending drugs in the US from the 1960s to the 1980s, and how these changing trends often serve as a reaction to the attitudes and events of the time.
1960s
In 1969—the first year of polling on drug use–a Gallup poll found that only 4% of American adults said they had tried marijuana. By 1973 that number had tripled, to 12 percent.
During the social unrest of the 1960s, young people sought increased liberation and equality, along with an end to the Viet Nam War and the political policies that led to it. Seeking peace, love and harmony, the use of psychedelic drugs became accepted as an important means of expanding one’s consciousness in order to create a better world. The use of recreational drugs also served as a symbol of rebellion against authority.
LSD gained widespread recognition with Harvard professor and psychologist Timothy Leary advocating its use to broaden users’ perception of the world.
On another front, heroin abuse became “rampant” among U.S. soldiers, with an estimated 10% to 15% of servicemen addicted to it.
1970s
As the utopian dreams of the 1960s faded, drugs were no longer viewed as a means of expanding one’s consciousness, but rather as a glamorous accessory to lives whose motto was “If it feels good do it”. The word “party” became a verb and people wanted to take drugs that would enhance their experience dancing under the mirror ball at the newly popular discotheques. Cocaine and Quaaludes were particularly fashionable, as both produced a loosening of inhibitions and in the case of Quaaludes, pleasant body effects.
The use of marijuana also continued to grow — in 1973, 12% of respondents to a Gallup poll said they had tried marijuana; that number had doubled by 1977.
1980s
Cocaine was the drugs of the 1980s, so common that in a 1986 poll, cocaine (including crack) surpassed alcohol as the most abused drug in the United States. At the time cocaine was believed to be a relatively benign non-addictive drug, as evidenced by a 1977 Newsweek story that stated, “Among hostesses in the smart sets of Los Angeles and New York, a little cocaine, like Dom Perignon and Beluga caviar, is now de rigueur at dinners. Party-givers pass it around along with the canapés on silver trays… the user experiences a feeling of potency, of confidence, of energy.”
As the times change, so do the popular drugs. The sixties saw a revolution of young people seeking to change the world, while the 1970s responded to their subsequent disillusionment with the desire to simply feel good. Following a number of overdose deaths by music icons including Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in the 1970s, cocaine came to be seen as a safe, respectable way to experience a feeling of well-being and euphoria.
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