Drug Use in the 1960s

1504 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effect of vietnam war on american society

Drug Use in the 1960s

The time: the 1960s. The place: United States of America. Who? The youth. Doing what? Using drugs. Why? Many reasons. The 1960s proved to be a very turbulent time in the history of American youth growing up. There were many different activist movements all over the country. The primary drug user was the male college student involved in politics. He used mostly marijuana, some cocaine or LSD and of course alcohol. The sixites culminated with perhaps the biggest public scene of drug use ever: Woodstock. American youth in the sixties turned to drugs for a variety of reasons including the Vietnam War, the feeling of rebellion, activist movements, and the general pleasure-oriented society.

The society in which these rebellious youth were growing up was one of the pleasure seekers. Dr. Donald B. Louria says "American public is literally enmeshed in an orgy of self-medication."1 Society was pleasure-oriented: the only things that mattered were those that appealed to the senses. When a pleasure-oriented society has too much leisure time, it leads to moral destruction. Simmel, a sociologist, stated "The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces."2

There were many issues raised in the sixties as far as activist movements. Kierna Mayo Dawsey states that the sixties was an "era marked by social protest and rebellion."3 These include racial justice, abortion, civil rights, women’s liberation, and the United States’ military role in Vietnam. These groups were trying to express "their commitment to such traditional American values as freedom, democracy, and equality."4 Bret Eynon st...

... middle of paper ...

...
11. See Fort, 211.

12. See Fort, 220.

13. See Novack.

14. See Novack.

15. See Dawsey.

16. See Fort, 25.

17. See Fort, 157.

18. Harry Nelson, "LSD Still on Some Minds," Los Angeles Times, 25 March 1991, B3.

19. See Fort, 36.

20. See Fort, 36.

21. See Nelson, B3.

22. Lawrence J. Dessner, " ‘Woodstock,’ A Nation at War," (Toledo, Ohio: Toledo

University), 769.

23. See Dessner, 771.

24. See Dessner, 776.

Mary C. Dufour, "Twenty-five Years of Alcohol Epidemiology: Trends, Techniques, and Transitions," Alcohol Research and Health Spring 1995: 77-84.

David C. Lewis, "Putting Training About Alcohol and Other Drugs Into the Mainstream of Medical Education," Alcohol Research and Health 1989: 8+.

Brent Q. Hafen ed, Drug Abuse: Psychology, Sociology, Pharmacology. (Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1973).

Show More
Related

  • HIstory of Cocaine

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    Credibility material: Its intake results in adverse medical conditions that are further exalted by its addiction properties that ensure a continued intake of the substance. The drug can be abused through multiple means and is medically recorded to produce short-term joy, energy , and other effects such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. This ultimately results in numerous psychiatric and social problems; factors that played a major role in its illegalization after multiple and widespread cases of its effects were reported in the country during the 1900s. In addition to this, the drug results in immediate euphoric effect, a property which the National Institute of Drug Abuse (2010) attributes to be the root cause for its increased po...

    Read More

  • The Babysitter And The Man Upstairs Analysis

    1053 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the sixties and seventies there was an influx of social change movements, from civil rights, gay rights, student’s rights and feminism. In the early sixties the US was experiencing

    Read More

  • Temperance Movement and Opium

    550 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...y, H. (2008). Drug use and abuse: a comprehensive introduction (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.

    Read More

  • Elvis Presley's Life: Would Elvis Be Alive Today?

    908 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the 60’s and 70’s, drug use became a social phenomenon. It has been called the age of experimentation. People were trying drugs at a rate never before seen. Part of this was the ease of distribution due to the interstate systems. However, also many adopted an attitude that it was just an “experiment.” One issue was the lack of understanding on the addictive quality of these drugs. Another problem was that if it was prescribed medication, people held the belief that it could not be a dangerous or harmful thing to take. Combined, these attitudes began to have large-scale, adverse effects in

    Read More

  • American Culture and Drug Use: 1800-1850

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    Between 1800 and 1850, the global map was changing and it was no different on the North American Continent. As a young nation, only 25 years into its existence, America struggled with a multitude of issues including slavery, migration, immigration, and substance abuse to name a few. America was being tested externally by global super powers while it was being ripped by its seams from within through the on-going scourge of slavery and the social dysfunction caused by the proliferation of drugs and alcohol. From the prevalence of marijuana in early America to the use of southern tobacco, to the abundance of alcoholic beverages on the heavily populated eastern seaboard to the opium dens of the gold rush west, drugs and alcohol have had significant roles in America’s history since its inception. In pre-Civil War America, drug and substance use including opium, tobacco, and alcohol were at all-time highs (Brown, 1981). Social movements, societal beliefs, limited legislative action, and a lack of medical oversight between 1800 and 1850 would all play a part in how Americans viewed the existence and use of intoxicating substances.

    Read More

  • Liver Diseases Resulting from Alcohol

    1426 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bethesda, MD: U.S. Dept. of Health. of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2010. Print. The. Freeman, David. A. "Health Risks of Alcohol: 12 Health Problems Associated with Chronic Heavy Drinking.

    Read More

  • Alcoholism: Recovery Experiences Between Men And Women

    2428 Words  | 5 Pages

    Makela, Pia. "Views into studies of differences in drinking habits and alcohol problems between sociodemographic groups." Contemporary Drug Problems, Winter 1999 v26 i4 p633.

    Read More

  • Youth and Substance Abuse

    1740 Words  | 4 Pages

    Liehr, P, Marcus, M, Carroll, D, Granmayeh, K L, Cron, S, Pennebaker, J ;( Apr-Jun 2010). Substance Abuse; Vol. 31 (2); 79-85. Doi: 10.1080/08897071003641271

    Read More

  • The Counterculture

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although the sixties were a decade in which the United States became a more open, more tolerant, and a freer country, in some ways it became less of these things. During the sixties, America intervened in other nations and efforts were made to stop the progress of the civil rights movement. Because of America’s foreign policy and Americans fight against the civil rights movement, it is clear that the sixties in America were not purely a decade of openness, tolerance, and freedom in the United States.

    Read More

  • Final Exam Essay

    1402 Words  | 3 Pages

    The 1960s was a period well remembered for all the civil rights movements that occurred during that time frame and the impact these movements had on the social and political dynamics of the United States. The three largest movements that were striving in the 1960s were the African American civil rights movement, the New Left movement and the feminist movement. These three movements were in a lot of ways influenced by each other and were very similar in terms of their goals and strategies. However, within each of these movements there were divisions in the way they tried to approach the issues they were fighting against. Looking at each of these movements individually will reveal the relationship they all share as well as the changes that were brought forth as a result of each groups actions.

    Read More

  • Drugs in American Society, by Erich Goode

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    Drug in the American Society is a book written by Eric Goode. This book, as the title indicates, is about drugs in the American Society. It is especially about the misuse of most drugs, licit or illicit, such us alcohol, marijuana and more. The author wrote this book to give an explanation of the use of different drugs. He wrote a first edition and decided to write this second edition due to critic and also as he mentioned in the preface “there are several reason for these changes. First, the reality of the drug scene has changed substantially in the past dozen or so years. Second much more information has been accumulated about drug use. And third, I’m not the same person I was in 1972.”(vii). The main idea of this book is to inform readers about drugs and their reality. In the book, Goode argued that the effect of a drug is dependent on the societal context in which it is taken. Thus, in one society a particular drug may be a depressant, and in another it may be a stimulant.

    Read More

  • The Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis

    1696 Words  | 4 Pages

    Drugs cause an overall disturbance in a subjects’ physiological, psychological and emotional health. “At the individual level, drug abuse creates health hazards for the user, affecting the educational and general development of youths in particular” (“Fresh Challenge”). In youth specifically, drug abuse can be triggered by factors such as: a parent’s abusive behavior, poor social skills, family history of alcoholism or substance abuse, the divorce of parents or guardians, poverty, the death of a loved one, or even because they are being bullied at school (“Drugs, brains, and behavior”) .

    Read More

  • Alcohol Abuse Among College Students and Possible Solutions

    2195 Words  | 5 Pages

    Marcus, D. (March 27, 2000). Drnking To Get Drunk. U.S. News & World Report [On-line], Available: www2.gasou.edu/library/ (Galileo)(EBSCOhost)(Search=Alcohol Abuse).

    Read More

  • Teenagers and Drug Abuse

    1622 Words  | 4 Pages

    New York: Citadel Press, 1997. Bender, David. The War on Drugs. California: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998.

    Read More

  • Symptoms, Causes, and Effects of Alcoholism

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    The cause of alcoholism is a combination of biological, psychological, and cultural factors that may contribute to the development of...

    Read More

More about Drug Use in the 1960s

Open Document