Drugs In The 1960s Research Paper

1. At about what periods in history did cocaine reach its first and second peaks of popularity, and when was amphetamine’s popularity at its highest? Cocaine -late 19th century and early 20th amphetamine- 1960s (Hart & Ksir, p. 125)

Laws were established, and plans were occurred in order to eliminate American citizens from obtaining and using drugs, additionally to stop other countries from manufacturing, transporting these drugs across borders into the United States and selling/distributing them. After countless failed attempts, it was determined by Nixon that the supply for drugs existed due to the large demand and the suppliers would find anyway to succeed. Unfortunately Nixon did not act according to this understanding. Following this, Nixon launched numerous attempts to go into Mexico and eliminate the supply side of the drug war. He quickly learned that eliminating one route used by drug traffickers only resulted in them opening another route to continue their

In the 1960s, drug culture was popularized through music and mass media, in our current society we still find this relevant. Although we are more knowledgeable about drugs and alcohol, “an estimated 208 million people internationally consume illegal drugs.” The question is why do we conform to a society that is dependent on such substances? Perhaps drug culture is still present due to the references we witness on a daily basis. Witnessing this has resulted in drugs being a constant norm in society, the recently published novel, The Other Wes Moore; addresses drug culture.

Around the same time within the late 1960’s, a new hippie movement was forming, which was often described as a counterculture.

Drugs greatly deepened the willingness and desire to love one another and satisfy oneself. Drug use was very prevalent in the 1960’s and the main reason was the counterculture. Drugs were promoted through many of the admired musical groups whom were the heads of the counterculture revolution. As a result many of their fans got addicted to drug use and influenced society in an altered drug state. The counterculture was founded by personal satisfaction and the main source of satisfaction was drugs. Drugs negatively affected the social revolution because it instilled complacency and a lack of desire to impact society within the members of the movement. Without the drug abuses, society would look much different today and the War on Drugs would not have affected as many people as it has throughout the history of the United

Hippies represent the ideological, naive nature that children possess. They feel that with a little love and conectedness, peace and equality will abound. It is with this assumption that so many activists and reformers, inspired by the transformation that hippies cultivated, have found the will to persist in revolutionizing social and political policy. Their alternative lifestyles and radical beleifs were the shocking blow that American culture-- segregation, McCarthyism, unjust wars, censorship--needed to prove that some Americans still had the common sense to care for one another. The young people of the sixties counterculture movement were successful at awakening awareness on many causes that are being fought in modern

Much like today 's war on drugs, the uprise of drug users in the seventies sparked much controversy in both normal American lives as well as those of the celebrity status. Countless studies of the time analyze class, age, gender, location and many other factors to try to determine a trend in drug abusers. In one article, two spectrums of drug abusers were identified. One spectrum was of young heroin users who have shown to statistically engage in illegal endeavors while the other spectrum is that of middle-aged southern whites (Ball, 1965). Drug addiction has also coincided with changes in society; at this time technology had recently

Drugs were used as a means to escape reality. Drug use was already running rampant in the ghettos but was minimal among middle class white youth. Music helped popularize the use of drugs on college campuses.10 The use of marijuana peaked in 1967 with the release of the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" whose cover has marijuana leaves on it.11 The use of drugs by mainstream teens can be compared to the way a society accepts a new type of music or a new hairstyle. Using drugs was

This article explores the appeal of the counterculture movement during the 1960s and analyzes the reasons why young Americans were drawn to the movement. In her introduction, Thurmon starts off by giving an overview of the major shift in culture that occurred during the 1960s. Her thesis is strong and gives a clear idea in what direction the essay will continue. Each of her body paragraphs provide excellent detail in explaining how the youth of the 60s went about their changes during the counterculture movement.

From protest to popular culture, the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s responded to the time's diverse political and social climate, constructing a rebellion against societal values and promoting alternative ways of life. This series of movements was as varied as it was received. Whether it is peaceful civil rights protestors, anti-war students, free-loving hippies, or militant Black Panthers, among others, the momentary work of these protestors left an abiding impact on American culture for better or worse. Conservatism in the 1940s and 1950s and the looming threat of the Cold War led to political turbulence in the 1960s. However, several variables set the stage for the counterculture movement and later influenced it.

America was about to experience the uttermost culture and society rude awakening around the 1960s as a result of the diverse political, civil rights,and economic, issues it was faced with. Revolving around this pivot laid the American hippie: the highly influential and extrinsic figure of its vintage vicinity. Hippies were very crucial towards the American way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing social norm; further feeding into a movement that would then expand awareness and stretch “accepted” values. The hippies’ solutions to the dilemmas of a standardized American society were to either participate in mass protests with their alternative lifestyles and primitive acceptances,

‘The hippie movement germinated in San Francisco, with the Vietnam War at its core. The movement eventually spread to the East Coast as well, centralized in New York's East Village in addition to the Haight-Asbury district of San Francisco and Sunset Strip of Los Angeles” (Buchholz 858). Many hippies were angry over the conformist lifestyle that Americans were living in, and wanted to live how they wanted to live not how their employer or television wanted them to live. Hippies also took a political

This new dynamic was seen initially in 1971 by the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) spearheaded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The survey indicated that many illegal drug users were employed full or part time. The initial survey was used to try and understand the scope of the problem,

The “hippies” of the 1960s had many effects on the American society. The visual appearance and lifestyle of the hippies were in sharp contrast to the conservative nature of the older generation, which defined them as a counterculture. The hippie lifestyle was based on free love, rock music, shared property, and drug experimentation. They introduced a new perspective on drugs, freedom of expression, appearance, music, attitudes toward work, and held a much more liberal political view than mainstream society.

The 1960s Hippie movement was a major point in the American history. In the 1960s a certain class of young people associated their lifestyles with the ideas of freedom, peace, and love. Hippies acted against white upper middle class lifestyle because they thought it was based on the wrong ideology. Hippies were against consumerism and American suburban life of the late 1950s and early 1960s was embodied in itself the idea of consumerism. Hippies, on the other hand, felt better about communal life with equal distribution of social goods. Traditional “bigger share” and consumerist greed as concepts of American society were despised by Hippies.