University of Virginia Library

Wizard Says 'Drug Scene Real Hangup'

Hippies Concentrating More On 'Social Work,' Building Utopia Than Drugs

Last summer Cavalier Daily staff writer Paul Larsen
visited the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco,
home base for the "hippie" culture in this country.
The following is the second in a series of articles in
which Mr. Larsen records his impressions of the hippie
life.

By Paul Larsen

The number 7 bus in San Francisco is perhaps
the only bus in existence which passes
through three worlds daily. It begins on Market
street and slowly makes its way towards the
intersection of Haight and Pasonic streets. It
leaves the businessman's world of a downtown
city, passes through the dank and squalor of
the Fillmore Negro Ghetto, and enters into
the world of the hippie.

Photo by Schmidt
(Reprinted From Playboy)

Haight Meets Ashbury

Where Hippies Get Together

The world of the hippie—pot, acid, be-ins,
love-ins, drop-outs, cop-outs, thievery, and
trouble-makers. This is their world, if one is
to believe the majority of the news media's
assessment of this Bohemia. Yet this bold and
different way of life has, somewhere along
the line, been dealt a low blow.

Drug "Diet"

Perhaps the most grossly exploited aspect
of hippie life is its association with drugs.
There is no denying that marijuana, LSD,
speed, belladonna, are all part of Haight-Ashbury,
just as they are part of college life and
other aspects of American society. Nor is
there denying the dangers of the more potent
drugs. But the extent to which the drugs have
become a "diet" to the hippie, just who uses
them, and why they are used is justifiably
questionable.

When the hippie "thing" began, somewhere
between Grogan's formation of The Diggers
and Ginsburg's momentous Be-In, the use of
drugs was wide-spread. Pot was as much a part
of the hippie image as long hair and beards.
LSD became the god of the drugs, and soon
new and more powerful drugs made the scene.
But now, after the way of life has been firmly
established, many hippies are turning away
from drugs.

The hippies are beginning to concentrate
more on their "social work" than on drugs,
which were formerly such a great part of their
life. Their conception of Utopia is a community
in which all can live free in the peace and
love of their fellow man. The basic philosophy
of their society has been the hallmark of every
bohemian underground cult since time began.
Yet the hippies believe they are reaching these
goals through different approaches.

Society Of Peace, Love

They visualize a society which lives off of
peace and love and each other. The Free Store
and the Diggers stew in the park are the first
outcroppings of this new socialistic community.

"Before, no one was really sure where we
were going," a hippie called Wizard (he had
received a B.S. in Chemistry) told me. "We
only knew where we'd been and that was a
bummer. The kids were looking for something
new and the drugs were there. A lot of people
got pretty sick from the more powerful stuff.
We can rationalize that by saying we were
young, we were just beginning. We've learned
a lot from our mistakes. Now there are a lot
of things to be done and we know we can't
do them if we're stoned. We're working at
forming a Utopia, an ideal that perhaps will
never be realized, but we want people to see
our dreams as we see them. The drug scene
is a real hang-up to most straights, and that
shades their thoughts of us, although I think
most of them see the good we are achieving
and really believe in us."

Remove Drug Image

Drugs do bring about clouds of despair
among the straight society. Many people feel
an appeal and sympathy for the hippies, but
they cannot abide by the drugs. For the hippies
to achieve their dreams, they realize that
they must receive the best wishes of the society
from which they have dropped out. To
do so, the drug image must be removed.

The use of drugs now is limited to marijuana
among many of the hippies. "We leave
acid, STP, and the rest to the college and
teenybopper set," Wizard continued. "The

straight society is sort of becoming immune to
people smoking grass. There are always lawyers
and doctors defending the stuff. When I was
in college I took more of the powerful stuff
than I have since I've moved here. I think
that's the way it is with most of us. You might
say we mature through a high and then realize
the work we are trying to do has to be done
when we're straight. We're leaving drugs now,
it's getting to be old."

"Don't Need Drugs"

Many of the hippies I met and talked with
have never tried anything more powerful than
marijuana. Most of them say they never will.
Their reason is simple, "We've really got something
going, we don't need drugs to get high
from life and from living free."

Drugs have been to the Haight, and now
they are an old scene. Many of the hippies
the higher echelon of the power structure in
Haight-Ashbury are following a cease and desist
issue towards drug use. They want the
stigma removed, so that the straight society
can see what they are doing, which they believe
is good. They want to push the users to
the outside fringes of their society, the place
where such are found in any society.