Volume XIX, No. 46
Fifteen Cents
November 16, 1966
THE CASE
AGAINST THE
DRUG CULTURE
[This article is adapted from a radio commentary by Henry
Anderson, delivered over KPFA, Berkeley, June 17 and 18,
1966. Copyright, 1966, is held by Mr. Anderson.}
I: The Race for "Middle Space"
SUPPOSE I should say at the outset that I haven’t been
on any "trips” — other than those which come naturally.
I am well aware that the tripsters will therefore write me
off with the wheeze, "If you haven’t tried it, don’t knock
it." I am unimpressed with that argument, if it can be called
an argument. There are many things I have not tried, and
feel that I am perfectly justified in "knocking" simply on
the basis of being human, and having had certain basic hu¬
man experiences and feelings. For example, there have
been other kinds of hippies, at various times, in various
places, who thought they found fulfillment in killing or
torturing or being tortured. I am quite prepared to abjure
Sade’s recommendations for consciousness-expansion with¬
out ever having tried them, and with the intention of never
trying them. And I have no apology whatever to make for
my lack of "empiricism," for empiricism, like almost any¬
thing else, can become a vice.
Now, the proponents of LSD and marijuana and the like
begin from a sound point of departure. They reject what
they call the "false values" of our culture. So far, so good.
Our society and culture have many false values, which
should be rejected. The tripsters, for example, tend to be
scornful of the "race for outer space,” and, in my judgment,
quite properly so. But it is not enough to reject unsound
values. The question is, what values are substituted — if
any?
The tripsters substitute a "race for inner space.” They
use artifices to propel them, as astronauts use mechanical
devices to propel them into the other kind of space. By the
way, I would like to see some double-blind tests, with place¬
bos, to find out how much the drugs really have to do with
the results the tripsters claim they get, and how much is
self -induced.
1 have no invariable quarrel with these results. I am not
a grim-lipped Puritan — at least, I flatter myself that I am
not. I am not a foe of euphoria, transcendental and oceanic
experiences, creativity, liberation from "hang-ups," and
some of the other things the true believers claim they get
from their drugs. Far from it. I have experimented with
various non-pharmacologic ways of enhancing these quali¬
ties, and will comment on them in the second half of this
discussion. The problem is a problem of proportion. "Con¬
sciousness expansion" is not all there is to living. I am in
favor of many other things besides euphoria, and there are
many situations in this life in which you cannot have every¬
thing. You have to make choices. This is one of those
situations.
The "race for inner space,” as surely as the "race for out¬
er space," evades the problems of "middle space," if I may
coin a phrase. That is, problems located neither in heaven
nor hell, but right here in the everyday, common-sense,
real-life, experiential world. The bright young people in
grey flannel suits who are turning their talents toward the
computer technology of the aerospace industry, and the
bright young people in grey flannel sandals who are turning
inward to their private visions, may think they have noth¬
ing in common, but, in practical effect, they are at one. If
a very great many more bright young people don’t turn their
talents to solving the down-to-earth problems that are all
around us, right here and now, there isn’t going to be any¬
body’s inner space left to explore; and outer space will still
be there, but without anybody to explore it.
In June, 1966, in San Francisco, a big conference was
held on LSD and the other hallucinogens. Since people evi¬
dently find the subject titillating, the yellow press gave it
more space than wars, revolutions, and other things that
one might suppose were really more important. This con¬
ference was sponsored by the University of California, and,
like almost everything else under the aegis of that institu¬
tion, it seemed to me utterly to miss the essential point.
Not a single one of the experts flown in from all over the
country seemed even to hint at this point: the big question
with LSD, as with marijuana, peyote, mescaline, morning
glory seeds, glue-sniffing, and all the similar devices, is not
whether they are useful in treating alcoholism; whether
they are addictive; whether they should be legalized or out¬
lawed; whether people under their influence occasionally
run amok, stab other people, commit suicide, and so forth.
The big question is: are they a diversion, a distraction, a
siphoning off of energies desperately needed elsewhere, a
way of opting out which is heartlessly unfair to those who
are left ? I submit that they are.
To be sure, it everybody in the world — all the Comma
nist and other ideologues, all the hungry agricultural work
ers of this nation and every other nation, all the Negroes in
ghettos in this nation and the Union of South Africa and
