Acid, Mushrooms and the festival culture
A brief history of psychedelic drugs in Britain
1.
A global tradition - Psychedelics and Spirituality
Throughout
the globe, traditional and native religions have
used psychoactive sustances to alter consciousness
and to create spiritual insights. These substances
have included medicinal plants and animal products,
such as cannabis, fungi such as the fly agaric and
liberty cap mushrooms, peyote cacti and toads of
the genus Bufo. Many other substances have been
used to alter consciousness, which appears to be
a universal human desire, to be accomplished by
meditation, fasting, prayer or religious devotion
for some, and the use of alcohol, cannabis, opium,
coca, psilocybe or amanita fungi for others.
Throughout
ancient civilisation, Cannabis sativa (Hemp)
was used for fibre and rope. The medicinal properties
were recorded in China during the Shen Nung dynasty
in 2737 BC, the "Burning Bush" in which Moses saw
visions of God was almost certainly growing in the
Beka"a valley in Lebanon . The Scythians threw
the seed-bearing cannabis flowering tops on hot
coals and inhaled the fumes, in a ceremony very
similar to the Sweat Lodges of the Sioux and other
indian tribes. The unleavened bread so beloved of
early Christians was frequently contaminated with
the ergot fungus (Claviceps purpurea) which
contains the source chemicals for LSD and other
indole-based psychedelic drugs.
In the
North, the Fly Agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria)
was used by Siberian herdsmen during rituals, where
the urine of the rulers, and even of reindeer, containing
the drugs involved, was used to change consciousness.
In the South American jungle, tribesmen continue
to use yage and ayahuasca - harmala alkaloids and
tryptamine derivatives - to promote shapeshifting
and communion with animal spirits. Native Americans
use Mescaline from the peyote cactus (Lophophora
williams) and have their religion protected
under the US constitution. In the south seas, the
islanders drink Kava Kava, and will not conduct
business without the mildly psychedelic stimulant.
Even the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh have had to
drink the fermented brew on arrival in the islands
before being accepted by the people.
Yet the
western tradition has largely been ignored. The
great stone circles, most archaeologists would agree,
had many functions, gathering places, astronomical
calendars & sundials, scenes of funerary rites
and other ritual uses. Most of these sites are in
upland areas where the Psilocybe semilanceata
(Magic) mushroom is commonly found. This may or
may not be coincidental, but may indicate that our
ancestors were only too well aware of the properties
of psychoactive plants during their religious and
spiritual journeys. However we may never know the
truth, as the witches, druids and other pagan societies
of Western Europe were ruthlessly suppressed during
the middle ages as the Christian church strove for
spiritual supremacy.
The church
suppressed alternative spirituality and herbalism,
and the modern drug laws arguably sit within that
tradition. The witches, mostly women healers and
herbalists, were ruthlessly persecuted and burned
at the stake, as paternalist christianity swept
through europe, destroying any potential opposition
from the matriarchal pagan peoples, and bringing
(male) doctors using the wisdom (?) of Galen and
other ancient Greek physicians - for a price - in
place of the local healer women serving the community.
Use of the toad and mushroom was hidden, and only
hinted at in the surviving traditions of fairies,
elves and otherworldly beings, sitting on their
toadstools in childrens books. Fragments of the
old lore remain, the red & white livery of Father
Christmas heralding the yule festivities, representing
the red and white-speckled cap of the Fly Agaric
mushroom whereas the symbolic role of the reindeer
would appear obvious. The common references to "Skin
of Toad" in Witches Brews, containing bufotenine,
a related compound to psilocybin, and even the etymological
derivation of "Toadstool" may be indicative of a
folk memory of ritual use of toadskins and magic
mushrooms.
The practice
of witchcraft was illegal in the UK until the 1950s,
despite being popularised by gurus such as Gerald
Gardner and Aleister Crowley in the late 19th/early
20th century. While Gardnerian wiccans tend to eschew
the use of mind-altering substances, these traditionalists
would now represent a small minority of the neopagan
community, growing out of the hippie counterculture
and green political movements, encompassing many
spiritual traditions including the shamanic.
Modern
paganism, as a common denominator, sees the spiritual
godhead as female, or at least as a balance between
the male and female, in contrast to the moslem and
judaeochristian traditions, who perceive the deity
as unalterably masculine. Most pagans would see
themselves as an integral part of the universe,
with the deity being inherent in all things and
beings, rather than separated into a duallist universe.
The religion is experiential, involving the communal
rituals of purification, raising and channelling
spiritual power by chanting, music, dancing and
meditation. The shamanic use of psychedelic drugs,
whether of natural or synthetic origin, is frequently
to aid achievement of a trance-like state of spiritual
awareness and inner peace. Other pagans or fellow-travellers
just use the drugs to enhance the experience of
communal or solitary ritual, or simply to have a
good "buzz".
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2. The
glimmerings of awareness - early psychedelic experiments
The use of
psychedelic drugs, rather than opiates or stimulants,
was first brought to public attention by the publication
of Huxley"s "Doors of Perception", describing a mescalin
trip, in 1954. Huxley later demanded a psychedelic experience
on his death bed.
By this time
Albert Hoffman had synthesised LSD and experienced the
effects of 250µg (micrograms) during his legendary
bicycle ride, the psychiatric profession were dosing patients
with repeated high doses of LSD, and the CIA, MI6 and
no doubt the rest of the worlds spies were testing the
effects on willing and unwitting volunteers.
At Powick hospital
in Worcestershire, psychiatrists gave patients up to 1500µg
for the treatment of alcoholism and neuroses such as agoraphobia
and depression, and even psoriasis, without warning of
the profound effects which were to follow. Some patients
were treated weekly for several years. The psychiatrists,
predominantly from the Freudian psycholanalytic tradition,
hoped that LSD would unlock repressed memories responsible
for the psychological problems with which the patients
presented. There were notable successes, and LSD treatment
was accepted by a substantial body of opinion as valuable
therapeutic tool. However, some patients reacted badly,
claiming to suffer long term psychoses and flashbacks,
and many were terrified of the experience, which took
place in a hospital ward full of strangers and hospital
staff, not exactly the ideal set and setting for a pleasant
"trip". The prevailing hospital culture of the time was
not one where the wishes and concerns of psychiatric patients
were treated seriously, and few patients ever questioned
the treatment they received at the time.
The infamous
CIA project codenamed MK Ultra involved testing the effect
of LSD on soldiers as a chemical warfare agent intended
to incapacitate enemy troops. Soldiers on exercises became
distracted from their missions, and would break into fits
of laughter or contemplation of their surroundings. Similar
experiments were conducted in the UK at Porton Down under
the codename "operation moneybags" (a pun on l.s.d., the
slang term for the predecimal "pounds, shillings and pence"),
with over 100 unwitting volunteers tested during the 1950s
and early 1960s. Ken Kesey later described the paradox
of the CIA and US Military turning on the youth of America
with the drug which caused nonviolence and the end of
the Vietnam war.
Kesey, the
Merry Pranksters, through their "Acid Tests", and resigned
Harvard psychologist Dr Timothy Leary at Millbrook in
New York State, with the slogan "turn on, tune in, drop
out", brought LSD to the masses. Leary and Bob Dylan turned
on the Beatles, who in turn turned on the rest of the
world with their music, including the thinly disguised
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". LSD was now big news,
it had escaped from the laboratory and permeated popular
culture. The authorities acted with their customary enlightened
attitude in addressing the new phenomenon.
3.
Prohibition - the politicians" panacaea
In the UK,
LSD was made illegal in 1966 following passage of the
Dangerous Drugs Act. Until that time most of the LSD available
was made by Sandoz, as a pharmaceutical preparation. Patients
received it by injection, and a common method of consuming
the colourless liquid was a drop placed on a cube of sugar.
The Le Dain commission in Canada stated that it could
be sniffed in powdered form, injected in solution, in
capsules or tablets, or is often impregnated into sugar
cubes, candies, biscuits, and cloth or blotter sections
for oral use.
When LSD was
made illegal, the pharmaceutical supplies dried up, and
the backstreet chemists took over. It was still usually
available in liquid form, and blotters, capsules and tablets
followed shorly after. These could cost 5/- to 10/- each
(two to four doses per £1), but were often given
away free by devotees of the drug The illicit chemists
varied from backstreet operations producing poor quality
LSD with many impurities, through students using university
facilities, to probably the most famous of all Augustus
"Owsley" Stanley III, maker of "Orange Sunshine" and other
notes "brands", who was arrested in 1967 with enough LSD
for 2 million 200µg doses, plus a large quantity
of DOM (STP), a forerunner of Ecstasy. In the early 1970s
surveys estimated that 5 Million Americans, and 650,000
in the UK, had used LSD.
The 1971 Misuse
of Drugs Act placed LSD, Psilocybin and most other psychedelic
drugs in Class A, along with morphine, heroin and cocaine.
Unlike in the USA, where drugs are legal until proscribed
by law, the UK approach was to ban whole classes of chemical,
including many which had never been synthesised. Principal
among these were indole-derivatives, the structural basis
of LSD, serotonin, psilocybin, bufotenin and the tryptamine
derivatives DMT, DET etc, as well as the methoxylated
amphetamines MDA, DOM (STP), MMDA, MDMA (ecstasy) MDEA
(eve), mescaline, and other related compounds. Penalties
of up to 5 years for simple possession, and up to 14 years
to life imprisonment for supply offences, remain on the
statute book.
4.
Free"n"Easy - The rise of festival culture
Although festivals
of many types, including popular music festivals, had
been around since the 1950s, it was in the late 1960s
that these developed into a focal point for psychedelic
drug use. The first "be in" was in San Francisco, with
the "Acid Tests", where LSD was distributed to all comers
in "Kool aid" soft drinks by Kesey and his tribe, from
which the concept of free festivals was born. Monterey
and Woodstock in the states, Hyde Park and the Isle of
Wight in the UK were events which crystallized the 60s
culture. It was the Isle of Wight in particular, outside
the main arena with Hawkwind playing naked to the crowd,
where the Free Festival movement was born. The early 1970s
saw the Windsor festival crushed by the police, the compromise
Watchfield site - a disused military aerodrome - in 1975,
and the mother of all festivals, Stonehenge, from 1973
to 1984.
Stonehenge
1984 lasted a whole month, and at the peak around solstice
there were 20,000 to 100,000 people present, depending
on whose estimates you believe. The heroin dealers had
been run out of the site before the main influx, although
LSD, cannabis and speed were sold openly (and vociferously)
all over the site. Around 500 festivalgoers who were drug
users completed questionnaires about their drug usage,
and over 70% of these had used LSD and/or Magic Mushrooms,
most of these doing so occasionally, and those describing
themselves as pagan doing so most of all. Half of the
users at Stonehenge intended to use LSD at the festival,
at Glastonbury the same year roughly on third intended
to do so. The main reasons people went to festivals were
the atmosphere and people present, followed by music and
drugs.
By 1984, the
Free Festival scene had blossomed into a summer-long phenomenon,
with festivals every weekend from April to October. A
core group of travellers had formed, spending the summer
moving between festivals and the winter parked up in small
sites all over the U.K. They travelled together between
festivals and became known as the Peace Convoy, attracting
wild stories from the tabloid press. When there was no
festival, the tribe moved to protest camps at Porton Down,
the chemical warfare establishment, Greenham Common from
which the permanent Wimmins Peace camp developed, and
Molesworth, at which the first violent eviction occurred,
complete with Michael Heseltine in famous flak-jacket.
A further "trashing" of the convoy following a festival
at Nostell Priory near Wakefield scattered the tribe into
smaller groups.
The late 1980s
saw the Free Festival movement attacked by the Thatcher
government with a series of new laws aimed at "new age
travellers". Chief of these was the Public Order Act 1986,
which gave police new powers to restrict assemblies and
processions. Each June saw a major police operation to
prevent the Stonehenge festival from happening, with violent
confrontations, particularly in 1985 (Battle of the Beanfield)
and 1988.
Since the demise
of Stonehenge and the Free Festivals, Glastonbury has
become the focal point of the festival culture. Massive
organisation, planning and commercial activity characterise
the festival, a far cry from the self-sufficiency and
cooperative spontaneity of Stonehenge. Faced with an influx
of refugees from the Stonehenge evictions, Michael Eavis,
organiser of the festival, allowed the travellers a free
field during the late 1980s and early 1990s, until his
insurers and the local authority baulked at the prospect
of the travellers being on site, since when they have
not been officially welcome. Confrontations between the
travellers and festival security hardly helped the atmosphere.
5.
Operation Julie - The best acid ever?
The late 1970s
saw Operation Julie, which netted some 1.5kg of LSD, enough
for 7.5 million 1970s doses of the drug, or up to 20-30
million doses at today"s levels. These were small
tablets or "microdots" of high purity and potency, produced
in a remote farmhouse in Wales. The "conspirators" were
arrested and jailed in 1978 following an intensive police
surveillance operation led by Dick Lee, who along with
undecover officers, subsequently resigned from the police.
Although presented as a great success, the operation started
almost by accident:
The Brotherhood
of Eternal Love, one of the groups formed by Leary and
funded by Bill Hitchcock, a millionaire property dealer,
in the wake of the prohibition of LSD in the USA in 1965,
was disbanded following a police bust. One of the members,
Ron Stark, flew to London and met Richard Kemp, a Cambridge
chemistry student. Stark provided 7.4 kioos of ergotamine
tartrate, a precursor for LSD synthesis, from which Kemp
made 1.7 kilos of LSD, using a process known as the "wrinkle"
which allowed production of 99.7% pure acid. This was
sufficient to make 8.5 million doses of 200µg each.
In 1974, Gerald
Thomas, a cannabis smuggler earlier thrown out of the
group for unreliability, was arrested in Canada and gave
the names of Kemp, Christine Bott, and Henry Todd as being
involved with "the biggest acid lab in the world". Kemp
and Bott moved to Wales where they set up a lab in a remote
farmhouse, whereas Todd and Andrew Munro, an inorganic
chemist, set up shop in a basement in Seymour Road, London
producing inferior quality LSD in 100µg black microdots.
Kemp"s bad luck started when his Range Rover was
involved in a fatal accident, and was impounded by police.
By chance, Dick Lee was visiting the area, noticed the
owner of the vehicle, and searched in finding a note with
reference to hydrazine hydrate, a chemical used in LSD
synthesis. From that point on Kemp and the cottage were
put under surveillance.
The two labs,
operating independently but stated to be part of the same
conspiracy, were raided on 26th March 1977. The welsh
operation had already shut down, and undercover officers
had missed seeing Bott burying the equipment in the garden.
Even so, there was little hard evidence when the defendants
were arrested, most coming from confessions. The 17 defendants
pleaded guilty at Bristol Crown Court and were sentenced
to a total of 130years imprisonment, with Kemp and Todd
each receiving 13 years. The author, David Solomon (Marijuana
Papers) received 10 years for providing raw materials,
Munro received 10 years, and Bott 9 years.
Although there
were persistent rumours that the group had stashed away
several million doses, none reappeared years later following
the release of the main protagonists. Following Julie,
the price of LSD rose sharply, from around 50p to over
£1 per tablet. By this time, LSD had fallen out of
fashion, the preferred drug among youth culture in the
late 1970s being alcohol. Punks regarded LSD and cannabis
as drugs of the unfashionable and wimpish hippies, their
preferred drugs being "sulphate" (amphetamine) and Special
Brew.
6.
The growing tide - Trends and surveys of LSD use.
Use of cannabis,
measured by the number of police seizures, has increased
more or less steadily since the war. There was a reduction
in the mid 1970s, but the graph has been rising steadily
ever since. There were 590 LSD seizures in 1974, falling
to under 300 per year from 1977-1980, rising steadily
to 629 in 1984, declining again to 3-400 from 1986-88,
and rising sharply year on year until a sharp increase
in the early 1990s which now appears to have stabilised.
If these figures are indicative of the prevalence of LSD
use, there are somewhere in the region of four to ten
times as many LSD users today as there were in the sixties,
seventies and eighties. A Home Office study estimated
that by 1991 some 900,000 people aged 16-59 had taken
LSD.
Number of LSD Seizures 1974-94
Recent publicity
about ecstasy has not been positive, with the deaths of
Leah Betts and other young people splashed all over the
tabloids as a warning to others. Certainly, some individuals
suffer a dangerous reaction to the drug which, when combined
with intense physical activity (such as non-stop dancing)
and a hot sweaty atmosphere (such as a night club) can
cause death by heatstroke. Other research has indicated
the possibility of permanent neurochemical changes, characterised
by the press as "brain damage", from heavy or repeated
use of the drug. Although the history of drug prohibition
is littered with claims of "brain damage" which subsequently
turn out to be misinterpretations or outright fabrications,
the possibility of permanent changes to brain physiology
cannot be discounted. Many ravers are now eschewing the
use of E in favour of acid, often mixed with amphetamine
in order to mimic the physical stimulation of MDMA.
In 1994, my
survey of festival drug users was repeated and extended.
The proportions using LSD or magic mushrooms was virtually
unchanged from 10 years previously, although the number
who admitted using Ecstasy had risen from 6 MDA users
in 1984 (1%), to around 50% 10 years later. The proportion
who had used heroin fell by a third over the same period.
LSD was the
drug credited with producing more of the best drug experiences,
and more of the worst experiences, by the survey groups.
The best experiences commonly reported included tripping
in a good environment (setting) such as the open air or
festivals, spiritual insights and self-awareness, weird/out
of this world experiences, a good buzz, visual hallucinations,
intense colours, euphoria/bliss - a sense of well-being,
religious or spiritual insights, increased energy and
dancing, hilarity and mirth. Quotes included
"At
one with the universe"
"Totally
changed my life"
"Try
some and find out"
"A
personal voyage of discovery that I will never
forget"
"The
greatest experience of my life"
"Enjoy
the psychedelic side of life"
The worst LSD
experiences were bad trips in the wrong setting, panic,
paranoia, frightening nightmares, taking too much, losing
control, confusion, "head fucked", being too young or
unprepared, quotes included:
"Friend
turned into beast"
"Friends
were werewolves"
"Walked
into barbed wire"
"Too
young for such confusion"
"Too
young to deal with ego being destroyed"
"Lots
of bugs and insects for 30 seconds"
"Drives
you mad long term"
Most LSD users
try the drug occasionally, on special occasions, or a
few times as an experiment. However a substantial proportion
use the drug on a regular basis at weekends, some doing
so throughout the weekend. For those who take the risk
of buying sheets of 20-200 doses at a time, the price
can be as low as 50p to £1 per square, although the
user buying in bulk risks a hefty prison sentence for
possession of a class A drug with intent to supply.
LSD today is
almost exclusively found in the form of blotting paper
or card impregnated with the drug, and divided into squares
which represent individual doses, usually carrying a distinctive
printed design on each square indicating the manufacturer
or distributor"s "brand". The Home Office have a
library of several hunded different designs. Although
the average price of £3 per dose remains the same
in absolute terms as 1984, the amount of drug contained
has fallen, from 200-250µg in the seventies to 50-70µg
today. For most ravers, who seek subtle alterations of
consciousness without a full blown psychedelic experience,
these doses are usually adequate. A person seeking a profound
experience will frequently take 3-5 squares over an evening,
representing a similar dose to the sixties pioneers. Unfortunately,
as with most drugs, the user has no way of knowing whether
his 5 tabs contain 50µg each, or a generous 100µg
plus, and the potential for overdoing it is high.
7.
Toadstool Soup - Class A drug?
Modern awareness
of the Magic Mushroom was at first restricted to a few
mycologists and experimental psychedelic pioneers. Although
the mexican Psilocybe Cubensis was well known in the new
world, and popularised in the novels of Carlos Castaneda,
the awareness that psilocybe species grew in the UK grew
during the late 1970s. The popularity increased sharply
following two events, the publication of a guide to British
psilocybin mushrooms in 1978 by Richard Cooper, and the
prosecution of Stevens, where the House of Lords held
that a mushroom had to be prepared, or "altered by the
hand of man" in order to be illegal, and that possession
of the mushrooms in their natural state was not an offence.
The definition of a preparation has been tightened steadily
such that if mushrooms are dried deliberately, frozen,
cooked, or otherwise altered they are illegal, but if
they were picked in a dry state, or dried naturally if
kept, for instance, in an open paper bag, possession would
not be an offence. Unless there is charring from oven-drying,
a forensic scientist is virtually unable to tell whether
or not dry mushrooms have been dried deliberately, and
police frequently rely on confessions as to how the mushrooms
were dried in order to obtain a conviction.
Seizures of
psilocybin are not separately published from other Class
A drugs. In 1993 there were 2 seizures of psilocin anf
299 of psilocybin. In 1994 the figures were 4 and 508
respectively. The seizures fitted a seasonal pattern,
with most occuring during the autumn fruiting season,
with few seizures occuring out of season.
Quarterly Psilocybin/Psilocin Seizures - UK
1993/94
1993 1994
8. Rave
On! - Acid house parties and the techno generation
The new phenomenon
in the late 1980 was the growth of Acid House culture
and rave parties held in warehouses and open air venues.
A new generation of young people had discovered samplers
and methylendioxymethylamphetamine, a psychedelic stimulant
known as MDMA or just plain E, leading to en explosion
of home-produced dance music. The thought of thousands
of young people getting together in unlicensed venues,
taking ecstasy and dancing in a dervish-like frenzy through
to the dawn, filled the authorities and tablod newspapers
with horror.
The rise of
ecstasy in youth culture has been credited with the end
of mass football hooliganism, as the love drug culture
replacing the macho alcoholic bravado which underlay the
tribal conflicts that football matches had become.
The rave generation
and free festival movement were bound together with common
cause against an establishment bent on destroying both
cultures, and rave tents became a feature of outdoor free
festivals, raves largely replaced "squat gigs" in disused
factories and other inner-city locations, many rave organisers
having served their apprenticeship on festival sites.
Castlemorton, a huge rave and festival in 1992 attracting
40,000 plus inner city hippies and ravers to the Tory
heartlands of rural England, proved the final straw for
the authorities, who introduced the Criminal Justice and
Public Order Act 1994, which gave the police sweeping
powers to confiscate equipment and vehicles, criminalised
the civil law of trespass, and outlawed gatherings open
or partially open to the air which involved the playing
of music "characterised wholly or partly by a succession
of repetitive beats".
9.
Welcome to the Future
The future
prospects for users of LSD and mushrooms are bleak. Former
mental patients are suing their health authorities for
punitive damages after claiming to suffer nightmares and
flashbacks which their attribute to their LSD therapy.
The Home Secretary, Michael Howard, himself accused in
Parliament of using cannabis as a student (without an
official denial), has proposed minimum sentence of 7 years
imprisonment for any person convicted of a third supply
offence, which includes "social supply" - i.e. giving
a trip to a friend, or one person buying on behalf of
a group of friends - and the prospect of a future Labour
government relaxing any of the drug laws is remote.
Although Parliament
has had 16 years to act since the Stevens judgement on
mushrooms, a law banning the possession of any dry or
picked psilocybin mushroom could be enacted at any time
without the necessity of parliamentary approval. The restrictions
on movement and assembly in the Criminal Justice &
Public Order Act 1994 are likely to be extended to other
walks of life, eroding the civil liberties of all UK citizens,
and further specific laws cannot be ruled out, especially
in response to the tabloid hysteria about illegal drugs
which shows no sign of abating. This hysteria leads the
public to demand ever more stringent restrictions on personal
freedom in the name of the war on drugs. While we have
not yet followed the American path of mass urine screening
to detect drug "abusers", several US companies are trying
to persuade the UK government, schools, employers and
police forces to use their drug-testing kits.
The prospects
for the authorities, too, are bleak. The rate of seizures
and convictions for "controlled drugs" rises year on year,
more young people are processed through the criminal justice
system, and the cost of enforcement by police, the legal
profession, probation and the prison service will rise
inexorably.
© Matthew
J. Atha
April 9th 1996
