These two generations were all about being your own person, following your own rules, but their rules were not always a good. Many Beatnik writers struggled with their sexual orientation. Authors, like Allen Ginsburg were gay, and treated like pariahs. Hippies were very wild partiers. Their state of mind was "do you own thing." If that meant they didn't have to work, then they wouldn't, unless completely necessary. Hippies never went to church, and were very promiscuous. In my opinion the darkest side of these eras, have to be the drug abuse. Beatniks were the first people to use drugs casually. They would use marijuana, heroine, and amphetamines. Hippies followed in their footsteps, and introduced Lysergic acid diethylamide, also known as LSD. Marijuana was the most used, and the number of people getting high went from a few hundred to 8,000,000. Most new users were of the age of 12 to seniors in high school. Hippies believed that drugs increased creativity and perception. These claim were wrong. Many drug users would experience a "freak out" and literally freak out. Some would even die. That didn't stop hippies from getting high. Music and drugs were connected, and some musicians even believed that drugs helped them get inspired. Jimi Hendrix's song, "Purple Haze," was about marijuana. The Beatles had a song about LSD called "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." This dark side of hippies caused many deaths such as Keith Moon, drummer of The Who, Rolling Stones guitar player Brian Jones, and Grateful Dead lead singer Jerry Garcia. Some may say that drugs helped musicians create some of their best songs, but in reality drugs created a trend of death.
-Carla Mendoza
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