High Society DRUGS ARE BAD. words: Charlotte O’Conor images: Must credit Wellcome Library, London
Perhaps the reason that scene is so funny is because we all spend most of our lives hearing the same thing - from teachers and parents when we’re growing up, and now from politicians, news reports and the press. Drugs are bad. So why is the illegal drugs trade worth over £200 billion? If we all know they’re bad, why are they still such huge business, and, like it or not, such a deeply ingrained part of our cultural heritage? Opinion is, and probably always will be, deeply divided on the subject of drugs. Among my contemporaries, it’s a contentious subject. In some circles, recreational drugs are a normal part of everyday life – sometimes to enable a more creative outlook, sometimes to simply get through the day. For others they’re purely a party hit, an occasional indulgence to let loose on a wild night. There’s also an increasingly large anti-drugs movement among London’s
young community, perhaps as a backlash to the trashy rise of celebrity culture, where overdoses, breakdowns and a stint in The Priory are all part of getting your Heat magazine wings. For our generation, the drugs question is a loaded one. We don’t have the luxury, as perhaps our parents may have done in the 1960s and 70s, of not worrying about the story behind what we’re buying. We’ve seen news reports about the links between addiction and the sex industry, seen the devastation and violence caused by warring gangs in Mexican drug cartels. We may have watched a friend go through a bad experience, perhaps followed them on the trip to A&E. In-depth education processes starting at a young age also means that we are aware of the dangers associated with mind-altering substances. And yet, the drugs trade is growing, not shrinking.
The role of drugs in our culture and their influence on the creative arts was the subject of a recent exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, aptly named ‘High Society’. The exhibition hinged on the idea that ‘the alteration of consciousness is a universal human impulse’. It explored not only the history of drugs and how they are viewed by different cultures, but also documented their role in the eternal human struggle for truth and inspiration. For centuries, artists of all disciplines have sought to free themselves from the restrictions of society and drown out logic in a quest to discover a purer form of creativity. Writer Aldous Huxley, famous for his dystopian classic ‘Brave New World’ was a known advocate of LSD and mescaline, which he believed had the power to block out filters in the brain and allow the taker to see the world with new eyes. A few years later, Beat Generation writer