Haight-Ashbury

Seymour, R.B. MDMA. San Francisco, CA. Haight Ashbury Publications, 1986. 

Meyers, F. EL, Rose, A. J., and Smith, D. E. (1967-1968) Incidents involving the Haight-Ashbury population and some uncommonly used drugs. J. Psychedelic Drugs, 1 143. 

Dr. David Smith, founder of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic... 

Dr. David Smith had just established the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, first of its kind in the country. For about ten months, I spent every Thursday evening working as a volunteer doctor, interviewing and treating young people who had taken too much LSD, PCP or STP. No one was sure just what STP was at first. Some were sure it stood for serenity, tranquility and peace. Actually, it turned out to be DOM, a psychedelic amphetamine derivative created by Dr. Alexander Shulgin. 

During lunch, I sat beside the photographer, tryin to conve i Ann doctore could also be hip, citing my time in the Haight-Ashbury clinic and my appreciation of rock and roll. I was hoping to soften his automatic response to a military man, stemming from his antiestablishment sentiments. I don t think I succeeded. 

In 1978,1 joined with Tom and Dr. David Smith (founder of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic) in support of Dr. Arnold Mandell, Chief of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. Amie had been taken to task when he tried to wean football players from amphetamines (without keeping adequate notes) and consequently had his prescribing license suspended. Eventually he regained it on appeal. I also teamed up with Tom and five other doctors to petition the FDA (unsuccessfully) to set clear standards for generic drugs. 

Recently, a modification in press attitudes seems to have occurred, with the development of a distinct drug subculture focused in such areas as San Francisco s Haight-Ashbury, New... 

The utter destruction of the Haight-Ashbury, which has now become that terminal sewer that seems to lurk at the end of every American social experiment, as a result of its enormous media coverage and consequent commercialization, somewhat dampens this optimism, although there is every indication that the original spirit has been rapidly transplanted throughout this country and Europe. 

News accounts depict illicit use of PCP, then sometimes known as the Peace Pill, in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the Summer of Love. PCP reemerges in the early 1970s as a liquid, crystalline powder, and tablet. 

By 1967, the Kesey cult had disseminated such quantities of LSD that a sizable drag population had emerged, centered in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Here Huxley collaborator Bateson set up a "free clinic."... 

Thus, by 1963, Huxley had recruited his core of "initiates." As the general reader is well aware, all of them — Leary, Osmond, Watts, Kesey, Alpert — were highly publicized promoters of the early LSD counterculture. By 1967, with the cult of "Flower People" in Haight-Ashbury and the emergence of the antiwar movement, the United States was ready for the inundation of... 

The DEA called Daryl Inaba, a medical director at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco, as an expert witness who might paint a picture of abuse by street persons who were said to be taking MDMA in alarming amounts, resulting in serious problems. 

A confrontation resulted in which two doctors from the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic were questioned, one representing each side in the dispute, who eventually agreed that the incidence of abuse that they had seen was very slight — less than 1 % of those coming in for help. They also stated that most who were having difficulties simply needed a supportive environment and tended to become reoriented as soon as the drug was metabolized. 

Haight-Ashbury, 34 Haight-Ashbury Flashbacks, 35 Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, 68... 

The Haight-Ashbury community, catalyzed by LSD, wore the colors of a rainbow and was not emphatically male dominated. It celebrated not the agonies and triumphs of the Individual Artist but rather was "into communal living and a new "Bay Area style of music and dancing. Its approach was softer. If it emulated anyone, it was the tribal American Indian. 

Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, San Francisco, California, U.S.A. 

At the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, it has been noted that some of the clients self-medicated their hallucinogenic-precipitated psychotic episodes with amphetamines. ° Often, this self-medication with amphetamines resulted in the development of amphetamine abuse, followed by secondary heroin, barbiturate, or alcohol abuse patterns, to ameliorate the side effects of the amphetamines. Thus, in certain patients, chronic psychological problems induced by LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs led to complicated patterns of polydrug abuse that required additional treatment approaches. ... 

A. Ian Smith / Baker Heart Research Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia David E. Smith / Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, San Francisco, California, U.S.A. 

This compound, unbeknownst to me, was scattered widely and plentifully in the heyday of the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, in mid-1967. It was distributed under the name STP, which was said to stand for Serenity, Tranquility, and Peace. It was also claimed to represent Super Terrific Psychedelic, or Stop The Police. The police called it Too Stupid to Puke. Actually, the name was taken from the initials of a motor additive which was completely unrelated chemically. Incredibly, and sadly, one of the avowed experts in the area of the "sensuous... 

This era reached its climax in the 1967 Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, but it went downhill from there. The following year, Haight-Ashbury was plagued by intravenous use of methamphetamine (see p309) while concern spread that there were psychological risks to some LSD users. 

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