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By
the 1960s, the great majority of Americans had forgotten the lessons of
the first drug epidemic. Moreover, the new Bohemians, Beat literary types,
were sending a very different and powerful cultural message: drugs and
altered states were part of being hip, social rebels. By encouraging a
whole generation to see drug use as "normal," these cultural icons consigned millions to re-learn
the painful consequences of rampant drug use--even as the drug menu was
expanding to include amphetamines and psychedelics. When many of the 76
million baby boomers embraced not just drugs, but also dealing and trafficking,
the drug culture exploded.
The U.S. Government responded with new laws and new anti-drug units, culminating
in the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973. |
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