I actually agree with Chuck Shumer...

[Oh Shoot]

...Early-on it was used as a diet pill and as a short-term anti-depressant for anyone who might feel "down in the dumps". T....

Truckdrivers drove many miles back then, housewives vacuumed many houses, and students stayed up all night and passed many tests on legal desoxyn.

Ups were damn near free in the 60's and 70's. Your choice of pharmaceutical dextroamphetamine, benzadrine, methamphetamine, whatever -- oxies, eskies, bennies, black beauties, California Turnarounds, crosses, pink hearts, ad infinitum. Street prices about the same as prescription, actually, which was cheap cheap cheap. UT had several "feel good" doctor feeds if you wanted to be legal.

My personal fav was Eskatrol (combo of dextro to wire ya and prochlorperazine to keep yer feet on the ground). Probably wouldn't have finished college without them, what with having to work and party all the time in addition to those damn distractions of papers and midterms and finals and such.

- OS

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Ups were damn near free in the 60's and 70's. Your choice of pharmaceutical dextroamphetamine, benzadrine, methamphetamine, whatever -- oxies, eskies, bennies, black beauties, California Turnarounds, crosses, pink hearts, ad infinitum. Street prices about the same as prescription, actually, which was cheap cheap cheap. UT had several "feel good" doctor feeds if you wanted to be legal.

My personal fav was Eskatrol (combo of dextro to wire ya and prochlorperazine to keep yer feet on the ground). Probably wouldn't have finished college without them, what with having to work and party all the time in addition to those damn distractions of papers and midterms and finals and such.

- OS

Only time I visited Knoxpatch back then-- About 1970 I drove a friend and his girlfriend on a weekend road trip from Atlanta to UT. The alleged purpose was to visit his girlfriend's girlfriend. We never managed to locate the girlfriend's girlfriend and wound up aimlesslly wandering the vicinity Saturday into the wee hours then crashing at the domicile of some total stranger before driving back to hotlanta. There looked to be some serious partying going on at UT.

Ga Tech was sedate and straight-laced compared to that. I only saw a couple of varieties of speed, but later on read about the different pills when doing the substance abuse counseling gig.

Hadn't thought about it lately. There was serious routine debauchery going on back then. Wonder if the "drug problem" really is worse now than then? Doing the conseling gig I saw plenty of drug and alcohol casualties but on the other hand most people grew out of it and morphed into mundane yuppies.

Wasn't just the hippies. When I was driving a forklift at the factory, some of the young "gloriously lacking in sophistication" co-workers would never have smoked pot but they liked to go out saturday night, gobble some speed, wash it down with a fifth of whiskey, hoping to top off a perfect evening with a good ole fashioned John Wayne bar brawl.

Wasn't just the rock/soul musicians. Of course Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis were legendary, but a credible-enough fellow told me an amusing first-person tale involving Porter Wagoner, speed, pot, whiskey, and sunday afternoon bass fishing.

Was nothing sacred?

Violence and gangs didn't seem rampant at the time, though it was easy enough to accidentally get in risky situations. Perhaps a societal drug vector is slightly different than a societal violence vector? Maybe violence is more strongly associated with prohibition than substance abuse? Gang violence was supposedly much worse during alcohol prohibition than before or after prohibiton?

Not to argue that drug and alcohol abuse are good things. But maybe the bulk of the violence has roots in the prohibition? If they ever ban tobacco, coffee, or twinkies, then perhaps we would see violence among black market thugs peddling tobacco, coffee, and twinkies?

Edited January 10, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Oh Shoot]

... There looked to be some serious partying going on at UT.

The year or the year before I started UT in '66, saw the Playboy college ratings issue. When it came to drinking, UT and a couple of other schools had asterisks, which led to annotation at bottom of page, "not fair to rank professionals".

If they ever ban tobacco, coffee, or twinkies, then perhaps we would see violence among black market thugs peddling tobacco, coffee, and twinkies?

Looks like Hostess is about to file Chapter 11, so we may find out!

- OS