The last of the black Rock 'n' Roll pioneers?

Uh, yeah @tylermunns, that’s why I said ".....and take it easy with that very dangerous drug." George Harrison said he and the others tripped only a handful of times, and were fine. Syd Barrett, Skip Spence, Peter Green, and Brian Wilson didn’t, and look what happened to them.

I saw first hand what LSD can do. A girl I first met in 7th grade got involved with an older guy when she was 16, and in the summer of ’67 the two of them killed themselves together in a cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains. They had taken a lot of acid, which those who had remained close to her said drove her crazy.

I’ve known a fair number of heroin addicts, including my sister. While heroin addiction (and alcoholism) is not pretty, it doesn’t do what acid can. I've known a few guys who died of liver failure (the great guitarist/singer/songwriter Evan Johns for one), and even more of lung cancer. It killed them, but it didn't drive them insane. Acid can, and has. 

Title of a Spacemen 3 album: Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Take Drugs To. ;-)

I was into Psychedelic music only fairly briefly: from the Summer of ’67 (I saw The Grateful Dead and The Airplane live that Summer) until the Summer of ’69. In the Spring of ’68 my best friend and I dropped together, unknowingly haven gotten a hold of some bad acid (it must have been cut with speed, ’cause I was buzzing like a chainsaw!). That was the end of tripping for me. Weed too, as from that moment on getting high made me very paranoid. Been a (light) drinker ever since. I think of that as getting low. ;-)

When I moved to L.A. in October of ’78, my God coke was everywhere. You’d go to a party and instead of joints being past around (as was common in Northern California), a mirror with lines of coke was. A very fun drug, unless you have enough dough to overdo it. Nobody I knew did, except for a dame I briefly dated, who told me she sold her car to buy as much of the stuff as she could get her hands on. Coincidentally, she was an absolute animal in.....hmm, perhaps I should leave the rest to your imagination. ;-)

All it ever took for anyone is generally one bad trip! A very dear friend of mine (ten years my senior) while growing up in Illinois tripped at the age of seven. Turns out (because how else could this have happened) some wise guy with his so-called brainiac powers decided to lace one or more of them lick-em & stick-em tattoos that would come in Cracker Jack boxes for kids, well guess what Mr Brainiac.

Two weeks pass after my friend / boss explains this "wild and vivid story" of his (man has the memory of an elephant), low and behold a customer walks in our store shortly before closing time with a personal (much later in life) first time experience story of his own, in fact his bad trip happened the night before! I ease dropped on most of their conversation but at the very end stepped in with, "so, who’s the wise guy that said it was okay to eat more than your fair share of caps & stems, and let me guess, trip by yourself first timer?" One could easily see in this mans eyes the fear, for he’d now realized what harm might have come to his beautiful wife and precious young children.

@bdp24 - through the mid-70's through the next 10 years or so, pretty much any party I'd go to in the SF Bay Area would have at least as much blowzeen on hand as cannabis. I liked 'em both, plus some other goodies, so it was fine with me. Starting in the later 80's, Ecstasy was very popular as well.... 

@larsman: I played live at some Raves in the 1990’s, and the kids looked to be having a great time. I’ve never heard any bad stories about Ecstasy. Just peace, love, & understanding. And sex ;-) .

I have no doubt Alcohol has caused more misery in the world than any other drug. More of it gets consumed, of course, but it also can lead to very aggressive behavior (mean drunks, of which I’ve known a few). So can Speed. The worst show I ever played was for an entirely-male biker audience. When the Speed and Alcohol kicked in, it got real ugly. Not Altamont ugly, but ugly enough.