Original subtitles

These people are hippies.

They are occupying a piece of ground in

San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, which has come

to be called Hippie Hill.

They represent a new form of social rebellion.

Hippies are very interesting and tempting to the

young.

They dress in bizarre and colorful ways.

They wear their hair long.

Their very name suggests that they are hip,

on to something good.

Most of them are young, although some are

old enough to have children of their own.

There are colonies of hippies springing up in

most American cities.

They all declare themselves rebels against our society,

but they want to withdraw from it instead

of trying to change it.

It is hard to figure out what positive

things they are in favor of.

They like music.

The word love is used by them a

lot.

Their diversions might seem to be harmless enough,

were it not for one thing.

In a very aggressive and evangelical way, they

praise the effect on the mind of hallucinatory

drugs, particularly the drug LSD.

The drug is what holds their subculture together,

and the drug is extremely dangerous.

It is the temptation and the danger that

we propose to examine.

CBS News, without any flowers in its hair,

is in San Francisco because this city has

gained the reputation of being the hippie capital

of the world.

I'm Harry Reasoner.

We're asking whether any central idea unites the

hippie colonies in this and other cities.

Whether they have anything to tell us.

Why there is so much emphasis on the

use of the drug LSD in their philosophy.

Those are our questions.

We'll try now for the answers.

It is a tradition in American life to

respect young people.

We are glad when they have ideas, and

we are proud of a nation which has

taken its strength from the new, from experiment,

dissent, and change.

But now, at a time when we are

suffering some of the worst agonies of our

history, both at home and abroad, when we

are most in need of new energies and

new solutions, more and more young people appear

to be turning away from challenge, into dreamy

narcosis.

The hippies present a strange problem.

Our society has produced them.

There they are, in rapidly increasing numbers.

And yet there seem to be very few

definite ideas behind the superficial glitter of their

dress and behavior.

They're in favor of taking things easy, that

much you can see at first glance.

They like to seek out simple and inexpensive

pleasures.

Their main colony has grown up in a

low-rent district of San Francisco, which is

called Haight-Ashbury, from the intersection of two

streets there.

The place has become a mecca for young

people from all over the nation, who come

in search of something new and significant for

themselves.

It is a mecca, too, for tourists, who

come to look at the hippies.

So what was a quiet residential and shopping

center has become a milling turmoil of seekers.

Many of them are seeking a new sensation,

and that is the drug lysergic acid diethylamide,

LSD or acid for short, possession of which

has been declared illegal in California, but which

is easily accessible here.

The hippies have declared the use of this

and similar hallucinatory drugs to be the source

of new and valuable insights.

A standard effect of LSD is to change

the way the brain handles sensory input.

The result is violent distortion of thought and

feeling.

The user may see a wild complexity of

images, hear a multiplicity of sounds.

This is called taking an acid trip.

For every user, there is the danger of

a bad trip on the drug, where sensory

distortion becomes terrifying, and the acid head may

leap from a window or run wildly through

traffic.

There is a steady flow into San Francisco

hospitals of young people who have freaked out

and been picked up by the police in

a state of desperate terror.

The bad trip is a frightening thing to

witness.

It must be far more terrifying to experience.

I'm a nurse.

What's your name?

Your hands are cold.

What's your name?

Joan.

Joan.

I'm a nurse.

Gus?

I don't want to be here.

Where are my friends?

Gus, I'm going to take you to your

room now.

Hospital people, whether they want to or not,

are becoming expert in the handling of LSD

users in trouble.

At the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, Dr. J.

Thomas Ungerleider sums up the things being learned.

Well, we're learning that it's a very dangerous

drug, and it's a very unpredictable drug.

We're learning that people can have a bad

experience, which they call a freak trip or

freak out or bummer, the first time they

use the drug, or they can have it

after 150 previous good experiences.

We're learning that there's no way to screen

out the adverse reactors, that not psychiatric interviews,

not psychological testing, not a history of absence

of symptoms or of job stability, nothing guarantees

immunity from the bad trip.

People come in often with frightening auditory and

visual hallucinations.

They hear and see things that are frightening.

They come in with anxiety to the point

of panic.

They come in with depression, with suicidal thoughts,

suicide attempts, some severe, and they come in

with confusion.

They wander about not knowing where they are,

and the difficulty with it is we can't

predict.

Another thing that we're seeing are the flashback

phenomena, the reoccurrences.

Up to 18 months now, after you take

the drug once, you can have the acute

symptoms return in their original intensity, either in

a situation of stress or in no stress

situation.

And originally we were seeing a lot of

youngsters who took LSD as part of a

chronic drug abuse problem.

Now we're seeing youngsters who took it at

a party or with a gang, got over

the acute effects after the 12 to 16

hours, and then months, even years, a year,

18 months later, began to have the recurrent

symptoms, the flashback phenomena.

And this frightened them, and then they came

for help, because they couldn't control when they

were having it.

The street, where hippies like to congregate, shows

no hint of the horror behind the scenes

in hospitals.

But the street thrusts the hippies at the

community.

They can't be left to go their own

way and forgotten, because they make their presence

felt.

One thing, they take up a good deal

of public space.

They congregate, sit down, make music, make crowds.

When the crowd gets big enough to block

passage along the sidewalk, or to draw complaints

from merchants along the street, the police will

move in and break it up.

The hippies move off amiably with exaggerated politeness,

and flow along the street is resumed for

a while.

In a sense, they have taken over the

community by superimposing their own subculture and values

upon it.

They express contempt for money, and pride themselves

on being able to manage without it.

But they are not above begging.

Many of them earn bread by selling copies

of various underground newspapers.

This is the office of a San Francisco

hippie newspaper called The Oracle.

It's a busy place.

Entering it, you can get a stronger impression

of the hippies building a society of their

own than can be had from the street

scene outside.

These people have a united purpose.

They believe they have found a viable way

of life which has its own values and

vocabulary, which has its own psychedelic symbols.

If young people are being induced to turn

away from the straight world, they must have

the feeling that there is something to turn

to, something more than just idling about.

There must be a destination, as well as

motives for going.

What might these be?

We asked Gabe Katz, one of the editors

of The Oracle.

Look around you.

Nothing works.

The only thing a kid is presented with

is, when you grow up, look, you know,

you can join the army, you can go

to war, you can get a gig working

as an engineer and become a vegetable and

drive to work in your own car, in

your own big metal box.

You know, it looks absurd.

People in their metal boxes like this going

all over from job to job, frustrated, uptight.

What joy is there in life?

Life is and should be ecstasy.

Being alive should be a joy, and it's

a drag for most people because they never

had a chance to figure it out for

themselves what they wanted to do.

You were this or you're going to be

this.

I'm going to school to do this.

You go to school for the right to

earn, to learn to earn, to buy more

pieces of metal junk and, you know, I

think the kids that are here that are

getting into this whole thing now, this evolution

now is one that is a result of

the alienation that a child feels, particularly a

middle-class American feels, of not really relating

to his family.

A father is somebody that goes to work

and he gets shoved into school and is

constantly subject to one authority or another.

And when he turns on, he sees, wow,

there's something else.

Another name the hippies have adopted for themselves

is the love generation.

They like to feel an expanded communal sort

of love.

They enjoy a sense of being part of

a group united by general affection for each

other, a group where people serve and support

each other.

Every afternoon at four, hungry hippies begin to

congregate in the Panhandle, an offshoot of Golden

Gate Park.

They are waiting for the arrival of the

diggers, a hippie subgroup who show up at

this time with a station wagon full of

food which is given free to anyone who

wants it.

The diggers get this food in handouts from

stores or restaurants or the wholesale markets.

This feeding typifies the hippie ideal of standing

apart from society by means of mutual help

and love.

It contains its own ironies, for the daily

feed-in is dependent for the food being

offered on the very society that is being

rejected.

It's all done with a smile, but it

grates against the straight world because it seems

like saucy children playing.

Isn't this a funny kind of love?

We asked Dr. Duke Fisher of the UCLA

Neuropsychiatric Institute.

That's a good question.

I think the primary reason that you hear

so much talk about love, like love sessions,

love groups, love-ins, is because many of

the acid users have the most difficulty with

love.

And many of them think that they can

solve the problem by using LSD.

If you'll notice, most of the people who

use LSD are the acid users.

Talk about loving humanity in general, an all

-encompassing love of the world, but they have

a great deal of difficulty loving one other

person or one specific thing.

There's a lot of things on them.

So the kind of love they have is

a very narcissistic kind of love.

It's a sort of love for love's sake.

But there's very little real love in terms

of interpersonal relationships or one person loving another

person for any length of time.

I think the other reason is because love

implies no anger and no hostility.

And many LSD users are people who have

a great deal of trouble tolerating getting angry

or being hostile.

They don't like to experience this kind of

feeling.

They're concerned about their ability to handle it.

So they use LSD, hopefully to suppress or

deny angry feelings.

And they sort of take this very peaceful

approach.

But unfortunately, it is a facade that can't

last.

And I think many times, if you'll notice,

she was offering a flower to a policeman.

And he said he didn't want to take

it and he was becoming increasingly annoyed.

And she persisted in offering the flower to

him.

Now, I'm sure we'd have to say that

really wasn't out of love.

There was a provocative insistence that she was

using.

But I'm sure she would disclaim any kind

of feeling of aggression in terms of what

she was doing with the flower.

So I think if you actually take a

look at what's happening, it's being expressed.

But unfortunately, it's not being felt because many

of the users of LSD particularly need to

use the drug to avoid letting themselves experience

anger and hostility, which is very normal for

all of us to experience.

People who suppress or dilute normal feelings with

drugs get a kind of euphoria which is

easy to maintain for a while since it

entails making fewer demands on life.

The hippies see mystical virtues in this blandness.

It makes them extremely self-righteous.

Here, in a hippie pad, one member recalls

giving a flower to an old lady.

Let's say a woman's coming up the street

with a small shopping bag.

And I've got some flowers that I picked

someplace.

I hand her a flower.

It's maybe 11 o'clock in the afternoon.

I say, isn't it a beautiful day?

Isn't it a gassy day?

And if she for a moment looks up

and says, yeah, it really is a beautiful

day, which happens to me quite often, all

the color around it, all the life, all

the beautiful things that are happening.

Things that are happening is what we are

trying to make people aware of.

The drug doesn't create anything.

The drug, LSD, is not a creation.

It is a catalyst.

It works with your mind to create whatever

your mind creates.

What LSD does is it opens your awareness

in the way that when you look at,

say, a kerosene lamp, you have one thing

that you associate with it.

When you take LSD, whatever association you possibly

have is brought through your mind.

I like to turn on, man.

I love to be stoned on acid and

to participate in that energy flow that's going

on in the streets, in the parks, in

the movie theaters.

I love to listen to the radio and

to listen to music and to go to

dances.

My normal behavior doesn't stop when I take

a drug.

It's heightened.

My sense of awareness, my whole sensory apparatus.

And if I can still dig on music

when I'm straight, the same way I do

when I'm on acid, maybe that's it.

Then I want to stay there and I'm

not going to turn on anymore.

Most LSD users say they will stop taking

the drug if it is proved it does

definite harm.

Proof of this appears to be emerging.

Researchers say LSD users are studying what LSD

does to the chromosomes, that part of the

human cell which determines life balance and hereditary

characteristics.

Dr. Jose Agathque, chairman of the Department of

Genetics at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center,

has conducted experiments comparing blood samples taken from

LSD users with samples taken from non-users.

His tests have shown that there is a

higher rate of chromosomal abnormality, compared to non

-users.

Well, chromosomes are found in all cells and

any character that you will pass on to

your children is born by these chromosomes.

The genes in the chromosomes will determine if

your eyes are going to be blue, if

your hair is going to be brown.

They will direct protein enzyme synthesis and any

function that takes place in your body is

finally directed by the genes in the chromosomes.

Some of the abnormalities found in LSD users

could be whole or smaller than is normal

or the wrong shape entirely.

The effect of this upon individuals who use

LSD or upon children born of them remains

to be determined.

But Dr. Agathque firmly underlines the danger.

We could say that the chromosomes, or for

the matter of the genes, are in the

very core of life.

Playing with LSD is playing with the chromosomes.

There are disastrous consequences at the end.

More and more doctors say these warnings should

be heeded.

That drug users should consider their descendants, if

not themselves.

The hippie temptation continues in a moment.

The hippie temptation continues with Harry Reisner.

This is an unusual hospital treatment center, the

Macaulay Neuropsychiatric Institute in St. Mary's Hospital.

It treats people up to the age of

18 with emotional and neurological problems.

Not all of the problems are drug problems.

But because of the geography, just a few

blocks from the center of Haight-Ashbury, this

institution has learned more than most about what

happens when you take LSD.

The doctors and the nurses here wear ordinary

clothing as part of the attempt to produce

a non-hospital atmosphere.

But it is a closed ward.

Do you like LSD?

Yes.

Why?

Well, because, for one, it teaches me a

lot about myself that I didn't know.

And it kind of informs me about my

environment and what goes on.

What does it tell you about yourself?

It tells me what I like.

What do you like?

Well, I can't really explain what I like.

It's hard to explain.

Tell me about an experience that I haven't

had and I'm trying to find out what

your experience is like, what it does for

you, what it feels like.

Well, it makes everything a little unreal.

You know, everything that hallucinations project from my

mind and everything that I see is myself.

I mean, it's all coming from my mind

and all the things that I see, I'm

controlling what the scenery looks like about me.

I'm not controlling it necessarily, but when it's

happening, that's what's me, that's me happening.

How about people?

Do you think that before you used the

drug you were afraid of people?

Well, I didn't know it at the time,

but I realized that I was when I

took the drug because it brings out your

inner feelings more intensely.

And why do you think you don't know

them?

Do you feel that you do know them

through the drug?

No, I don't feel that I know them,

but I'm not afraid of being rejected by

them because I don't feel any rejection towards

them.

I used to be constantly thinking about being

afraid of them, but now I don't have

to be afraid anymore because they're all beautiful

and whether they reject me or not, they're

still beautiful.

Does it ever seem to you that after

you learn this on an acid trip, you

practice it when you're straight, too?

It doesn't leave you.

If everybody is beautiful, then there's no one

who's dangerous to you.

Oh, but the dangerous people are beautiful, too.

They're dangerous, sure, but they're still beautiful.

Why are you here?

Well, it's a long story, but I'll try

to break it down in short.

I found God and I made me feel

quite good, you know, and my mother mistook

this good feeling for taking drugs and I

was getting kind of wayward and everything.

I wasn't coming home on time, so she

phoned the police and I was brought to

YGC and then I was brought here.

Because of my talking about God and everything,

they might have thought that I was a

little crazy.

Do you think you are?

I don't know how they felt because I

wasn't making myself clear on it.

It's very hard to...

I was trying to express something that was

hard to express and I wasn't really capable

of expressing it.

I mean, I can have the relationship between

myself and God, but it's a mistake to

try to make other people feel the way

I did and that's what I was trying

to do.

What's God like?

Well, first of all, God is everything, so

he's like everything.

He is everything.

There's nothing that he isn't like.

Is he like a man?

I don't know.

All I know is that everything...

He lives in everything.

Everything on this earth.

I can't describe to you the feeling that

it gives you when your son says to

you, can't you feel it?

God is everywhere.

I'm going with God.

I'm waiting for God to come and get

me.

It isn't a happy thing at all or

an insight.

It's a death wish.

I tried talking sense to him.

I said, Jimmy, you don't see God until

you die, but he couldn't see that at

all.

He believed that he was seeing him right

now.

Jim hasn't adjusted well to school.

He's an extremely introverted boy or has been

up until lately.

Shy.

He wouldn't try.

The least sign of failure to him meant

an automatic stop right now.

And I think that the problems that he

had were magnified and triggered by the release

that he seemed to find in drugs.

And I feel as though that this is...

Many of the children today are doing this

type of thing and if it could be

stressed that this is a medical problem and

not a criminal problem, I believe that parents

would be on the telephone calling somebody as

soon as they found illegal material around the

house, which they don't do now because they're

afraid they're sending their sons and daughters to

jail.

Another patient under lock and key.

What brought you to this place?

Well, I tried to commit suicide.

Why did you do that?

Oh, because there was just a lot of

things on my mind and I really couldn't

clear them out.

Like what?

Um, I don't...

Well, it could be from, you know, my

taking narcotics before.

What sort of narcotics were you taking?

Well, LSD and meth...

crystal.

What's crystal?

Well, it's a...

I really don't know what it really is,

but I've taken it and it's like it

speeds you up, you know, and it just

makes your mind run really fast.

I've taken acid and crystal at the same

time, which wasn't very good, and I kind

of freaked out on my trip.

What happened when you freaked out?

Well, um, the people I was with, they

made me freak out.

I mean, you know, they were just trying

to blow my mind, you know, and it's

like I couldn't control that I got away

from it and, you know, everything was okay

afterwards, but I think it was the after

effects that really kind of screwed me up,

you know, messed me up a lot.

You say that the people you were with

were trying to blow your mind.

What were they doing?

Well, they were just saying things like, oh,

you know, we're going to rape you.

I mean, just these things, and they just

keep on saying it over and over in

different kinds of talking, and these people on

us were animals.

I mean, strictly animals.

I mean, they were, oh, I don't care

what they did to you, you know, what

happened.

And, I mean, it just really scared me.

The girl's mother.

What has happened to your daughter?

Um, she lost interest in herself.

She was very lethargic.

She didn't, um, she didn't want to do

anything.

She didn't want to go to school.

She didn't want to do anything at home.

She didn't want to do the things that

she used to do.

I mean, she just, she stopped going around

with people altogether.

She just, she withdrew.

And she, um, to me it was a

big change because she lost a sparkle in

her eye.

And she really looked like she wasn't even

amongst, you know, anybody that should be here.

She was more or less a zombie.

And she didn't, um, it's hard for me

to explain.

Um, I was there, you know, the whole

time with her.

I just saw her, um, change completely.

And she was, she just wasn't the same

girl she had been.

She, um, she tried to take her life

three times.

And, um, she wasn't successful, of course, but,

um, she did, um, she did try.

And the fact that she did try, um,

bothered me that someone so young and, you

know, vivacious and lovely and someone with so

much to really live for would do this.

What did she tell you?

She told me that, um, while she was

under the influence of, um, LSD she was

forced to, um, have sexual relationships.

Or a sexual relationship.

And, um, no, it just, um, when I

found this out, you know, I, I didn't

know what to say.

And she asked me if I was angry.

And I said, well, how can I be

angry?

I didn't think that anything like this would

ever happen.

I wanted something different for her.

Uh, I wanted her to finish school.

And I would have liked for her to,

if she wanted to, go on to college

and be something that, well, a little out

of the ordinary and feel that she has

the potential.

And I've always felt this way that she

did have more than average potential.

What does she feel?

Right now, I, I don't think she feels

anything.

Why do these things happen?

We asked the director of the Macaulay Neuropsychiatric

Institute, Dr. Michael Klentzos.

This is really a very serious, malignant problem

of modern civilization which means that we no

longer have to hassle with our youngsters in

the purposeful way of learning, that we are

too busy in our own way to develop

our own self-centered worlds of achievement, the

adult world, so the youngsters in their own

way have to discover a shortcut to growing

up.

And the shortest cut is to be omnipotent.

You've discovered your own system of growth.

Maybe take the pill, which alienates you from

your value systems at home and gives you

a certain sense of power and knowledgeableness, which

means that you know more than any grown

-up because the grown-up has not participated

in the process of growing up.

And that's perfectly correct.

We have not experienced in this profound change

where you can forget about religion, home, everything

else is meaningful except the fact that you've

discovered something that is your own and this

is how you must discover life.

You must find this out for yourself.

Mom, you don't understand.

You go out and do what I do

and you'll begin to see the difference.

For many, the price of taking the shortcut

to discovery the hippies put forward turns out

to be very high.

It's because they are so efficient by means

of which they are able to measure the

cyclic rhythms of brain activity.

This is one of the two types of

changes that we see in these individuals that

take over 20 trips for this LSD.

With heavy LSD users, patterns of brain activity

which should be slight and quick are slow

and heavy.

Where there should be variety, there are uniform

paroxysmal bursts.

These are the sort of patterns which are

found in victims of brain disorders like epilepsy.

Another warning, another mark of the self-destructive

quality of drug abuse.

The hippie temptation continues in a moment.

The hippie temptation continues.

In spite of the risks, in spite of

reported freak-outs and other disasters happening to

individual hippies, the package they offer continues to

be extremely attractive to the young.

Here, the diggers have rented a whole house

and declared it open to all with food

available 24 hours a day.

By the house rules, no one is supposed

to bring in acid, but the drug is

talked about and joked about as being on

the scene.

This underlines a problem which makes it hard

to take a tolerant view of the hippies.

The way they dress, the way they advocate

love as opposed to hate, peace as opposed

to war, self-expression as opposed to inhibition,

all these things put them in the role

of courageous and warm-hearted rebels against cold,

stiff, square, old-fashioned authority.

The trouble is that a group where anything

goes does not seem to provide good company

for the very young.

Doctors see a universal danger in use of

LSD.

They feel that normally rebellious young people may

be turned into emotional cripples.

At a time when they should be meeting

and solving problems of sexuality and personal identity,

they deaden their drives with a magic pill

which solves nothing.

They may never grow up.

This pad has been closed since we filmed

it, and the diggers complain that others are

raided and that they are harassed by the

police and misjudged by their elders.

My mom thinks that where I'm living down

here, the hippies are a bunch of filthy,

infectious people.

This is my bag, and I found my

place here when I came to this house

here and started cooking.

I got my own room, and I do

my cooking, and I scream and I howl,

and I'm happy.

We found our cattle come in like a

hippie, and he's a cop, and he'll make

a stash so that the other cops can

come in and bust the pad.

Why would they want to do that?

They don't like us.

Because they don't like us.

Because we are doing things.

They're trying to break up the people.

They don't like these houses, and they're trying

to bust it up.

You see, we're out to change laws to

make new society.

The aggressive determination of the hippies in Haight

-Ashbury.

Part of the neighborhood is occupied by ordinary

people, bewildered by what's going on.

Part of it is occupied by a growing

population of hippies.

There are a lot of for sale signs

in Haight-Ashbury.

There are a lot more houses being occupied

by hippies.

The hippies are capable of extremely hard work,

even though they tend to approach work as

the rest of us do sport.

Some of them are very successful.

Some of them play hard rock music.

They call themselves the Grateful Dead.

They live together comfortably in what could be

called affluence.

There are many other similar houses or apartments

in Haight-Ashbury maintained by hippies who work

in places where employers do not mind bizarre

dress or long hair.

Their concept of a new style of life

unites them, and that concept is in most

cases drawn from the drug experience.

The Grateful Dead themselves acknowledge they have used

LSD.

Warren Wallace asked them what they thought the

hippie movement was trying to accomplish.

What we're thinking about is a peaceful planet.

We're not thinking about anything else.

We're not thinking about any kind of power.

We're not thinking about any of those kinds

of struggles.

We're not thinking about revolution or war or

any of that.

That's not what we want.

Nobody wants to get hurt.

Nobody wants to hurt anybody.

We're not talking about a revolution or a

few steps.

Or half a step.

Yeah, or half a step or anything.

Or at least not going around in circles

like it is now.

Do you think that your movement or your

idea, the hip idea, is essentially connected up

with drugs?

Yeah, I would say that that's a large

part of the framework.

I think that most of the people who

are hippies now came to it through drugs.

Yeah, but it's not a dope movement.

We were talking before about a way of

being and and and one of the ways

of achieving that being is through through drugs

Expanding your consciousness consciousness changing yourself.

I know most of us have given up

the psychedelic drugs anyway Yeah, right.

Well, we've learned something from them and now

we're kind of playing around with that knowledge

and what have you learned?

well, it's You know play around with dope

and stuff like that they don't have warriors,

you know and They don't have a lot

of problems that the largest In essence in

the scene has grown up with us and

we have grown up with the scene we've

all grown up together and We feel more

like children than ever right We're because we

know what we're trying to do we're trying

to grow up The tragedy is that growing

up is a process that medical opinion regards

as being inhibited by LSD The acid rock

bands of San Francisco play in large halls

like this The music and the light

show which accompanies it carry the same howling

and glittering intensity ascribed to the hallucinatory experience

Most of the faces you see are young.

No liquor is served Drugs are of course

officially banned, but how can you ban a

pill?

Flickering strobe lights accentuate the sense of unreality

of having blown your mind It may seem

all of it highly exciting a pleasurable trip

into Wonderland and Tell one begins to wonder

about destinations It is on the street outside

that some of the worst destinations are discovered

Night is the time when the street does

not seem so colorful nor hospitable It seems

a place of danger Night is the worst

time for freakouts for the terror of a

bad trip on drugs Night is the time

when the sickness that comes from not eating

enough sleeping in the park closes in to

bring fear with it A number of doctors

who are concerned over the health of the

young people who are flocking into heat Ashbury

Have started a free clinic where anyone can

come to get medical attention The doctors supported

by a staff of hippies work for nothing

They want to learn and they want to

help There are a lot of hippies who

need help My Signature

right there so we can Any

fever chill Have you been sleeping inside Yeah

Yeah Any LSD

is the main drug used in the hippie

world But now other drugs are beginning to

enter the scene So that many times doctors

or their helpers will not know what a

patient has taken or how to begin treatment

If that's what he did I Must

be a special motive Relating to a larger

view of society to bring doctors already overworked

to serve extra hours in this clinic The

clinic was created by the director of the

alcohol and drug abuse screening unit of San

Francisco General Hospital Dr. David Smith, and we

asked him about this Most of the people

that volunteer for our clinic are either young

people like myself Who have some special interest

in the area?

Or our older people that have Teenaged the

kids of their own and we find that

an individual's attitude towards That's their bag changes

dramatically when their own child goes to the

Haight-Ashbury and that many of our doctors

we've had a marvelous response from the medical

community and many of the doctors are Older

doctors that have teenage daughters and then they

want to help honestly want to help But

they also state that they want to learn

more about what's making The young people in

the Haight-Ashbury run away from middle-class

homes the kids in the Haight-Ashbury are

not poverty stricken They don't have poverty stricken

backgrounds many of them have gone to school

Come from good homes and for some reason

they run away from home and go to

the Haight-Ashbury I think one thing that

people don't realize is that the Haight-Ashbury

is a symptom not a cause and That

the kids are attracted to the Haight-Ashbury

because of some deprivation primarily intellectual deprivation In

their former mode of life, and I think

this is why the middle class is so

intensely involved in the Haight-Ashbury because it

is a Product of the middle class It's

not a peripheral movement.

It is a direct reaction against The forces

that control the United States, and it's not

an anarchist movement the hippies aren't interested in

Any philosophy including communism they just want to

live their own life many people say that

this is a communist inspired movement They're not

in or they're reacting against any structured philosophy

whether it be a University or communism or

whatever they just want to live the way

they want to live without structural bindings The

way the hippies want to live seems in

the end to consist of childish postures They

claim they want to be left alone, but

they are masters at setting up public occasions

Which are bound to draw attention if not

interference Just as an unruly child will act

up in a way that attracts adult intervention

And then complain about it Nearly

every Sunday there is some such event Here

music is blurring forth from the open windows

of an apartment on the corner of Haight

and Ashbury While in the street below a

crowd of hippies celebrates the sunny day Traffic

stops the crowd grows finally the police roll

in with paddy wagons and nightsticks The

crowd parts clearing the street everyone waits to

see what will happen Today

there is no violence and there's a reason

for this the band called the Grateful Dead

Have announced they will make music in the

park Crowd moves along provided with a place

to go something to do The Grateful Dead

are playing a tune called appropriately enough dancing

in the street Most of

these people are young Most of them come

from middle-class homes on the average.

They are well educated or could be if

they wanted to But they do not want

that nor much else in our civilization except

on their own terms In many ways their

terms have the glitter and the attraction of

the bright and bold and noisy But it

appears to be style without content They

object to the ills which beset society war

social hatreds money-grubbing spiritual waste But their

remedy is to withdraw into private satisfactions When

one thinks of the problems of our day

which cry for attack and imagination and youthful

energy This seems like the greatest waste of

all The movement appears to be growing use

of drugs appears to be spreading There is

the real danger that more and more young

people may follow the call to turn on

tune in drop are

the hippies They make you uncomfortable because there

is obviously something wrong with the world they

never made if it leads them to these

grotesqueries But granting the faults of society you

can say three things about them they at

their best are trying for a kind of

group sainthood and Saints running in groups are

likely to be ludicrous They depend on hallucination

for their philosophy.

This is not a new idea and it

has never worked and Finally they offer a

spurious attraction of the young a corruption of

the idea of innocence Nothing in the world

is as appealing as real innocence, but it

is by definition a quality of childhood People

who can grow beards and make love are

supposed to move from innocence to wisdom This

is Harry Reasoner The hippie

temptation was produced under the supervision and control

of CBS News