# Drugs and the spirit of the decade
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 20, 2010, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766 "2010-12-20T00:17:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Amazing_Hanna)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2010, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/1 "2010-12-20T00:17:03Z")
I figured out the following theory the other day. Amazingly, I wasn´t on any kind of drugs. Here goes:
The popular culture of any post-WWII decade, especially but by no means only its popular music, can be deducted from the type of illegal drugs considered hip by musicians, actors and other entertainers.
Not a complete list, but…
[ul]
[li]The fifties and early sixties: Booze.[/li][li]The sixties: LSD.[/li][li]The seventies: pot.[/li][li]The eighties: Cocaine and steroids.[/li][li]The nineties: Ecstasy.[/li][li]The double-os: Facebook.[/li][/ul]
(One of the above is a joke.)
True, or is my theory the only thing on drugs here?
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### Author:  [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/2 "2010-12-20T19:07:27Z")
Seventies = cocaine.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/3 "2010-12-20T19:08:44Z")
> [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](#):
>
> [ul]
> [li]The fifties and early sixties: Booze.[/li][li]The sixties: LSD.[/li][li]The seventies: pot.[/li][li]The eighties: Cocaine and steroids.[/li][li]The nineties: Ecstasy.[/li][li]The double-os: Facebook.[/li][/ul]
>
> (One of the above is a joke.)
Yup – booze was legal.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/4 "2010-12-20T19:13:57Z")
I think that pot has also been the drug of the 2000s. It has gained unprecedented acceptance among all types of people.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/5 "2010-12-20T19:21:00Z")
If you believe the health classes they taught in the sixties, folks were doing everything, but expecially pot. I don’t know whose idea the pot incense was. I think it was supposed to help us identify rooms that we shouldn’t enter.
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### Author:  [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/6 "2010-12-20T20:30:04Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#):
>
> I think that pot has also been the drug of the 2000s. It has gained unprecedented acceptance among all types of people.
Yeah. I know “Facebook” is a joke, but I’m telling you that 20% of young people I deal with at work (as a cashier) smell like weed. And that’s only the ones that actively smell like weed - how many of the other 80% are JUST ABOUT to smoke up, or only smoke once in a while?
The drug of the 00s is pot.
ETA : Did I use the phrase “young people?” I’m just going to go jump off a bridge.
Joe
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### Author:  [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Amazing_Hanna)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/7 "2010-12-20T20:40:34Z")
I guess the 00s has done wonders for educating the younger generation about illegal drugs.
I mean, just search Youtube for “how to grow pot”.
Seriously, there hasn´t been any new drug in the 00s that has really affected popular culture the way some other drugs did in the past, has there? Unless you count all the Facebook and MySpace sensations.
Something that keeps millions of people up at night clicking an update button has to be a drug by some definition. Like those monkeys who got electrodes implanted in the pleasure centers of their brains. They wouldn´t stop pressing the button until they passed out.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/8 "2010-12-20T21:11:35Z")
> [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](#):
>
> Not a complete list, but…
>
> [ul]
> [li]The fifties and early sixties: Booze.[/li][li]The sixties: LSD.[/li][li]The seventies: pot.[/li][li]The eighties: Cocaine and steroids.[/li][li]The nineties: Ecstasy.[/li][li]The double-os: Facebook.[/li][/ul]
>
> (One of the above is a joke.)
I think you must be getting your idea of the '50s and early '60s from _The Dick Van Dycke Show_. 😃
Heroin, amphetamine, benzedrine, and cocaine were pretty big back then.
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### Author:  [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Amazing_Hanna)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/9 "2010-12-21T00:08:12Z")
I got my data (such as it is) from Mad Men, mostly. Although I think there´s one episode where Don Draper becomes Don Doper, and promptly gets robbed by two of his fine dope fiend frienads.
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### Author:  [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2010, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/10 "2010-12-21T01:07:36Z")
2000’s: prescription drugs, especially opiates and painkillers. Along with pot, which has never been out of style.
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### Author:  [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/11 "2010-12-21T01:14:37Z")
I think the 80’s were a huge time for cocaine in general and then specifically crack cocaine—Before that, I think it was fairly uncommon for the masses, being a lot more expensive and probably harder to come by back then.
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### Author:  [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/12 "2010-12-21T01:18:29Z")
1990s and to now, antidepressants
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### Author:  [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2010, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drugs-and-the-spirit-of-the-decade/564766/13 "2010-12-21T01:54:40Z")
Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Gene Krupa were smoking dope long before the seventies.