10zenmonkeys.com — An amazing timeline documents Paul McCartney's first use of each illegal drug, including benzedrine in the early 60s, marijuana with Bob Dylan, LSD, cocaine, mescaline, and hashish. It also documents drug busts for hashish, pot-growing, and possession (and pleas for decriminalization), with stories about David Bowie and Mick Jagger, and lyrics.
Jan 4, 2007 View in Crawl 4
slinkJan 5, 2007
I think Help! is the first Beatles song about drugs, the lyrics could be interpreted that way.
artgonJan 5, 2007
There's nothing wrong with marijuana. It's the 'safest' recreational drug you could use (safer than alcohol and tobacco) and this has been shown in various studies. If you like their music (or any music from the 60s and 70s for that matter) then it's pretty hypocritical to bash them for drug use.
billdoorJan 5, 2007
Get over yourself. Queen Victoria & Sir Winston Churchill both used marijuana.
oskiteJan 5, 2007
@TheWormYou mean the album cover that has a picture of Aleister Crowley on it? What a creepy guy.[edit] Dammit, I didn't hit the reply button. I've never done that before.
shaun944Jan 6, 2007
@DonRobertowell, I can't vouch for crack/cocaine, but I have a prescription for oxycodone, which is pretty close to heroin, I take a pill as needed for pain as I recover from surgery. And there are stronger meds or variants out there, which people who suffer debilitating diseases or horrific injuries may need to be able to live even relatively pain free. So yes there are responsible uses for some very heavy drugs, they just are not recreational uses.
mutatronJan 6, 2007
It may be that some people are able to mess up their lives with marijuana, but in my experience that would take a lot of effort. Back when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, I smoked a lot of pot and worked at menial jobs. But when I finally got that I wanted to get a degree in physics, I quit pot and finished up my degree going to school full time and year round. Nowadays I only smoke pot occasionally when I'm with certain friends, and only take a couple of hits off a pipe just to get buzzed.
hicamelJan 6, 2007
Perhaps you mean Hamburg gave birth to the Beatles, not The Beatles gave birth to Hamburg.
pahtymahtyJan 11, 2007
But you're all missing the most blatant reference from "Fool on the Hill" where Paul sings: So I went down to Brownsville, bought a bag and a spike, a long time ago, I was just a little tyke.
Closed AccountSep 18, 2008
Sir McCartney wouldn't agree.
justadudeApr 23, 2009
If anyone would have admitted that the song was about LSD, it was John Lennon - the man who sang about his heroin withdrawal in the song "Cold Turkey." He made himself kind of an open book in later years. He always maintained it wasn't about acid. So I dunno.