I want a new drug

Well, it's almost over. My class at TMCC called “Welcome to Wonderland—The Golden Age of Psychedelia '65-'67,” which wraps up on Wednesday the 18th. This is the second time I've conducted this nostalgic bus ride back to a time that was just a little more remarkable than most, and it leaves me with some unanswered questions.

In the class, we re-live the lysergically enhanced music of that rich era (Beach Boys, Stones, Beatles, Dylan, Pink Floyd, etc.) that's now 50 years old. Fifty freakin' years!

Question 1: Will classes of 2065 do the same with the music of 2015? LSD was discovered 72 years ago, in 1943. As far as I know, it remains the most powerful drug known to man, where a dose of 200 millionths of a gram can bring about a state of ecstatic astonishment. Or a terrifying discorporation. Or something completely elsewhere. 200 millionths!

Question 2: Why haven't we discovered or manufactured anything superior to acid since the '60s? Proponents of Ecstasy might say we have, and they have a point. Certainly, X is the one drug since LSD that's made any kind of impact at all, but it's undoubtedly milder than acid, which makes it the better party psychedelic, leading to enraptured states of dancing which occasionally burn people up.

But outside of X, what else has been happening, when it comes to dazzling new drugs that would be a step beyond LSD? Not a whole lot, at least on the psychedelic front (although modern shamans with their ayahuasca brew are beginning to get noticed). The crank mess is a new problem, yes, but not a new drug. In fact, one could make the case that the greatest and most significant new drug of pleasure in the last 20 years isn't a psychedelic at all, but a hydraulic booster. As in the Big V, baby, that oh, so nasty blue pill.

No wonder we're now a nation of sex maniacs. People don't want to achieve higher states of consciousness with their dope, they just wanna break the damned bed with a pounding priapic maypole of Schlong. As Prince once sang, it's a sign of the times.

Question 3: Are we ever gonna find some nice, socially acceptable function for acid? Imagine this. It's 2054, and you're 88 years old, and you've got some kind of toxic bug, and you're gonna die pretty soon, and you're feeling rather bummed about your inevitable demise. So you tell your doctor, and he writes a prescription for 100 micrograms of LSD, and you go to the pharmacy and get it, and you have a wonderful trip that re-arranges your mind a little, and when you get done, you feel a lot better about heading off into the Void and the doc says, “Yeah, I thought that might help.”

Question 4: Are we ever gonna figure out the true velocity of the speed of thought?